Reorg for Dummies: Q&A with Microsoft’s Alyssa Fitzpatrick

Written by Lynn Haber
July 12, 2017

Both Microsoft and their partners recognized the need for a better way to do business together, but change is never easy.

… technical resources that will allow us to have a conversation with our partners that extends all the way through the last mile to the customer. That’s an area that we haven’t really been able to support because we didn’t have the resources in the space. This is something that we left to our partners in the past and now we’re helping them go there.

So, we’re going to go deeper with our enterprise customers, but also deeper with our partners in helping them get to that final customer solution.

CP: That’s a ton of partners you’re talking about and a lot of resources. Where are those resources coming from? Is this where distributors come into play?

AF: Yes, that’s our scale motion. When we’re talking about 64,000 partners worldwide transacting, we want to manage all of them. We manage them through our two-tier partners and we’re working to develop their channel. That is the only way we can scale, so we’re very reliant on it. And that’s why we’re infusing as much as we can for their success and our success down the road – and we’re giving the customer a better experience.

CP: So, where is Microsoft in this process of helping distributors get up to speed?

AF: We have worked with them to help them understand the consumption model, how to build out their Azure marketplaces and how to load their Azure marketplaces with the types of solutions that their customers are demanding, worldwide.

One of the greatest benefits of the distributor channel and their ecosystem is that partner-to-partner engagement; we’re going to help stimulate that by bringing additional engagement with our ISV team.

CP: There’s so much more to talk about, but how about we wrap this up for now? What else would you like to say to partners?

AF: [This model] gives partners a “yes” to every one of their questions. “Can I sell to this customer?” “Yes.” “Can I sell this solution?” “Yes.” “Am I going to get compensated the way that your field is compensated?” “Yes.”

To reduce conflict in the market, partners should go to their channel managers; that’s where we’ll understand how we’re going to engage with the customers.

So, it gives our partners many avenues to go down and a single point of contact from which to start.