152 - Twenty-One-Minute Masterclass on Achieving Your Greatest Results with Microsoft

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A Twenty-One Minute Primer from a Top Microsoft Partner Leader

This special condensed episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering® highlights some of the best nuggets from my interview with Microsoft’s ISV Ecosystem leader driving success with ISVs at scale, Alvaro Celis. In this episode, Alvaro leads us through a twenty-one-minute Masterclass on achieving your greatest results with Microsoft.

About Alvaro

Alvaro Celis is Microsoft’s Vice President for Global ISV – Commercial Solutions and Breadth. Alvaro and his team lead the ISV strategy for Microsoft’s Commercial Solution Areas, and the global relationships with the most iconic ISVs in each of these markets. Creating a holistic approach and engagement with the ISV ecosystem that enables deep transformational partnership at scale.

What You’ll Learn

(3:21) Microsoft’s ISV Mission: ISV Strategy for Microsoft, Global ISV Management, ISV Scale Business

(5:13) How is Microsoft’s Partner Approach different than Google & AWS

(7:30) What makes a great Partner?

(11:45) The Key Reasons for Partner-2-Partner – Value for Customer, Scale, and Agility.

(15:45) The Kryptonite of Partnering – winners learn from their setbacks.

(17:45) How to optimize for success?: Clarity of purpose, invest in digital and provide continuous feedback.

I was so excited to welcome Alvaro as he brings this rich experience to a conversation on how to engage with Microsoft and what makes a great partner during this decade of the ecosystem. I hope you enjoy and learn from this amazing business leader as much as I enjoyed welcoming him to Ultimate Guide to Partnering®.

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Find Alvaro Celis on LinkedIn.
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Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Typos

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

partners, customer, Microsoft, organizations, ISV, companies, partnership, partnering, question, capabilities, elements, industry, ultimate guide, ecosystem, platform, agility, scale, business

SPEAKERS

Vince Menzione 01:05

Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering where technology leaders come to optimize results through successful partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and my mission is to help leaders like you unlock the leadership principles and learnings of the best in the business. To get partnerships right. Optimize for success and deliver your greatest results. Applying mindset, just cause and agility to achieve your greatest results working with the tech giant. My next guest or ultimate guide to partnering is a leader who’s driving great success with SAS software companies and independent software vendors in this community. Alvarado CLS is Microsoft’s Vice President of Global ISV solutions for the worldwide global partner solutions organization, an organization that supports some of Microsoft’s largest partners that are globally managed. But more importantly, Alberto is looking after how Microsoft can better scale with SAS software companies and independent software vendors across this vast ecosystem. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed welcoming Alberto see less. Before we dive into the interview, I’m happy to announce that partner tap has become a founding sponsor of ultimate guide to partnering partner tap is the only partner ecosystem platform designed for the enterprise. Their technology makes it easy to align channel teams with automated account mapping, letting you control what data you share while building a partner revenue engine. Alvarado welcome to the podcast.

Alvaro Celis 02:51

Thank you so much for being such a it’s been fantastic. As I told you, I have the utmost appreciation for what you’re doing for us and for the industry. And it’s fantastic to have this opportunity to have this conversation. So let’s get going. I’m looking forward to

Vince Menzione 03:04

it. All right, let’s go. I wanted to dive in today on how we and partners can more effectively work together. But for our listeners and partners that might not know the function and mission of your role in organization. I thought maybe you’d spend a few moments here with us.

Alvaro Celis 03:20

Our theme those three superpowers three things I would do for Microsoft that number one is we partner across engineering sales marketing, to ensure that we have clarity on what is our ISV? Why should we overlap ISV strategy by solution area, and how the ISV capabilities will enhance and strengthen that long range planning that we have. Once we have that strategy landed, we select our segmentation of partners who should we be managing globally, regionally locally through our digital channels and all that fun stuff. The second part is for those partners were given the context, given the plans, given their capabilities, our needs, and the Win Win opportunity. We decide to engage at a global level and my team has a distinct pleasure and honor to engage with them directly. So we also manage this set of global ISPs. Number three, part of my team is also working on our scale business, how we do that how we’ll develop that capability to manage the 1000s or 10s of 1000s of ISVs, that when I worked with Microsoft through different engagement models across the globe, those three things are what we do for a living.

Vince Menzione 04:37

I’m really excited to hear what you say about the scale business. And I’ve gotten to spend some time with other leaders on this because I do think there are 180,000, SAS software companies out there and you can’t obviously manage all of those. How do you create a very effective model? Tell bring more of those organizations on board

Alvaro Celis 04:57

is one of the true privileges that you have When you work in an ecosystem, how do you think at that level of scale, so you can serve partners of all sizes industries, and countries is a fascinating challenge. But it’s our rightful work, it will help progress the society and our thing or the ecosystem.

Vince Menzione 05:13

So I get to work with organizations that work across all three of the hyperscalers, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. And some of these organizations don’t necessarily know. And I think for all of our listeners, we’d like to know how Microsoft’s approach differs from the other hyper scalars. With regards to supporting partners on the platform

Alvaro Celis 05:35

we stand for is an end-to-end partnership, we want to be sure that we look at a holistic and durable way to engage with our partners and be sure that we can make them very successful in the service of the customers that we work together with for. So think about three big motions, how do we build the products? How do we help them realize the magic that they want to play out there in the market? How do we go to market together? And how do we sell and transact well, and we put all those three elements in our plans? We have the teams on the engineering side on the marketing side, and also the front of the customers, both enterprise and mid smaller, medium-sized, depending on the channel that Cosell with our partners to ensure that we can drive that level of differentiation, the feedback that we have got from the partners, the ISPs that we work with is that holistic approach, the comprehensive approach from the deal to sell on creating that virtuous cycle to make the differentiation and the value sustainable over time has set us apart and has earned us the preference and we’re honored for that.

Vince Menzione 06:39

I think a lot of organizations struggle to understand how Microsoft operates. Could you help us there? Yeah, the guiding

Alvaro Celis 06:44

principle for us is, that we got to be sure that we partner with our ISV. So with our partners the way that they need us to be when we look into what is the level of maturity of the partnership, what are the offerings, what are the target markets, what is the partner strategy, and how that corresponds with the Microsoft strategy, in order to work together towards customer impact value and a win-win for both companies. We just want to have the right engagement model depending on the partner’s needs, and the opportunity that we have together. And that’s the way we think about things.

Vince Menzione 07:19

So we’ve had so many amazing guests come to this platform, Microsoft leaders, and this podcast is focused on bartering, its ultimate guide to bartering. So I need to ask, can you tell our listeners that you believe Alvarado makes a great partner?

Alvaro Celis 07:34

For me, our parents are our best teachers, because they spend so much time in front of the customer, in the world, they don’t have the resources and the capabilities that a company like Microsoft will have. So they keep you grounded on what the customer is saying what the reality is looking at what was going on in the market, and the things that really impact and affect them. And I always have learned a ton. And my work partner has allowed me to be smarter about the business and more accurate or not, how can I help? And how can we make a difference? So parents that teach that share the provider themes that are that’s a great component of what I believe that the Punisher needs to base on

Vince Menzione 08:10

every ensuring that they give you the feedback, is there anything special you do there?

Alvaro Celis 08:15

But I think that you need to have a genuine interest. And you need to put your ego aside. And listen, you need to be an active listener, I’ve been truly curious, and genuinely interested to understand what is important for my partners, and what has been experienced in front of customers. And I think that more you show that genuine approach. And the more you show that you’re gonna do something about it, you close a feedback loop with them. And they see that this feedback and these conversations are really making a difference, the more they will be inspired and confident to provide you with the gift of that feeling. Like you need to earn that trust, right. And trust is consistent over time. You cannot earn that in one meeting, you need to work on it, and be sure that you keep working on it, it will never be perfect. But I think that you can earn that when you have high integrity, and high consistency in the way you behave. I also have observed that companies that have a clarity of mission and purpose are incredibly great patterns. My favorite question to founders and CEOs is what I call the fundamental question, which is if your company ceases to exist tomorrow, you close shop, who’s going to meet you and why? And that question is such a rich platform for an incredible good conversation on the right of the company to exist, what differentiation that we have for the customer? Why are we unique, who will who is really our competition, etc, etc. So that clarity of mission and purpose I have found is extremely useful. And a Northstar in how do you build the partnerships? The next element is culture is what is the culture of the company? Are you willing to build a culture of partnership and building this relationship that takes time and energy and you need to be purposeful? Of course, we have joint interests that is benefit the customer. It has to be a win-win. There might be elements in the partnership where you will need to give some more based on what you get, and you know, others will be the country buddies, are we better together? Can we get to a question where one plus one equals three or four versus separate? Right? Can we get to that level? Can we find that formula together, partnerships are co-created. They are not they cannot be created unilaterally. And in that culture of partnership, I think it’s also super important to observe the ability of the company to learn, unlearn, and relearn because the only cost of in this industry is changing. So having durability, so we can iterate fast and find our path forward. When you combine those elements that I just mentioned, I always see great partnership when the things are present, or these elements are present in our relationships.

Vince Menzione 10:51

I talk about effective communications, many partners are not deliberate enough in their communications, just cause what’s our why, like, why are we here? Why are we locking arms in a shared relationship? How do we get and then the mindset, I talked about growth mindset, I love the work that Satya has done on growth mindset within Microsoft. But partners need to come to the table with the right mindset. I think you use the term partner mindset in the discussion. And then you loop it around with what I refer to as agility, which is we have to recognize that things change, we need to pivot when we need to together, and we might need to adjust the plan. But we understand that intuitively, we need to do that together. Absolutely.

Alvaro Celis 11:32

I think that we’re on the same wavelength. And then we all have our way to tell the story. But the principles are there. And I love the fact that we can share that with the audience. Because I think that the more we have a shared understanding of these elements, the more effective we can be together.

Vince Menzione 11:45

One of the topics, always here at Microsoft, and we talk a lot of partners about is the partner-to-partner play in the ISV community, of course, providing software that requires in many cases, either a partner to sell it or to implement it, or there’s some other type of partner engagement here. And I’ve worked with a lot of these organizations on PTP. And I know it’s so important to ultimate success working with Microsoft, what do you believe is true here? Why is it important? And what is your organization do to enforce it?

Alvaro Celis 12:15

I think that’s a great question. Look, I know p2p has been like they need a van for the parallel ecosystem, when you get your parents to work together, three things that you need to consider on whether you want to be more bearish because again, as we discussed, you need to have energy, you need to have the right culture, you need to be intentional. And you need to be strategic on how you build those, I think that the three elements are how do you create more value for the customer? How do you derive scale for your business? Or how do you gain agility or time to value depending on the case. So when you think about value, customers are moving away from problems for a long time, it’s all about solutions. And within that information is about the outcome is every time that transformation gets accelerated is harder and harder for one company to be able to be the one-stop shop to do everything and have every capability to solve that customer problem to generate that outcome. So then you need to make an effective choice. Do you build more capabilities? Do you make you grow your portfolio? Have you changed company? Or Yes, go partner with people that can be worthless on that element that you need to complement your solution, your cloud service, your superpower, whatever that is. And by working with them in a flexible way, are you doing better by the customer? And I think that’s a very important question. But that generation of value in front of the customer, by aligning yourself with our partners is a very important consideration. And it’s a true generation of value. Then the second element is when you look at the growth planning, or our partners are like I want to go to different geography, I want to go to a different industry. When I move on, I want to expand that when I want to increase my time, one way for you to do that if you need to have that relationship with customers. And you need to have that engagement is actually working with other partners that may have that relationship or in those markets. And you’re gonna get in either industries or geographies. And that way, your time to present your time to impact is actually more agile. So it helps you with your skill. And it helps you with your speed and your agility too. So you need to consider these three elements on that. That adding and going back to my point of clarity of purpose that was why your company exists and who’s gonna mission why we are not there. You need to be sure that you’re true to your mission true to who you are. And then surround yourself with other companies that complement that mission. Always in service of the customer. I believe the companies that are customer-obsessed on how to generate value are the ones that will find very quickly the right level of other partnerships to create

Vince Menzione 14:44

something that was really fundamental to me was around the customer and the customer is the North Star. And we’ve been talking about this how the evolution of procurement has changed. We used to talk to the CIO we used to talk to the IT shop now the customer decisions are being made in the line of business and the five seats at the table, the customer is relying on its most trusted vendors to help them make those decisions and having those relationships and whether they be influenced partners, systems integrators, reseller partners, is just so critical to success. Would you agree? Absolutely.

Alvaro Celis 15:19

And is that in all industries and all customer sizes, right, there’s not an only enterprise for so when you go to a smaller medium is even more predominant. But the fact that you’re gonna talk to the business owner and talk about outcomes, it changes the game, and it will force you to find the right complements to ensure that you can have the right answer and a genuine answer. So you can have a customer for a long time, hopefully for life.

Vince Menzione 15:42

Someone asked the opposite of the question I asked you earlier. So we talked about partnership and how critical and fundamental it is. And I’ve seen it from both sides. I’ve seen also when organizations have failed partnering, what would you say, for organizations failing? What have you seen? What has been the kryptonite? You’ve seen?

Alvaro Celis 16:00

That’s a great question. And I don’t I don’t know being said, I will tell you this. One thing, when I have observed is the winners are the companies that learn from those setbacks and find a way to recover and come back stronger. I think we all have for history, enterprises, and diverse initiatives, programs, and pilot offerings that have won have not gone the way we want it. And that is okay, with this business, you need to take some race you need to go, the question is where are you gonna do about if you let them if you go repeat that, then it’s ego. And normally, that’s really a failure. If you use it as a platform for learning, it’s a very different energy. I also have found companies that have the resiliency to absorb that setback but are obsessed with the customer and without clarity of mission will find their way to curiosity and fast iteration to really find the right path forward. So it’s not really a failure is a setback, right? Or is a way not to do it. But those elements of learning resiliency, curiosity, of fast iteration, really allow a partner to come back from any setback that you may have and come at the end of the process stronger and better.

Vince Menzione 17:14

You brought up resiliency, and I’ve seen organizations actually change their partner model, change their business model. And then the organizations that struggle, I think what you mentioned I refer to as hubris organizations that get stuck and fall in love with their own model and aren’t willing to really be open to new ideas and really seeing or getting feedback that the model isn’t working.

Alvaro Celis 17:34

Absolutely. I think that trait is one trait that you can have several companies that don’t do well.

Vince Menzione 17:39

However, you had been an amazing guest. I just want to thank you. I’m so excited to have you come here today, do you have any closing comments or advice for our partners on how they can best optimize their success working with Microsoft and your organization,

Alvaro Celis 17:54

thank you for being on. As I mentioned at the beginning, thank you for the mission you’re in, to connect us to give us a platform to have these conversations, and the value exchanges where your audience is authentic is greatly appreciated for most in the industry or for your audience, as well. Keep doing what you’re doing. And we’ll be here supporting your cause. When I think about our partners, I will say that there are three things that I will invite them to keep working on clarity of purpose, mission, and culture is so important for your own company for your own direction. So please keep working on that. That is a Northstar that. Because we want to be centered on the customer and who you are in the marketplace or having that clarity help us be better partners with you. We didn’t talk much about this. But I also believe this is fundamental that we keep modernizing and utilizing over capabilities. When you look at the Deep Impact that technologies like the marketplaces are having in the world. How do we go around having even technology-assisted sales, even in the Manage space? How do you go and generate demand to digital channels, all that those capabilities have to get to a whole different new level as an industry for us to win and serve the customer better, and which has a completely different, deeper conversation? But my invitation for our parents will be to keep investing on that modernization and breaking new ground on the adoption of digital tools and processes. Last but not least, is please keep dishing sharing your feedback telling us what how can we do better. I believe that a continuous feedback loop is critical for us to have views on the input and get iterative, better in the way that we approach the partnership. Things keep changing. And we need to keep ensuring that we’re hopefully ahead of the curve on those changes. And everyone our partners realize their potential and you’re generating value for our customers. That’s how we win. So you’ve been

Vince Menzione 19:42

an amazing guest. And you touched on this whole automation marketplace. How we will scale is what I would say here. I’m inviting you back again. I want to have another discussion with you. We’re all seeing this evolution. This we’re calling the decade of the ecosystem. And I believe that we’re at a point now seminal point where things are really going to change and the way we partner and work together,

Alvaro Celis 20:04

I believe so being said again, thank you so much for the invitation. I’ll be more than happy to come back as many times as you think it can be of value. We are here to help empower. So thank you.