How IAMCP Germany Turns Collaboration into Growth and What Partners Can Gain at Illuminate EMEA
What if the biggest constraint on your Microsoft practice isn't a lack of opportunity, but trying to do too much yourself? And in a Microsoft ecosystem increasingly built around specialization, AI, and complex customer solutions, could knowing who to partner with become just as important as knowing what to sell? Today's guests believe it will, and he has some really impressive evidence to back it up. Welcome to IAMCP Profiles in Partnership, the podcast that showcases how Microsoft partners and IAMCP members boost their businesses by collaborating with other members and partners. I'm your cohost, Anthony Carrano, and in each episode, I talk with some of the most innovative and successful leaders in the Microsoft ecosystem to uncover the strategies, experiences, and best practices helping partners build stronger practices, create better customer solutions, and grow together.
Anthony Carrano:My guest today is Carlo Dannies, president of the IAMCP Germany chapter and CEO and cofounder of HAFN, a Microsoft cloud solutions partner focused on modern work, Azure infrastructure, security, and AI ready workplace standardization with optional managed cloud operations. Carlo brings an especially interesting perspective to our conversation because he's experiencing the transformation of the Microsoft ecosystem from two sides. First, as the CEO of a Microsoft partner navigating these changes himself, and also as the leader of one of IAMCP's largest and most active chapters. Today, we're going behind the scenes of IAMCP Germany to learn what's driving its growth, how the chapter has created stronger engagement between Microsoft and its partners, and why Carlo believes specialization and partner to partner collaboration are becoming essential to competing in today's Microsoft ecosystem. We'll also look ahead to Illuminate EMEA in Munich and discuss how Microsoft partners and leaders can use the event to learn, connect, find complementary partners, and prepare their businesses for what's coming next. Let's dive in.
Anthony Carrano:Well, Carlo, welcome to the podcast. We're really glad to have you today.
Carlo Dannies:Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
Anthony Carrano:Well, first of all, you know, for folks who don't know you, why don't you start off and share a little bit about yourself and your company?
Carlo Dannies:Of course. So again, thank you for having me. My name is Carlo Dannies. I'm from Hamburg, Germany. I'm the CEO of HAFN, the Gate to the Clouds.
Carlo Dannies:It's German based MSP. We are delivering standardized services and solutions for our customers, partners for M365 and cloud infrastructure workloads with the main goal to deliver managed services on that. And we do it with about 25 people all over Germany, and we're only doing Microsoft cloud services. So that's the main focus thing. So we have no things around it.
Carlo Dannies:So no hardware, no, let's say, network topics or something like that, just Microsoft Cloud, and it's a little bit around it with other maybe corresponding solutions, but that's all.
Anthony Carrano:And now and you've you've founded the company. Correct?
Carlo Dannies:Yeah. I founded the the company together with two colleagues six years ago, in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic.
Anthony Carrano:Oh, wow.
Carlo Dannies:And so I can say it was, especially in Germany, quite good to have the pandemic because in times before that, have to drive with the car to the customer, introduce yourself, convince them that you're a real person, that you're trustworthy and so on. And it helped a lot that we can do it just like we talk now through Teams and so on.
Anthony Carrano:And now how long have you been with IAMCP?
Carlo Dannies:From, I think, day one. So just now six years. Before I started my company, I've been COO of a system integrator. He based in Hamburg, mainly focusing on consulting services for Microsoft Azure. And there I experienced how it was to be managed partner, to work closely together, strategic with Microsoft, and I needed to find something where I have a comparable experience.
Carlo Dannies:And when I decided to become a member of IAMCP, they immediately asked me if I want to take part and join the board. A few of the guys knew me a little bit longer, and they said it could be interesting. And now since one and a half years, or one year and three months, I'm the the president of the the German organization of Microsoft of, yeah, of the Microsoft Channel Partner Organization, IAMCP.
Anthony Carrano:Nice. Nice. Well, that's how it's that's how it works. They they they slowly reel you in like that.
Carlo Dannies:I know. But I I always tell tell people when they ask me, Why do you invest so much time into IAMCP? Is that as a CEO of my own company, have to cope with the Microsoft topics. I have to deep dive into those things. And when I have to maybe host such webcasts or sessions with other colleagues from Microsoft, especially a few weeks ago, were the host of the German IAMCPs event with Microsoft, and I have to take I have to listen and think about these things those guys tell me.
Carlo Dannies:And so I learn about the Microsoft changes, about the things that happen on a Microsoft partner ecosystem, and so it's good for me, and I always say it's much more worth than try to watch all the other events, community events, register for some distribution webcasts or so. There's always something else which is more important, and you you don't make it to those sessions. And so if you have to cope with Microsoft, be active and work with them. And as an IAMCP board member, it's always necessary to stay up to date.
Anthony Carrano:Well, let's talk about, you know, the chapter there in Germany. For someone outside Germany who doesn't know, is not familiar with y'all, how would you describe IAMCP Germany and the community you've built, and what makes that chapter unique?
Carlo Dannies:When I joined IAMCP six years ago, we were, I think, about 170, maybe 200 partners, members, membership companies, so to say. And today, we are about, I think, four seventy members of the companies who are members of IAMCP. We are we have about 3,500 active people in our teams tenant where we interact with each other. And what we established over the past, especially, I think, three to four years, is that we change the way we work and speak and collaborate with Microsoft. And I remember the times when I before the pandemic, I flew over to Munich, where the German headquarter of Microsoft is, where all the sessions, meetings and so on were held.
Carlo Dannies:I flew over there once a week. And you go, you went there, you had this session, most frontal presentation, and you talked to a few guys you know and not know and got to know, and then you flew home. During the pandemic, spirit in Germany changed a little bit. The people started to open themselves because they learned they had to help each other and to collaborate in certain topics. And what we achieved is that we established communication with Microsoft, with Microsoft C level that is really felt that you are on the same eye to eye level, not that top down, but really cooperative and really open.
Carlo Dannies:And it's with Microsoft in Germany, it's not different than in other parts of the world. They have to reach their goals, but they learn that they need their partners to reach those goals. And especially with all the changes we experienced in the Microsoft Partner Ecosystem over the past few years, it was important. And I know it's still a little bit different to The US. I talked to you earlier and told you that I've just been in The US and I've been there over the past three to four years, I think three or four times.
Carlo Dannies:And I mean, I talked to MSPs there. I think it's still much more competitive, much more my customers, my employees, not that open minded, but we have in Germany the situation that we were stuck with digitization, with innovation and so on. And if you all think about Germans or German products or German companies, it's always Mercedes Benz, it's Porsche, it's VW, it's BASF, it's those big companies, much very reliable, very strong images, a strong brand image. But we forgot a little how to innovate in Germany. So there is from bureaucracy in public services to highly innovative topics there is still an issue.
Carlo Dannies:And though there is not enough workforce in the market to solve all the problem at the same time and so German IT service providers had to find or identify ideas to cooperate, to work together, to specialize on certain topics, to speed up those processes, to innovate, to deliver their services to their customers. And that helped a lot with our approach on IAMCP as we grew so much, so nearly tripled our size over the past years. And not only that, but also really grew the number of active people from all the companies who are members to take part in our offerings.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. I'd like you- because that that's fascinating. I knew the German chapter was a big chapter, but I didn't realize I mean, I think you said you went from, what, one seventy to four seventy. You have, like, 3,500 over 3,500 registered and active in Teams. You gotta you gotta you gotta spill the beans.
Anthony Carrano:You gotta share a little bit about how did you guys go about doing that over this this period of, you know, five years because that's that is impressive.
Carlo Dannies:It's funny. So the German partner ecosystem strongly connected, maybe also driven by some cool MVP events. MVPs, so these Microsoft MVPs who are a very strong community here in Germany, but a few other events grew together, and we created momentum. So, for example, after right still during the pandemic, we created something like a public viewing event for the Inspire, around the Inspire event in The US, but almost nobody went to The US. So when there was an old digital inspire event, so that was the thing, I think, in 2020 we held a public viewing event here in Hamburg in a football stadium.
Carlo Dannies:So it is, you call it soccer. In Germany, we say football, But you learn it a little bit through the summer. But it was nice. And we didn't expect it that much. And from one to another thing, from one moment to another, there are, I think, two fifty people appeared there.
Carlo Dannies:Were very interested in community events again. And from that, we do a good did a good marketing through especially through LinkedIn and always did a lot of video coverage and so on. And mouth to mouth propaganda to speak with Microsoft. Microsoft learned that there is a lot of potential with us and I just let me show it to you. I've just oh, it was 2022 when we've been at the football stadium and we became IAMCP Community Partner of the Year in that year due to our ideas and events which we hosted.
Carlo Dannies:And so the past four years, we had a lot of such events, so we repeated those public viewing events, I think, two more times. In the end, there were almost 400 people. And so we created a little bit of momentum and, yeah, used it and convinced those people to stay in the community. What's the most important thing, just last sentence about that, when I speak with new members, I always tell them it's not expensive to become a member, but the membership is not, how to say in English is not measured by the price it costs. It's how you participate with your organization.
Carlo Dannies:So IAMCP is no strong community when you don't take part in it. You don't get anything out if you don't participate in our formats, in our events, in our, yeah, things we do. And we that's maybe another strong thing. In our within our Teams community, we established a few very cool communication channels, like one channel where we shared from the first moment on search and find projects. So I've been one of the first ones who offered there something is that I just founded my company a few years ago, and then I said, I have two guys here on the bench.
Carlo Dannies:They are well qualified. They are motivated. Does anybody Does somebody have something to do for them? And though I found the first project and we grew through that, and I can give you a lot of examples. When you today put something in those channels for projects or for something else, you get, I think, up to five answers right about in three minutes.
Carlo Dannies:And that's one of the strongest things which convinced our members to stay and to participate. And I think the parties are also very good.
Anthony Carrano:Nice, nice, nice. That's great. That's fantastic. Well, you for sharing that. So let's kind of piggyback a little bit on that.
Anthony Carrano:What have you learned about turning like networking and community, right, into real business relationships?
Carlo Dannies:It was a long journey. As I said, I understand how other markets are MSPs, ISVs, system integrators in other markets work and think and collaborate with each other. For myself, I have to tell you, I have no real I'm not afraid of competition, but I also am very open minded, and I welcome every partner, every new company I meet on the market, and I'm not afraid of speaking or dealing with them. So I'm not that much competitive. I don't know if this is the right word, but I hope you understand what I mean.
Carlo Dannies:What we try to establish over the past few years is that we say we all have the same problems. We all have the same topics. And of course, we have individual customers, individual ways to solve their problems. But the things we have in common, we can share, we can talk about, and it's Microsoft, that's the frameworks Microsoft bring in, not the technical part because this is delivered through maybe distribution or something else, but the partner program, the certifications, the incentives and fundings and so on. And we developed, and that always depends on people, because we had very, very, very good people, very talented, very motivated, very gifted.
Carlo Dannies:They brought in so cool things. Like, as I just said, for example, this is the strongest business circle we have. We call it business circle. These are the events we do in our different topic areas. For example, incentives and fundings, do it on a monthly base, and they tell all the other community members about what's new in incentives and fundings, where can I get the most money out of and so on?
Carlo Dannies:And that's And those offerings were really strong. And so we developed cool services, which helped our members to develop in the whole how to work and how to position with Microsoft thing. And the other thing is that we I personally tried to establish IAMCP as a with a strong political in terms of Microsoft ecosystem, political opinion with an old view. And we are not I still say we are not a fanboy, fan girl organization. We all want to we work hard to earn our money for our employees, for our partners, for our customers with Microsoft, on the Microsoft platform, on the Microsoft marketplace ecosystem, call it what you want.
Carlo Dannies:And so therefore, we have to need to discuss with Microsoft what's good and what's not so good. And I think we always spoke out loud what was a problem, what was not so good, but also what was good, and demanded things which we needed to be successful within the market. And I think that established a really open and positive relationship with all the guys in the German or meanwhile in the European Microsoft organization and their especially our members learned that it's helpful to be an IAMCP member. You stay in contact, you find the right people on the Microsoft side when you need to talk to them, because they reduced all the direct management of partners massive in Germany. Don't know whether I think it's comparable in The States or in other parts of the world, I think today Microsoft manages about 120, thirty, fifty organizations and that includes all from the SAP through Adobe to a few very focused, very good MSPs or system integrators also, but it's only mainly multi area partners, so they're not only working in Germany, but also in other parts of Europe, especially in Europe.
Carlo Dannies:And so we offered them services they can find on the disti side or on Microsoft side. And so I think the whole package helped our partners, our customers to understand how the Microsoft ecosystem works and that they can do better business when you are within the community.
Anthony Carrano:Well, that's fantastic. You've mentioned business circles, and I'm glad glad you brought that up because I heard, you know, that you have business circles and also heard that you have what's called a young execs program.
Carlo Dannies:Yeah. Of course.
Anthony Carrano:So could you maybe elaborate a little bit more on both of those programs?
Carlo Dannies:Of course. So we have, I think, three parts of of events or three things or three kinds of events at IAMCP in Germany. We have the big the big events based on a yearly base. In September, we have the Rethink. It's an on-site partner event where we expect about 400 people here in Germany.
Carlo Dannies:We have something smaller in end of January. It's called the ReSHARP. Also, again, with Microsoft and so on, as an on-site event, we speak about what's important to finish successfully within the fiscal year. Next to those on-site events, we have all business circles. We have about, I think, 30 business circles.
Carlo Dannies:Every business circle just is a Teams community meeting virtually throughout Germany. And it's we have about 30 different topics like security, Azure infrastructure, modern work, Microsoft Teams Collaboration, whatever, but also public sector, let me say, nonprofit, and so on. So if you can define a clearly definable topic area in terms of technology, in terms of market or whatever, and you find the right people who are interested in, then we bring them together. And we established a life cycle management workflow around it that not every business circle stays forever, but it works really good. We have about, I think, 75.
Carlo Dannies:We call them Mittmacher, so in English, it's active people who are driving those business circles, and we are quite happy with that. And through those business circles, we have the opportunity to tackle all these different topics and areas, markets areas and so on. And we always have a close connection to the relevant people on the Microsoft side. So in terms of technology, in terms of special markets like public sector or so, we have a connection to Microsoft and bring on, not on a regular basis, so maybe twice a year, three times a year, to the guys from Microsoft. And these are meeting mainly every month, and we have the participation of five to 150 per profession.
Anthony Carrano:Wow.
Carlo Dannies:And we always there are always two or three people, as I said, Mitmacher, who are arranging those business circles. They're taking care of the topics they want to speak about, maybe invite a speaker or whatever, and it's quite successful. And the most successful business circle is, as I told you earlier, incentives for funding. So they are always so they gather, I think, about 150 people.
Carlo Dannies:That's not about the money, as I said.
Anthony Carrano:Oh, yeah.
Anthony Carrano:It's like I I would imagine that would be a pretty popular one.
Carlo Dannies:And we we already achieved that we brought those business circles, those most successful ones, to European level to so we we held them on a a EMEA level and try to replicate the information we get there in English and maybe bring them from the EMEA level back to other national organizations in Europe to to use those those topics to to speed up maybe the the the growth of the other chapters in in Europe. And to conclude with all the things we offer, and you ask about young professionals, we have a third kind of events. It's called regional talks where we offer in a special region like Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt. Maybe you heard about those towns. They bring together all IAMCP members, and they, maybe two or three times a year, they gather sometimes on a Christmas market or on a sunny day on a lake or especially on, most times, especially in the office of a partner, to speak about a certain topic, but also connect, speak with each other, try to identify how they can work together and those are the things.
Carlo Dannies:And we try to differentiate our offerings in topics for different groups of people, not only CEO any longer or technicians or whatever, be focused on young professionals. And we founded, I think, three or four years ago as a business circle, a business circle for young professionals where we, on a regular base, on a monthly base, bring those young professionals together. They're always about between thirty and fifty people in teams, and they speak about things which develop on the market end. Out of those business circle meetings, we develop on-site events. For example, next week, I go to Cologne.
Carlo Dannies:There, we are planning to have a business circle just for a business circle, on-site event with all these young professionals for special sales training. And that's a really, really cool thing, and it's a value for our members that they can bring in young, motivated people who want to learn about the Microsoft community, the Microsoft ecosystem, how to cope with Microsoft programs and so on. And that's the perfect place to learn about it and build up a network to learn and get to know people and with the same problems, with the same needs. And, yeah, they can interact when they have problems, and it builds a very resilient structure, a new network for the future of our community.
Anthony Carrano:That's fantastic. No, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing. Rudy, I know you've got some questions.
Rudy Rodriguez:Oh, absolutely. By the way, Carlo, I appreciate the enthusiasm and the innovativeness that the German chapter is really exhibiting. That's really exciting to see. It reminds me of things in the past, definitely.
Carlo Dannies:Thank you very much. And of course, you know, not all my colleagues are always happy with that because I have so much, so many ideas and so much energy they have to cope with it. So I'm happy to have them. That it's just really cool.
Rudy Rodriguez:I know it takes energy. Believe me, I know it takes energy to get all these things pulled out. But it also takes persuasiveness in that you convince people, Hey, we have to do things to remain foremost and forefront in partners' thoughts. So, you know, one of the things that I picked up from the conversation this morning is that there's a lot that IAMCP chapters across the world can benefit from this. So, but let's narrow it down to one thing.
Rudy Rodriguez:What is the one thing that the Germany chapter practices on a regular basis that other IAMCP chapters can benefit from?
Carlo Dannies:Just put it down in one thing. It's hard. That's the thing. Be self confident and try to speak open with Microsoft. I think that is the, I think the most important thing from which everything else derives.
Carlo Dannies:So through this fact that we established self confidence to speak open about which things are good, what doesn't work very well, end up not in a bad mood. So we can always say, Oh, that's crap and that's wrong and whatever. But we know Microsoft is such a huge and big organisation. All these guys we're talking to in Germany have no influence on that all, a lot just a small influence. And we try to explain what happens, and we try to find a level where to discuss ways to solve those things.
Carlo Dannies:And that's how we established a very good connection and especially not only to one, two, three people, persons over there, But to a complete, we established a relationship with the complete organization on the Microsoft, so especially the partner side, the partner management side of Microsoft Germany. And every new colleague on the Microsoft side will be introduced to the IAMCP and to this IAMCP idea and they bring in. And so that's really, really good. So we really appreciate it, but it's all through openness and to speak about the things which are good and we are not good on a clean and not bad way. So, I want to see, so just be open.
Rudy Rodriguez:I'm going to ask you a follow-up question to that, because you mentioned the open and honest communications with Microsoft Partner Management. Who is responsible from your board responsibilities? Who is responsible on your board for assuring that that business relationship with the Microsoft Partner Management team stays engaged and involved with the Microsoft teams?
Carlo Dannies:It's my job. So we made it the president's job in Germany to head the head of alliance management with Microsoft. And we try to establish communication on different levels. So I try to speak with the C level team, with the yeah, with the C level team from Microsoft Germany, but also establish a good working relationship with somebody who takes care of our needs on a day to day level. And we establish to find those people on the Microsoft side.
Carlo Dannies:So of course, it grew over time by the size IAMCP got in Germany, but it helped a lot. So and I'm actually, I visit the Microsoft office in Munich, I think, every six to eight weeks, And it's on the other side of Germany. So I I always take the train to have some time. It takes a five hour, six hour train ride when the German ban is on time, but it's okay. And food is always very good in Munich, so too. I'm motivated to go there.
Carlo Dannies:But, and we have to say, I didn't mention it earlier, we established our community office, I think, one and a half, two years ago. Community office is a group of people who are doing IAMCP, not to say full time, but they our employees. We have about four people now, ladies, not only doing a full not all doing none of them is doing a full time job, but these are resources who are helping us establish in this good relationship with Microsoft. And as I go over to Munich every two, let's say, every two months, we plan the day, meet different people, discuss the upcoming events, discuss upcoming topics or things which are top of mind on the side of Microsoft and try to identify ways to help them to solve their needs, their problems with our organization and try to tackle the topics which are quite interesting or important at the moment on our side.
Carlo Dannies:So, for example, over the past one and a half years, maybe you heard about it, there was some, well, how to say, Germans were not so sure if American cloud services are that safe still, and so there this topic, data sovereignty and so on, arise, and those were topics we had to tackle and discuss it and figure out what to do. For example, we have some from data, some from time to time, we organize so called exec meetings where we bring in the C level from partners with the C level of Microsoft to discuss such topics. So, and then we can find the right answers together because when we help and we do it together, not every partner of IAMCP has to find the right answers for their customers on their own, but they can use our curated and checked by lawyers and so on answers, and it helps a lot. So that's how we do the partner management. And so we are there on their side, and we have weekly or biweekly meeting with our operational go to guy on the Microsoft side.
Carlo Dannies:And it costs a lot of time. I think at the moment with my presidency at the moment, I think it takes at least one day a week. But it's okay. I love it. And I think it's also helpful for the visibility of my company, of course. But it's my kind of how to stay up to date with all the information I need from the Microsoft world, so that's good. But it's a presidential topic. That's the most important thing.
Rudy Rodriguez:Absolutely, absolutely. Well, you've been involved at IAMCP for six years plus now. What are some things that you have tried that didn't work, and what did you learn from it? Everything worked, right? Everything worked.
Carlo Dannies:No, no, no, no, of course not. It's always, you have to go two steps and then go one step back. From my perspective, those regional talks should be much more important, should be much more often bring those people in real life together, but that doesn't work at the moment, doesn't work out quite well. It works. They, but not only on the same thing.
Carlo Dannies:This is the thing what comes to my mind when I'm talking about what not worked out. We, another thing, we tried to set up an event to create a better cooperation between disties and partners. We set up, right, as a pre day to our IAMCP Rethink, we set up an event where we invited all the relevant distis in Germany and put them on the stage and said, Introduce yourself. Tell our members what makes you different to the others distis. It was completely, it was, I think they hated us for that, I think, for two years or so.
Carlo Dannies:And it took a lot discussion, a lot of explanation from me and from my colleagues to bring them back on board. So that was a thing. But I think today, they learned that we are a valuable platform for them. We established a good working sponsorship system with them that we are not only just looking for sponsors, for example, on an event base, but also for a complete year, which we packaged different services and communication services for that, that they get valuable things to contact and interact with our members. So I think that that was this thing was I think it was a fail from the beginning.
Carlo Dannies:But I think the most important thing is stay inspired and try out new things. It's okay that things doesn't work out well, not everything can work, but if you don't try it, you'll never know.
Rudy Rodriguez:So, I know being president of IAMCP could be a big job, but you just mentioned spending a day, a week communicating like that. How do you measure whether your chapter is being successful? Is it membership? Is it engagement? The number of partnerships that have been created? Are you tracking revenue opportunities or is it some other magic formula?
Carlo Dannies:The good thing is we are just the three of us at the moment, so we can clearly speak open. In Germany, we have Klaus Fander, the German Chief Financial Officer, the EMEA chief financial officer, the global chief financial officer. And if you have met him once, you know he measures everything. And especially everything has to be very reliable, and there has to be always a good outcome, and not only in an economic way, but also that what our members get out of the events and so on. So, in the end, we measure membership.
Carlo Dannies:We have no focus on making money out of it because we are a nonprofit organization, so to say, but we are a business organization. We want to achieve that our members can do more business, better business between each other, but we don't want to earn money from that. So, we try that we can finance our community office, that all the events are financed, and we try to grow in terms of members and so on. But we also know, as we now grew to four seventy, as I said, or maybe a slightly bigger number also. I think there are not 500 partners or more outside there we can still collect, because all the partners we have on our side right now are those companies who are working strategically with Microsoft.
Carlo Dannies:And all the other companies, okay, Microsoft tells you that there are 30,000 Microsoft partners in Germany. Yeah, but those are smaller MSPs where Microsoft is just one product and not a strategic product or hosting and housing partners or whatever. But I think we already collected in our community the main part of those partners who are interested in doing business with Microsoft. So for us, the most important thing is that we don't lose money with the things we are doing, that we do good things in terms of what do our members want us to do with the money and to, yeah, gather the organisations in Germany who are interested in working together with Microsoft. And when we do those things, when we keep those people in our community, then we are successful.
Rudy Rodriguez:Go ahead, Anthony.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah, I was just going to ask. I mean, you've talked a lot of You've got a lot of, obviously, great programs and and partner engagement happening within Germany, like in in between, like, you know, the German partners. But where are you seeing, like, maybe some of the greatest opportunities for German partners to collaborate partners elsewhere in EMEA and maybe like so outside of Germany?
Carlo Dannies:From my point of view, the most important thing for a partner is to focus on the right topic. So, not to try to sell everything to everybody, but find the right market niche to be the best in this niche. And I think what it's IAMCP's most interesting part for that is you're finding comparable organisations in other countries to deliver such services to other markets. So, for example, let's say I think it's a valid idea. We just spoke about Klaus Fander, the global finance chief of yeah, chief financial officer.
Carlo Dannies:And he has a company for doing Microsoft Dynamics for woodcutting companies, to say. I don't know the English word. Those companies who have big saws and put wood into smaller pieces. So, and there is a special Dynamics 365 Business Central solution for that. And he grew, I think, to a few more markets, Switzerland, Netherlands, maybe some went to Canada.
Carlo Dannies:Through IAMCP ecosystem, when you cooperate, communicate with other people, you can learn if in other markets there are already existing solutions or if there is a need for your product. And that's a good multiplicator. So, I think that's the thing. And you get impression how those other markets work and you can interact with each other. Like I told you earlier, when I travel to The US and I speak with all those MSPs from The US, it's interesting.
Carlo Dannies:They are, I think, three to five years ahead of the German market in terms of automization of processes. You have tools where companies above the size of 10 employees do things where you in Germany have people for. So that's crazy. So, all the, as I said, bureaucratic stuff in Germany is much more complicated. You have a tool for everything, but it's not aligned with each other.
Carlo Dannies:It's not so, when I see how they work over there, it's quite interesting. But I see the When I talk to those guys in The US, they always say, It's not the people thing. It's not the technology thing. I want to find the right customers and I want to keep them, and that's why they don't collaborate so much like we have it here in Germany. And so, I think you learn that when you interact with other people like we speak today. And so, you can learn so much from IAMCP when you interact with other people from other countries.
Rudy Rodriguez:Well, that was certainly an interesting comment. I really appreciate that. I really appreciate that, so, especially the collaboration. Now let's talk a little bit about an event coming up for you guys relatively soon. Illuminate and you know that you're having in Munich, I believe.
Rudy Rodriguez:So for someone who has not really heard about Illuminate or has just heard about it for the first time, what is it and why does it matter right now?
Carlo Dannies:I think it's the most relevant partner conference to interact with Microsoft C level, especially now when it comes to Illuminate EMEA, on the EMEA level at the moment. So, as you know, it is the same in Germany, like in The US. Not quite the same because you have still the BUILD conference, the Ignite conference. In Germany, we have no partner conferences left hosted by Microsoft. So there is an AI tool for the end customers and somewhere there is a pre produced show for partners, but it's not the same like we experienced it in earlier years for speaking with the right people on the Microsoft side, meeting other partners and so on.
Carlo Dannies:And there we step in as an IAMCP. The Illuminate is our European main event, so to say, where we bring Microsoft C level together with the C level of our members from all over Europe, from all over the world. I think we already know we have already, I think, registrations from The US. And that's the thing. You can meet the right people and discuss the issues.
Carlo Dannies:We spoke about it. You have at the moment and discuss the strategy with Microsoft directly. That's so we go especially we do this event in the Microsoft EMEA. What is it called? It's the I think there are It's in the Microsoft office in Munich, and there is a special EMEA customer welcome center.
Carlo Dannies:I think there are just three or four in the world. One in Redmond, one in Singapore, one in Munich. And there they bring in all the big customers. And there we are, there we meet with each other and have the rooms, and you can meet all the right people from the Microsoft EMEA organization.
Rudy Rodriguez:All right, I'm going to jump ahead to another question, because there's so much transformation taking place within the Microsoft programs. What does mastering frontier transformation actually mean to you as a partner CEO?
Carlo Dannies:I think that we can talk about it for another forty five minutes. But the most important thing is the change of the business model. So, frontier transformation, and that's a thing I really speak a lot about in Germany, is that you have to change the classic time to money model to developing fixed price solutions and services, productised solutions or productised services you deliver to your customers. And that's a real issue for a lot of German Microsoft partners because you established your business over the past maybe ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five years and provided your customers services, infrastructure, hardware, whatever, and earned your money through selling hardware and licenses, through selling them services, maybe establishing managed service contracts. But it changes now because I think for the easiest part, M365, there is maybe already a bot out there, an agent who can install a Microsoft three sixty five environment on its own.
Carlo Dannies:You don't need a partner for that. But I think our as my I'm always saying people are working with people, and you have to position as a partner at the side of your customer as the person of trust. And you can help them navigate through the jungle of new solutions, AI, whatever, give me a buzzword. And mastering frontier transformation means changing your business model to stay alive tomorrow and to find and develop the right solutions and services that you can help your customer with. And we know it's always becoming customer zero, eat your own dog food.
Carlo Dannies:We heard all over the past twenty years. But and it's always the same. But at the moment, we are in such disruptive time, you have to change now. And I started out my keynote at IAMCP Resharp in this big main event we had in Germany in February, early February. Write this topic transformation, not only become customer zero, but start now, because there is no alternative.
Carlo Dannies:And we members at IAMCP in Germany, member companies, who are three, four or five people now. They are selling agents who are doing all the consulting stuff for the customer. Planning, writing a concept, finding the right solutions and then migrating and installing and migrating the services to M365 or Azure. So there is no place in the world for the small MSPs who are selling installation of Microsoft 365 with four or five days services with €800 a day or $800 a day. So that's hard.
Carlo Dannies:And if you still have the people on board who have to take care of the installed services and technology of the customer side and they have to learn new things, that's always not necessary, but they have to do it while they are servicing the old stuff and finding new business models, new services, defining them, working learn a different work style. I think that is the hardest part. And this role, that's the task for the CEO to help the company finding the right service spot or the right field of industry, whatever, where you want to work, where you want to sell your products, your services, and then try to find a way to how to transform from the actual status quo to what you want to do in the future. But when you wait for it and stay on this side, you'll get lost.
Rudy Rodriguez:-Well, you bring up several good points there, because one of the things is specialization is so important nowadays, you know, in that the technology has become so broad and so specialized. It's not like, you know, when I first started a long time ago, it was just installing a computer, right? Then you went from there. So it was much simpler. Why do you believe multi partner solutions will continue or are becoming more increasingly important in the marketplace today?
Carlo Dannies:Because it's all about specialisation. And as you just said, if you are an MSP with five or eight or 10 people in the company, you can't service and deliver all Microsoft topics out there, so not even all the topics within M365 or Azure. It's so complicated, and it's so complicated to stay up to date with all those solutions, especially when Microsoft isn't the only service provider you're working with. So some still have the hardware companies and so on, and that's the thing. And therefore, find the right spot and become, let's say, collaboration ready.
Carlo Dannies:And when we just start thinking about how to behave as a Microsoft partner in the existing Microsoft field of designations, of specializations, it's getting harder and harder to fulfill the requirements for the designations and especially for the specializations. But all the incentives, we talked about them earlier, are now changed a lot. So, till last year, we were able to collect some money from delivering workshops to your customers through, for example, security designation and so on. That's gone. Microsoft this year now just focusing on specialized services, especially on Azure.
Carlo Dannies:And then they just give incentives for growth. And when you have not the requirements or you don't meet the requirements Microsoft ask you of, you'll get nothing out of it. So you have to specialize because it's all about these changing business models we spoke about earlier. So if you don't have the specialization or the designations in the right topics, you don't get love from Microsoft in terms of money, support or whatever. And then you have to find which the services you want to make your money with.
Carlo Dannies:And therefore, you need to be good in something specific. And if you establish good partnerships or the possibility to work together with other partners really easy then it's the best way to be successful on the customer side. I practice it with my company from since day one. We say we are from day on focusing on partner to partner services so we can deliver projects and just let's take the M365 thing. I say we always are the technical staff and when we need somebody for a change in adoption, we bring in a partner.
Carlo Dannies:When we need something about data, we bring in a partner. When we need somebody for the infrastructure, for network or whatever, we bring in a partner. And if you have this mindset and if you have the right ecosystem and you know the right people, it works out in the end because your customer, people who work with people, I said it earlier, your customer needs someone who he can trust. And if you are this company who creates this trust through open communication with a strong partner ecosystem in the background, you can be successful. And this is the thing you need to do if you can't keep up with all the innovation, with all the people, all the topics you have to take care of in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Anthony Carrano:That's great. You know, thinking about with Illuminate, so if I'm coming to Illuminate, right, to find partners and business opportunities, how should I prepare?
Carlo Dannies:Yeah. Practice your elevator pitch and be aware of what you need. So I think that is the most important thing. As I say we are a business network but I mean if I go to The US I don't I'm not there for maybe selling my services through other partners, maybe to US customers, but I want to learn. I want to learn what's important for the MSPs in The US, what they are struggling with topics at the moment and if you if you know what you want to you want to achieve with taking part in such an event doing business and maybe you're an ISV as you know we have so many ISVs as members at IAMCP at the moment They are using our events, our platforms like Illuminate to tell MSPs about their products.
Carlo Dannies:But if you are an MSP, a system integrator, and you want to learn how markets are developed, how other partners and other markets solve their problems, then join us. But you have to think about what is necessary for you, what do you which answers do you're looking for, and then you'll find them there. I think it's a very good forum to discuss such things. And as you know much better than me, every IAMCP event is very open, very so welcoming, and that's that's the it's We are a cool community.
Anthony Carrano:Mhmm. This has been great, and you've been very generous with your time, Carlo, so thank you. I have one last question for you. And so what's the what would you just for for folks listening, you know, around the world, what would be your invitation to those partners to not only obviously attend Illuminate EMEA, right? But just to how to become more active, right, in the IAMCP community.
Carlo Dannies:We are in a world where you have to pay for almost everything. And if you're looking for real opinions, real knowledge, and a real community, then IAMCP is the perfect place because we have everything you need to be successful, to learn how to be successful in the Microsoft ecosystem. And that's not I don't want to say it's for free, but you have to invest your time. You have to invest your own, yeah, time, resources and so on. And you have to bring your colleagues, for example, your young professionals, your motivated people to find the right answers.
Carlo Dannies:But we are such a complex and full ecosystem of so many topics, answers, people that it's very always very helpful. If you invest yourself in, you'll get so much out of it. And especially when you come to the live events, of course.
Anthony Carrano:That's it. That's it. Well, I know we're gonna have the Illuminate, the link to Illuminate EMEA in the show notes. So aside from that, what are if folks wanna reach out, connect, get more information, connect with you, what are some of the best ways to do that?
Carlo Dannies:The IAMCP website, IAMCP Germany website. We are on LinkedIn. So you'll find IAMCP Germany through LinkedIn, through the website. There are direct links to the events like the Illuminate. That's the easiest way. And get in touch with us, connect with us through LinkedIn with me, with you guys, and ask questions if you need to. So, no problem. We are here.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent. Well, Carlo, again, thank you. Amazing. Really appreciate. I mean, you just covered so many areas and just it was great learning about you and your company, the insights about the successful build of the chapter, as well as then just the event. So, again, thank you, and have a great rest of the day.
Carlo Dannies:Thank you very much. I hope my English wasn't that bad after a long and busy week. So
Anthony Carrano:Well, I could promise you your English is better than my German.
Carlo Dannies:But you're German we're born in Germany, so we learned it.
Anthony Carrano:Have a great day.
Carlo Dannies:Thank you very much.
Anthony Carrano:Well, that was a really insightful episode. I I really appreciate Carlo, and his perspective, and just the things that he was sharing about, you know, just, his company, the chapter, and just, you know, the upcoming, you know, Illuminate event.
Rudy Rodriguez:Oh, absolutely. You know, I I really enjoyed the the interview as well. And the one thing that I really picked up on it is that as a chapter, and this has probably been going on for several years and Carla described his involvement, was staying engaged with the Microsoft Partner Management team. That was really, really important, because they're learning exactly what's driving Microsoft in their marketplace. And that leads to significant partner engagement and membership as well, because you're hearing directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak, and then they in turn communicate that to their membership, and they do that through the events that they have, through the business circles, what's important to you partner, business member, what's important to you, and they're sharing the information that they got from Microsoft. So that was really insightful. I enjoyed that. And they've been doing that for years. And that's helped the German chapter grow.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. Well, talk about growth. I mean, I knew they were one of the bigger chapters. I didn't realize though, it's, you know, what was it, three x growth over a five year period. So it was like almost 500 companies, but the number of members was like over 3,500 that are active and involved like in their group.
Anthony Carrano:And it was just really impressive just to hear the things that resonate with me. It's just they're very intentional, very programmatic, and they with a razor focus on growing membership. Because you asked him, what you it's like the metric for success and how do you guys measure all that? And he just zeroed in, it's members, members, members, members. And so to your point about like with the engagement and whatnot. So that was pretty good to hear.
Rudy Rodriguez:It really was. And the fact that I'll give a shout out to Klaus Fander because I know he measures everything because I've had a working relationship with Klaus So, in the and but that's that's really good because it measures the growth of the chapter and the engagement that they have. That's really good.
Anthony Carrano:And just being having the intentionality and the programs around that. You know, the other thing that I like because there was the question was asked about, you know, these just the importance for the about the multi partner collaborations and why and how he zeroed in on specialization, you know, because of all the hyper specialization and designations, right, just so you can be, you know, world class and expert in your specialization, you're gonna need to partner, you know, and have with others to provide, you know, a complete solution, you know, for customers. And just really remind me, it's interesting, especially as, you know, we're coming into, you know, here in The States into, you know, American football season and basketball and how well, like all these positions, you know, they've got, and if you think about, you know, business like in football, I mean, you've got, you know, the quarterback is, you know, is excellent in his thing, the wide receiver at his thing, the, you know, the running back, like so on. Then that's on the offensive side, and then there's the defensive side of the ball. And even you have that in basketball, even though it's only five, you know, guys or gals like on the court, but they even just, you know, they have areas of specialization and it's in kind of that flow of working together that creates a dynamic team, you know, that wins.
Anthony Carrano:And it's like, how much is that? Are we seeing that more and more so, you know, in today's business climate? So it's really neat just to hear about how that's coming together. And then the partners that get that, hey, they really believe we can do more together are the ones that are winning and succeeding in today's climate.
Rudy Rodriguez:It's always great to get insights from across the world. We're all different and we're all the same at the same time. Isn't that interesting? All right, so thank you for joining us on this episode of IAMCP Profiles in Partnership powered by Dunamis Marketing. We certainly hope you enjoyed this podcast and find it useful and inspiring.
Rudy Rodriguez:If you did, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. One of the best ways to partner for success is to join IAMCP, a community of Microsoft partners who help each other grow and thrive. IAMCP members can find and connect with other partners locally and globally and access exclusive resources and opportunities. Whether you're looking for new customers, new markets, or new solutions, IAMCP can help you achieve your goals. To learn more, the website at www.iamcp.org.
