AI is changing everything: Are you ready? 

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Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

What a thrilling week hosting partner leaders at Ultimate Partner LIVE in Reston, VA at the Carahsoft Training Center. Even if you couldn’t be with us in person at the groundbreaking event, you can listen to the most profound sessions.

In this exclusive interview, Erwin Visser, a key leader at Microsoft, discusses the company’s major organizational restructuring into Enterprise and SMEC (Small, Medium, and Corporate) divisions, and their massive, channel-led $600 billion bet on partner-led growth, with a core focus on AI and security.

Visser outlines the “Frontier Firm” mindset—a commitment to being AI-first across customer experience, employee productivity (with Copilot saving users an estimated 34% of their time on boring tasks), business processes, and product innovation.

He details Microsoft’s enormous investment in partner enablement, a new dedicated partner sales organization, and the urgent challenges of data compliance and software sprawl in the new age of AI agents. He concludes by sharing the three non-negotiable traits of a great partner, providing crucial guidance for anyone looking to navigate the tectonic shifts of the current business world.

Through our events and community, you have access to exclusive content, workshops, and strategies that help you achieve more and stay ahead of what’s next.

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Thanks for being on this journey with us.

Key Takeaways

The three non-negotiable traits of a great partner are integrity in business, leveraging Microsoft’s investments, and possessing proven technical/sales ability to deliver solutions for customers..

Microsoft has restructured into two core divisions: Enterprise and SMEC (Small, Medium, and Corporate), with SMEC representing an estimated $600 billion market opportunity.

The company has made its largest ever investment in partner training, financial incentives, and programs for the SMEC segment, viewing it as a major channel-led bet.

A “Frontier Firm” must adopt an AI-first mindset, focusing on transforming customer experience, employee experience, business processes, and innovation.

Early adoption of Copilot for employee experience is the fastest win, with one belief suggesting it saves employees 34% of their time on boring tasks.

Microsoft has created a new Partner Sales Organization and an “outbound share” metric to ensure its sellers actively share opportunities and co-sell with partners in the SMEC space.

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Ultimate Partner is the independent community for technology leaders navigating the tectonic shifts in cloud, AI, marketplaces, and co-selling. Through live events, UPX membership, advisory, and the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® podcast, we help organizations align with hyperscalers, accelerate growth, and achieve their greatest results through successful partnering.

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Transcript::

Transcript

[00:00:00 ] Erwin Visser: I, I believe that when, uh, people start adopting copilot, they save 34% of their time. Yeah. Have, uh, and it’s, it’s the, and it’s the 34% that you don’t wanna do often.

[00:00:15 ] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering.

[00:00:25 ] Vince Menzione: We just came off Ultimate partner live at Carahsoft Training Center in Reston, Virginia. Over two days, we gathered top leaders to tackle the real shifts shaping our industry. If you weren’t in the room, this episode brings you right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in. Uh, I also wanna, I wanna invite another friend up on stage here.

[00:00:49 ] Vince Menzione: Uh, he’s been at many of our events. He’s been incredibly supportive of our ultimate partner. And, uh, as many of you know, uh, Microsoft has been a sponsor, has been, uh, may have been the title sponsor for this event and for many of our other events, uh, over the last few years. Uh, incredible support from that organization as well and what we do.

[00:01:09 ] Vince Menzione: And, uh, when I picked up the phone and I said, Irwin, I know you got a really busy calendar this fall, but we really need to hear from you. And one of the things I love about doing these is that we’re gonna have a very intimate conversation. Around what’s going on at Microsoft. And I hear this, by the way, I hear this from a lot of you, like, eh, we’re figuring out our strategy.

[00:01:29 ] Vince Menzione: We got it with company B, but we don’t have it with company A or A and B. And so, uh, we’re gonna have a really great conversation today about Microsoft, about the tectonic shifts that have been impacting. The, the world and how Microsoft sees the world. So with further ado, Erwin Ser, my incredible friend, also from Florida, by the way,

[00:01:53 ] Erwin Visser: first of all, Vince, uh, uh, it’s great to have you, uh, on stage after you.

[00:01:58 ] Erwin Visser: Thank you, uh, after your recovery, I think, uh, thank you. A lot of people were shocked seeing what happened to you, and it’s awesome to be here. And the pictures of your daughter. Uh, sweating. So, um, no, very happy that, uh, we have, uh, this event with, uh, with all our friends here. And, uh, thank you. I’ve had a

[00:02:15 ] Vince Menzione: lot of reasons to continue going on.

[00:02:17 ] Vince Menzione: Yes. Uh, including, uh, I’ll just share this for a second. ’cause I, I haven’t shared this on stage with many people, but um, as they were driving me in the ambulance, I yelled out to the guy, I, I don’t remember very much, but I remember yelling out, said, I’ll be okay, honey. I’ll be all right. And then when they got me to the hospital, my wife called my daughter who was getting married in eight weeks from that day.

[00:02:37 ] Vince Menzione: And I, I’m yelling out in the background, Hey honey, I’m gonna be able to walk you down the aisle now, meanwhile, my foot was, was, was broken in two places and I was in a cast and I went from a wheelchair to Walker to crutches. Uh, but I got, I was able to get up and I was able to get through physical therapy and, and do that within a fairly short period of time.

[00:02:58 ] Vince Menzione: So, yeah. Yeah. Amazing grit.

[00:02:59 ] Erwin Visser: Thank

[00:02:59 ] Vince Menzione: you. Amazing grit. Thank you. Thank you. And, uh, you’ve had some things as well, so we, we share ailments kind of getting all Yeah. Yeah. This is

[00:03:07 ] Erwin Visser: probably the real reason we we’re doing this shit thing. Correct. You’ve had multiple hip

[00:03:10 ] Vince Menzione: replacements as well. Exactly. And now he’s climbing mountains again.

[00:03:13 ] Vince Menzione: It’s crazy. Oh, yeah. I, uh, I wanna stay

[00:03:16 ] Erwin Visser: busy as long as I can. Yes.

[00:03:17 ] Vince Menzione: And for those who don’t know, uh, Irwin is. Has one of the distinctions that very few people in our world have been. You climbed a very important mountain at one point, not a couple years ago. Yeah. Maybe just share that for a second. We started,

[00:03:31 ] Erwin Visser: yeah, I was, uh, yeah, I was able to, uh, climb Everest, uh, two, uh, two years ago.

[00:03:34 ] Erwin Visser: Yeah. Uh, some of it, yeah. It’s, uh, incredible. It’s, uh, uh. It’s hard always to describe Everest because it’s, it’s almost every superlative you can use. It’s like amazing. It’s traumatic. Uh, it’s hard. Uh, the hardest thing I ever did. And so any, any excess, it’s kind of what, uh, what Everest was. Well, you talk about it like it’s these Oh yeah.

[00:03:56 ] Erwin Visser: I was over, over at Everest.

[00:03:57 ] Vince Menzione: Last week.

[00:03:59 ] Erwin Visser: Yeah. No, this, uh, it takes some preparation and, uh, yeah. You, you do learn, uh, to know your own boundaries and your thresholds when you do something like that. Yeah. And, and, uh, yeah. I know we, we have so many topics to, uh, to go through, but one of the reasons for me. To try to climb Everest.

[00:04:18 ] Erwin Vi