Microsoft’s new fiscal year will see increased investments in its partner ecosystem, according to Nick Parker, Corporate Vice President of Global Partner Solutions.
Speaking during a virtual session at Microsoft Inspire, the vendor’s annual partner conference, Parker (pictured above) told attendees that the company is focusing on making it easier for all partners to transact business with it.
“Over 95 per cent of our income revenue was influenced by our partners and it’s your success that drives our shared revenue and business growth, so we hold ourselves accountable for what we give you in terms of our unique value,” he stated.
“We’re prioritising investments that support new opportunities, increasing our incentives to motivate strong results and constantly making it easier for you to do business with us. To that end, our fiscal year 2022 will be another significant investment year for our partner team. In fact, we’re investing more in partners across the company than ever before”
Microsoft’s co-sell programme is now worth $22.1bn in contractual co-sale value since it was launched in 2018. The company will be “dialling up” its co-sell commitment and investing in more sellers and programmes to assist partners to scale their offers and develop their industry solutions.
Parker also called the decision to slash fees on its marketplace from 20 per cent to three per cent a “strong statement for how we’re investing in [our partner’s] success and growth”.
Rodney Clark (pictured right) made his Inspire debut as Microsoft’s new Channel Chief during the presentation. He laid out his three priorities for how Microsoft can help its channel: strengthening its digital capability, deepening partners’ technical ability, and streamlining engagement to drive profitability.
“My push…is not only to be the most populous partner programme by the numbers but to provide the most effective digital path in the industry; it’s got to be easy and it has to allow you to grow and accelerate your business,” he declared.
“Here’s what we’re implementing to make this the most effective digital engine in the ecosystem. We’re investing right now to rebuild deal registration workflows, we’re realigning our engineering teams to bring partner and seller experiences closer together, and we’re applying zero trust and building automation technologies to validate your business relations, keeping fraud away from you and out of our ecosystem”
“The bottom line is we are committed to making digital engagement an easy and value added experience.”
