IAMCP Illuminate Valencia 2025: Driving Growth for Microsoft Partners
What if you can walk into a room filled with over 300 partner CEOs, Microsoft insiders, and growth minded innovators from over 15 countries and walk out with a year's worth of partnerships, pipeline, and strategic clarity. Well, that's exactly what's about to happen in Valencia, Spain at the upcoming IAMCP Illuminate conference, a three day high intensity, high trust gathering where the Microsoft partner ecosystem doesn't just talk about collaboration, it does collaboration. In this episode of profiles and partnership, we're going behind the scenes with the leaders shaping Illuminate 2025 to unpack how they've engineered an environment where 39% of attendees would leave with new P2P opportunities, satisfaction scores hit 4.8 out of five, and the networking is so intentional it starts before you even arrive. So whether you're a US company eyeing the EMEA market, a Microsoft partner looking to deepen your ecosystem ties, or a growth leader who knows the right room changes everything, this conversation is your playbook. Joining me today are Paco Racionero and Michiel van Vliet, two respected leaders of the IAMCP Spain chapter to talk about the upcoming IAMCP Illuminate conference that they're hosting. This is going to be a conversation packed with practical takeaways. So let's jump in.
Anthony Carrano:Hey, welcome to the podcast today. I'm really glad both of you guys are joining us today.
Michiel van Vliet:Thank you for having us.
Francisco Racionero:Thank you for your invitation, Anthony.
Anthony Carrano:Absolutely. Let's start off, why don't you start off, tell us a little bit about yourself and your involvement with IAMCP?
Francisco Racionero:Let me introduce myself. My name is Francisco Racionero and I am the President of IAMCP Spain as well as the CIO of Allison ITC, a company that specializes in data platform management, automation, AI readiness. I've been involved with the IAMCP for several years, first an active member and now leading the Spanish chapter. We work with a strong collaboration between Microsoft partners, creating business opportunities and help the ecosystem grow exponentially. For me, IAMCP is about building trusted relationships, sharing knowledge and creating win win environments where partners can innovate and succeed together.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent, excellent. Michiel, how about yourself?
Michiel van Vliet:Yeah, so my name is Michiel van Vliet although I live in Spain. I'm Dutch originally, but I've lived here for the last twenty six years. I started with IAMCP in 2017, so I've been in the ecosystem, Microsoft ecosystem since 1995, worked at Microsoft, and then the then president asked me to come in as vice president to help out, and then I ended up being president shortly after, right? So I was president in Spain, I was president in EMEA, been on the global board, and we actually organized the first EMEA event back in 2019 in Madrid and Paco took over for me as president in Spain.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent, excellent. Now Paco, you're being a little modest here because I know I found out just a little bit about your background that you were a paratrooper for a bit. Which is really cool. Tell us a little bit about that and your journey from as a paratrooper to a business owner, and your current role with the IAMCP Spain chapter.
Francisco Racionero:Yeah, can say like the film in a galaxy far, far away...
Anthony Carrano:So was there a stormtrooper? You're a stormtrooper? Don't know.
Francisco Racionero:I was not yet a business owner, but a paratrooper in the Spanish Air Force. Those years were for me the training grounds, more like a Jedi, where discipline, courage and teamwork were the core of everything we did. Our motto was I dare. And that is the spirit of the Account Force and has guided me ever since. First, an employee, entrepreneur and now president of the AI and CP.
Francisco Racionero:Many liaisons have guided me through my career as a business leader and now as president. I know that success comes from the three fundamentals: collaboration, trust and the ability to adapt to the change. These principles are essential in the business as they were in my earlier life and they continue to define the way I lead today.
Anthony Carrano:That's fascinating. Well, I really appreciate your service and a great story.
Michiel van Vliet:You actually started smiling once we got away from my IAMCP and started talking about paratroopers.
Anthony Carrano:Then I don't know. Saw the smile was standing in the galaxy far, far away. So there's a Star Wars thing going on here. That's fantastic. Now talking about what's, you know, with the Spain chapter, I mean from, from, and I'm here in The Americas, but one of the things we've seen is that the Spain chapter is one of the more mature ones in Europe.
Anthony Carrano:What have been some of the key factors in some of just the growth and just the strong reputation of the chapter there in Spain?
Michiel van Vliet:Well, Spain chapter has been in existence since 2008, so one of these success factors is just succession. So you need to find people to take over. Because you know, sometimes what happens is that a president or a team leaves and then things just die down temporarily, right? Which is kind of a pity. And the other thing kind of what spreads best for us I think is, you know, when I took over in 2017, Microsoft was still a financial sponsor.
Michiel van Vliet:So we had Microsoft sponsoring money and we had the membership fees and then Microsoft stopped sponsoring. So I had to figure out, you know, what my business model was, right? So just with the member fees, you can't really make this work. So, two things had happened. So, of all, we started looking at finding permanent sponsors.
Michiel van Vliet:And the other thing we did is with the yearly event instead of losing money on the event on the first because then we started making money on the event, right? There was kind of a switch which then allowed us to do if you have money, you can do much more things, right? You can get professional help in, you don't only depend on volunteer work, right? So that's kind of really of chicken and egg thing that's really, really important.
Anthony Carrano:I'm going to actually unpack that a little bit because you touched on something I think that's really important about succession. And one thing is, I mean, you were president for many, many years. Paco's now, he's been president for many, many years, especially in a volunteer run organization. I mean, can you give us just some nuggets for our listeners about how to ensure succession with their chapters?
Michiel van Vliet:Well, yeah, so I'm sorry Paco, I'm stealing the limelight here. So for me, it's very important to find people that are generators, right, that really want to make the ecosystem better and have a long term view of this, right. So people that of course you will get something back from these roles in the IAMCP increased visibility, potential P2P, those kind of things, but that's not instant, right? It's not tomorrow, right? So we need to have people really that are really, really important, willing to put in the work and being you know consistent and have tenacity, because there's lots of people that jump up and then want to do something and that you have somewhere for two or three months and then they completely disappear, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So, it's important to have that consistency, that tenacity. And that for me was one of the main reasons also for you know asking Paco to take out because Paco put in a lot of work and put in a lot of constant work, right? So I think generosity, long term view, tenacity and willing to put in the work for me are the key criteria.
Francisco Racionero:Yeah, absolutely. I agree with Micheal, 100%.
Anthony Carrano:So, Paco, I'm going to put you on the spot now, what are some of the things that you're doing to ensure your succession, you know, whenever that time comes?
Francisco Racionero:Yeah, the idea is that we are looking forward and we are trying to get some persons and some team that can continue with the work that we began a long time ago. So, the idea is one person that is focusing their company but has to have the focus and work for the others, create the trust, create the relationship with Microsoft and continue the trust with Microsoft so IAMCP is not a press lobby. We are a company working beside Microsoft, trying to bring the information, the strategies of Microsoft to our partners. Maybe it could be, like Michiel said many times, a mini MBA about how to work on Microsoft because it's very complicated and every year changes all change, all begin, all the teams where you have the relationship are changing. So, the one nexus that continues IAMCP and the continued succession, like Michiel said, in the teams.
Francisco Racionero:So, the idea is to not leave the association goodbye and good luck. No, we can continue in the background helping the new team to take the steering and continue the work.
Michiel van Vliet:Just to build on that, right? So, same as what happens globally that the ex global president stays on the board. So, I found myself with a completely new team, right? So, if you have to start from zero or have to do everything over again, it's difficult, right? So, Paco also, when we made this change, he asked me to stay on the board, and on purpose the first couple of months I disappeared, and then I slowly came back because, you know, I have a certain tendency of being very visible, and and I needed to give Paco that space, right?
Michiel van Vliet:But that's important is, you know, to make sure that you don't have to change the entire board, right? So you change maybe the president or maybe two roles, but you have people continue that were there before, and that's, I think that's the best model. Have the global bylaws, right.
Anthony Carrano:No, that's fascinating. So obviously, know, talking about what the strong foundation with, you know, with people, you know, love the use of, you know, just, know, about what the mini MBA, you know, type reference. And I think that's a great, you know, transition to like our next thing. And you talked a lot to, you know, about events and, you know, why we're talking today, you know, about the upcoming, you know, Illuminate conference. So right out of the gate, like for those who haven't attended before, tell us about, you know, like what is Illuminate and why has it become such a cornerstone event, you know, for Microsoft partners?
Michiel van Vliet:It's, you know, it's, as you know, we rotate these across countries in EMEA, right? So we have had our yearly event for years, so we have a lot of experience running these things. And basically, it's kind of a place where it's kind of I'm not a big fan of the word but it's kind of a safe space for Microsoft partners, right? You come together, you have similar partners with similar problems well, not similar partners, but similar problems. There's a high level of trust, there's a high level of transparency, there's kind of a no bullshit environment, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So, people really take you know, for them it's a moment to take some time away, really understand you know the Microsoft fiscal year landing because you know it's October, Microsoft specifically this year, is in disarray, right, in the field. It's complete chaos, right? So people are still changing or not knowing if they have a job, right? So it's kind of a way they kind of relatively early in the Microsoft fiscal year, and then they figure out, okay, where do we stand, right? What's happening?
Michiel van Vliet:What's important? What's not important? What's the focus? That's one thing. And then the other thing is just a pure level of trust and well, even friendship that is established, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So there's a pretty frictionless environment where a lot of spontaneous P2P also happens, right? So it's kind of a, you know, eighty plus percent of our partners are repeat offenders, if I can see how that works, not repeat participants. Most of them even already registered without having seen the agenda because they know what level of quality they will And get, for them, it's kind of really okay, where do we stand this year? And then partners that are new, it's kind of like a pressure cooker mini MBA, you know, between the official information presentations, the bar talks and the other things, they get all this, you know, very instant information on how Microsoft really works, right? Because a lot of our partners are non managed partners.
Michiel van Vliet:For example, in Spain, you know, except for the distributors, there's like 11 managed partners, and then Spain has 10,000 partners, I think, right? So we're like, we said, if you take the former Gold, it's like 700. So a lot of these people are non managed, and all these partners never have any contact with Microsoft, So this is a place where they have people that know a lot about Microsoft, Microsoft senior folks, you can connect with all of them, you can have, you know, it's probably the best practical learning environment to get your arms around this Microsoft thing.
Francisco Racionero:One question, sorry. Let me say one thing. What makes Illuminate so special is that it creates a space where not only the business and the innovations really It's the personal relationship of the event. So it's very important, this kind of relationship, because the partners can learn from each other, hear directly from the Microsoft leaders and build trust and connection that drives growth. It's very, very important.
Francisco Racionero:Also, for us, for IAMCP Spain, it also has a special meaning because our strength side with LATAM, we see this Illuminate this event as a bridge, not only with EMEA, but also connecting partners across The Atlantic. Well, this global perspective is part of what makes the event such a cornerstone for the Microsoft partner ecosystem. We have in Spain, we have the facility to join Europe, EMEA and Latin America. So for us, I think we are the real bridge to connect the two worlds.
Anthony Carrano:That's fantastic. And both of you, you've hit on several things, just especially around trust, relationships, friendship, I think was a word that was used. So, you know, with your experience in facilitating these events, like how do you help facilitate, you know, that those relationships, those networking, what are some things specifically that you're doing to help facilitate that so folks come away with a lot of those meaningful relationships from the event?
Michiel van Vliet:Yeah, so a key decision we made six years ago was to use a platform, an event platform, much similar to what Microsoft used to have for WPC, whatever ten years ago. And so as soon as you subscribe to the event, you can have access to everybody who's participating. We also ask when you register, we also ask a lot of we ask certain questions, right? So what are you looking for at the event? You know, okay, I'm a specialist in modern security and I'm looking for P2P or and I have lots of good resources and I want to share them, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So you know kind of what somebody's looking for. So that's a key instrument, right? So and most of these, you know, people can do physically maybe 15 meetings and most people are booked out in the meetings, right? So we do that and the event is on purpose booked up death by PowerPoint. So we have specific sections where we do meetings only, which sometimes in parallel with side sex, you know, side workshops there before the keynotes, sometimes after the keynotes.
Michiel van Vliet:So that's one piece. Then we have of course on the Thursday afternoon, we have a non professional ludicall thingy where this year we will go out on this natural lake close to Valencia, we'll put people on boats, every boat will have 15 people. So, know, you'll be in a boat for three hours, you have to talk to these 15 people. And then the other thing just is spontaneous networking dinners during the bar, you know, breakfast bar, all these conversations are happening, right? So, it's both tested and untested, you know, networking that's really, really happening.
Francisco Racionero:Very true, because this is not about the marketing messages or generic presentation. It's about honest conversations on priorities, roadmaps and the direction Microsoft is taking. So the idea is the partners need clarity to plan their own investment, whether in the cloud or AI, security or compliance. Having that transparent insight helps them align with Microsoft and anticipate and change their build stronger in their go to market strategies. So in the practice, they give the partners a real competitive edge.
Francisco Racionero:So for me, it's really the message is not only marketing and generic presentations, it's conversation, check the priorities with the other counterparts in the business. So people, at least people.
Eddie Bader:Yeah, I'm kind of curious because you've built such a strong culture around partnering And, obviously, you know, last year, I think you had over 500 individual one on one sessions, scheduled, in your in Spain's annual event. And and so you've done a lot even your work with the the LATAM members and and chapters. What how do you cultivate that mindset in in the in IMCP Spain? And and how what would you recommend for other chapters globally on how to better cultivate that that partnering mindset or that the mentality that, hey, these are this is cooperative. We can do more together than, you know, than just compete. Right?
Michiel van Vliet:So yeah, so it's I won't say, Eddie, that 100% of the partners coming to the event are proactive P2P, you know, so I would probably say at least half of them, right? Because the first thing, it's on generosity as well, right? So if you are a generous person, you're looking at how you can help somebody else first instead of, you know, how you can be helped. I think that's important. And then the other thing which is important is, you know, people tend to think they are competition, right?
Michiel van Vliet:But if you ask three, four, five follow-up questions and go a level deeper, you kind of figure out that they're not really competition, right? Because they're either on the same customers or they either don't do exactly the same thing or in some cases it's very clean, It's complementary. But even in cases that in the first instance, people or companies seem to be competitive, just go a level deeper, you have open conversation what you really, really do. You always find angles when you can work together. And then again, depends on the people.
Michiel van Vliet:These people that are generally looking for a win win. And I would say probably at least half of our partners would do that, right? So if you come in with this very aggressive hey, what am I getting out of this, right? I think that's probably the wrong approach to bring to the table.
Eddie Bader:No, I think that's great. And to that point, obviously there's the idea of know, if I'm a US partner doing business in EMEA, that's a that's a different landscape. Right? There's a nuance to it. There's a bunch of different countries.
Eddie Bader:Obviously, within there, there's different languages, different cultures. So, like for a US company attending the event this year, you know, what do you think will be some of their biggest surprises or biggest learnings about doing business in EMEA or just connecting with partners in that region?
Michiel van Vliet:Well, so there's both challenges and positives, right? So I think the positive is, you know, a Microsoft partner that does modern work is the same in The Netherlands or in US or in Singapore or whatever, right? So you'll find a lot of commonalities just on the basic problem set, right? So one thing you'll find is of course customers are a lot smaller in Europe than The US, right? US, you know, everything has a zero more.
Michiel van Vliet:You have of course the language issue, right? So English is a language you can use in The Nordics, Netherlands and UK easily, and then maybe on large accounts in some countries like Switzerland, but you know, then it kind of stops, right? So you need to adjust to the culture as well. And sometimes you have better command of English than other countries. And then in some countries, it's you know, they accepted that you know, you work in English or Spanglish in our case.
Michiel van Vliet:In other countries, you're kind of expected to speak the local language, like Germany and France. Big countries, you know, big demands, right? So, I think it's kind of an interesting thing to find out that there are probably lots of things in common, but then there are different cultural language and cultural things, right? So, it's also how people buy and sell is probably different, maybe less direct than in The US, maybe with an exception of The Netherlands. So, we have all these different language and cultural aspects, but in this whole setting which, know, we're all micro partners, we all speak the same micro language, we understand what you're trying to offer me, right? So, that's the easy thing.
Francisco Racionero:Let me say one thing about it, because Michiel says about the culture. And I think it's very, very important, the culture, because in Europe we have different cultures. So, when you go to market, the culture is absolutely different. Netherlands, Germany, Spain or France, you need a partner here to know this culture, to know what is the way the people think when they are speaking about business. So, for a US partner, I think it's a very good help if they can get some partnership with a local partner to go to the market, because of the culture we have. Maybe the language is a problem, well, but if you and me want to make business and we have an idea, no problem. I am sure we can speak in whatever.
Eddie Bader:Yeah, I was going to ask you about that too, right? Especially when it comes to language. Do you find that and and I I think I know the answer to this, but it'd be great to hear a little bit more detail. If if I'm a I'm a US partner coming into Spain or into France or into Germany, how much more impactful will my interactions be if I can actually speak that local language, right? Does it make a difference?
Eddie Bader:Even though, even if I could speak your language, I'm still an American trying to do business in your country, but does that language kind of bridge a little bit of the gap?
Michiel van Vliet:Well, that's a good question, Eddie. I do think that if you want to do business in Germany and France, unless you are working with very large multinational customers, you have to speak the local language, right? And you have to speak it at a decent level. And then depending on you know, some countries or clusters of countries, you can work with English because you know, UK, Benelux, Nordics, you know, people speak almost perfect English, right, even at the butcher.
Michiel van Vliet:So that's I don't think that's an issue. And then in some other countries, it's more a question of making yourself understood, right? So let's say the level of English in Italy and Spain is lower than in Sweden, right, so for historical reasons. So depending on where you focus, I think your strategy needs to be different and needs to be fully flexible. I have a very simplified view of I did travel around a lot in EMEA, right?
Michiel van Vliet:And I always say I'm an improved Dutch guy because I'm living in Spain and my wife is French, so I'm a little bit European. But I always say you know, I always take Brussels as a center, right? South Of Brussels you have like a Romanic culture with all of that. And East Of Brussels you have like a Germanic country culture. And then Netherlands, Nordics, UK, although Nordics is a bit different, you have more of an Anglo Saxon acceptable way of working. So that's kind of a very simplistic, simplified way of viewing Europe.
Eddie Bader:That's super helpful. Thanks.
Francisco Racionero:I agree with Michiel. The language is not the real barrier. I I think with you have the intention to come you can fall down the the barriers.
Eddie Bader:And how is the the culture let's just talk specifically about IAMCP Spain and the Spanish members. Are they open to working with partners outside of Spain and how often do you think that happens right now?
Michiel van Vliet:Yes and no. So the Spanish partners tend to be a little bit shy because of the language issues sometimes, right? So the thing, the culture thing also has to do with you know, who's less shy. You know, if your language skills are better, you're probably less shy, right? Because sometimes the Spanish partners are a little bit too shy.
Michiel van Vliet:And the difference is when you hear them speak in Spanish, blah blah blah. So this is very different energy and emotion and everything, right? But then again, as Faco said, right, if you bring business, you know, the language in it doesn't really matter, right? So least in these days with AI, anything which is written, you know, doesn't really matter which language it is, right? So the AI is so perfect that 98% of automated translation is good, So it's just more on the speaking side, but then again, you have a good value prop and if you know you bring business and you know we can even have a conversation in Chinese if you want to I think.
Eddie Bader:So just want one follow-up question on that because I'm interested, like, every region or every country tends to have maybe something they do well or they're positioned well within the within the ecosystem. What is what is something that, you know, Spanish partners are positioned well to offer other partners in the ecosystem in terms of services or whatever that may be? What is that, you know, special sauce that you typically find amongst the IAMCP Spain members?
Michiel van Vliet:Well, Spain in general is a country that has lots of IT engineers, right? Also because a lot of our large customers have always wanted to custom develop stuff, right? So the large banks and so there's a lot of very skilled people technically skilled people for a very reasonable price, right? Because the pricing differences are also very big in Europe, right? So the most expensive probably is you know Switzerland uses Germany as a low cost region, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So for example, Switzerland is very expensive. Germany is expensive. Denmark is expensive. And the further we go south, the cheaper it gets, right? So I would state that we can comfortably from Spain compete with the Indian companies almost, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So, there's lots of pricing differences in the region. So, there might sometimes be a little bit of language barrier, but I do think Spain has very deep technical knowledge for an economically very interesting price. And then of course, what we're good at here as well is sector wise, you know, it's tourism and sun, right? So, know, we have very large tourism organisations. We have partners, dynamics partners that specialize in tourism.
Michiel van Vliet:We were one of the earlier countries to move to the cloud. Because of the crisis, had you know, we had a very deep crisis coming on from 2008 to 2012, So even the government moved to the cloud at a much higher speed than in some of the Germanic countries, for example. So I would say there is a very high level of technical knowledge here.
Eddie Bader:Excellent, thank you.
Anthony Carrano:So one question I was going have just as we're talking about, you know, bringing back to the Illuminate. How can companies and if you have a story that would be great to share, but like how can companies use Illuminate specifically as a launch pad for some of those cross border partnerships or even like M&A exploration?
Michiel van Vliet:Well, yeah, and of course thanks to Eddie we will have an M and A boutique IT exchange that works with IAMCP. We will be there, right? So we'll holding keynotes and workshops and then we're meeting with people. We did that last year as well, but that was a local M&A boutique. All different ways, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So I think it's just, you know, having as much meetings as you can, right, with companies from different countries. Just, you know, the only thing is depends on what you are looking for, right? So what we can't say is okay, well I want to meet a company from Germany that is specialized in fabric or maybe they're not there, I don't know.
Anthony Carrano:And somebody can use the I'm sorry, interjected like the you were talking earlier about there's the platform for like that networking platform. So somebody can get that specific in that platform to help try and find it. Good. Go ahead. Yeah. Talk about that.
Michiel van Vliet:Yeah. Yeah. So we kind of we preselected this, sorry about it, we kind of preselected this with, you know, a list of questions we ask, right? So just people clarify that they can explain what they're looking for. We have a marketplace as well, right?
Michiel van Vliet:And then of course, you can of course study the company the internet, You can study in person who's coming, LinkedIn and whatever, right? So I would suggest if you spend money to come overseas for the event and your time, right? I would expect you to study you know who am I going to talk to, what do they do, how senior are they, right? So it's just low on you, right? So a lot of spontaneous things will happen, but you plan for a lot of these things to happen as well.
Francisco Racionero:But not only for M&A agencies, because many times we know companies that join between them and go together, go join the company, buy the company, sell the company, something like that. And that first, IAMCP events are in the region. I am in the region because you first begin to collaborate. One collaboration, after that, think more things and much more real collaboration, business plan together, commercial strategy together, and then what is the next pay and the next pass? Get married. Get married. Get married, buy, sell, join between them.
Francisco Racionero:So, I think this and, Michiel, you know me, several companies that begin in the IAMCP, each one in different paths and at least join the same path and they today are working together. And so, the problem is that we lost one member of the association in Spain because when they joined together
Michiel van Vliet:Well, the thing is, so the difficulty is when you buy a services company without knowing the company, it's always very difficult to understand what you're really buying, right? But if you have known partners for years, because you're an IMTP, and you know what they're good at and what they're not good at, you know, and you know if they can be trusted, So, let's say, so we have some of our IAMCP members with, you know, outside funding that have become consolidators, right? And they know who to go after because they know that, for example, Paco's company is a specialist in data and they've been doing this for twenty years and they're one of the four companies maybe in Spain that know more and more about data, right? So they have all of this implicit knowledge that they know who they want to, you know, go over that with. And that's because of their years of engagement with the IAMCP.
Anthony Carrano:One question then. So I know we've talked like with the upcoming Illuminate event, obviously, know, we've talked about like the networking, just the tremendous opportunities there. We've talked about, I think the use of the mini MBA, Microsoft's understanding kind of the programs and how to navigate that. What about are there just going to be any emerging technologies or business models that you expect to dominate the conversations this year?
Michiel van Vliet:Still trying to figure out what frontier is. I think that's just a label that they put on it this way. But I think we're still trying to get our arms as an ecosystem all around AI and how we as partners can make money around AI, right? And there's always a challenge with Microsoft, because Microsoft always needs to push the latest things, right? As an ISV, you know, as a partner you always need to understand okay, how far do I jump in, right?
Michiel van Vliet:Because I need to keep on making money and do the new stuff, right? So there's always equal income you have to find all the time, right? It's happening with cloud, it's not happening with AI, right? So you can't you know, if you're too much ahead of things, you probably you know maybe you're losing money. If you're too far behind of it, then you know Microsoft will say hey, well bye bye, I don't need you anymore, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So you need to find that equilibrium, right? So I think AI is still very much will be the key thing, right? But I think that we're all nobody knows really how the world is changing or who will be major business models or who's making money in AI, right? Because you have your OpenAI's or LLM providers, then you have your hyperscalers, then you have your specific vertical companies, then you have the services company, right? So I think we're all still trying to figure out. And sure, Microsoft wants us to jump in full head in AI. Part of our role as IAMCP is helping partners understand how far they should jump and when.
Anthony Carrano:So how are you, so at the conference is there going to be a lot of discussion around that? I mean, main sessions, breakout sessions? How are you envisioning, yeah, helping folks navigate some of that stuff?
Michiel van Vliet:Yeah, so we have a couple of Microsoft people in corp, but these are more of the program people, right? So what we normally also have, we have parallel sessions around solution areas, right? So to be honest, we're still filling these up as we speak. So normally we'll get, you know, sessions around Azure, sessions around, you know, security. And this year, course, the very interesting one is talking about business model is, you know, business applications and model work being together, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So I think we're also still trying to figure out how is that going to work, right? It would be great to have somebody from Microsoft explain the real business rationale, right? Because Microsoft will always say, well, we spoke to customers, we spoke to partners, and they've asked us to do these things. I'm not sure how I believe that. That's kind of the level of of course nobody at Microsoft will give the during a keynote the honest answer, but if you maybe catch one of those guys at the bar, you know, you probably get the honest answer, right?
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. Or the boat, right? The bar or the boat.
Michiel van Vliet:So there is a so of course the very big reorg that happened, field reorg that happened was like 2018. But this year is worse than other years compared to other years. So there's a lot of different regions being set up, know, a lot of middle management have been taken out, a lot of confusion inside Microsoft as well, right? So I hope that when we have our event in October that all that has come down, and we can explain it to people, and then explain the rationale and explain who's who, who's sitting where.
Anthony Carrano:I'm gonna ask this kind of a more of a like a soft question around and keep in mind I've never been to Spain so this might be a really dumb question after I ask it but why Valencia?
Francisco Racionero:Let me explain. So, Valencia is more than just a beautiful location. So, one year ago, we suffered flood in the region, very heavy flood with more than 200 deads in the flood. The DNA that we suffered was incredible. So, I have lived in Valencia for the last twenty five years.
Francisco Racionero:I was born in Madrid, so I lived for, I say, twenty five years here. When the board, we begin to think and where we can prepare the next event, all the board thinks about Valencia could be the best option to the new event with Illuminate also. Valencia should be third or the fourth city in Spain, So, we have the best communication, maybe very well communication by plane, by ship, by train, with high velocity trains. So, it's an nexus of the transfer in Spain and internationally. So, our beaches are incredible.
Francisco Racionero:The weather in last October will be very good weather, only with a light coat or something like that. But we had this disaster, I could see things that I want to share with my colleagues. This is the younger people, because they let their offices, their houses, their institutes, their colleges, their schools, to help the others. So, many times, we see the younger people, we see the young people with Instagram, the selfies, this kind of focus that we put in the right people. So, in Valencia, in two days, all this changed.
Francisco Racionero:200 deads. 200. The village was absolutely devastated. And the next day, a legion, a legion of more than 10,000 people, helping without the government. No one- The government arrived after the people go to help other people.
Francisco Racionero:So, this character is, for me, the most incredible lesson of resiliency, of an event which maybe is a reason to try to get the illuminated here. I want to share with my colleagues who is Valencia, who is this city, and they go who, not what is this city, who, because this city has a personal personality, has its own personality and can learn a lot of things about the character of the Valencians.
Michiel van Vliet:So, just to build on what Paco was saying, right, so Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain. It also happens to be on the coast, right? And Spain is not like although we have a big tourism industry and event industry, it is not like The US where you can host events for lots of people everywhere, right? And when we select hotels, we have to start a year before, right? So basically, we were in the process of selecting hotels when this whole flooding, the Dana happened, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So a lot of mistakes were made, a lot of political infighting, people were not warned in time and you would not expect a modern society to have floodings all of a sudden in big city and have two twenty people killed. Because normally what happens is, you know, it's a habit that people in Valencia, they have their cars in the parking garage below sea level. And when they hear it's going to rain, they take out the cars because, you know, it might flood, you might a little bit, right? So they did the same thing. The only thing is nobody warned them that the flooding was going so fast, right?
Michiel van Vliet:So all these people got to get out of their cars, the parking garage, and they didn't get out anymore, right? So we felt emotionally obliged to do this event in Valencia, right, just to share that and maybe have some positive impact on the economy of Valencia. A little impact, but you know, any impact is good.
Anthony Carrano:Guys, that's a fascinating story. I did not expect that as an answer. In all honesty, was when I asked the question, thought I was just going to be talking about, you know, just, you know, being on the coast, how beautiful it is, the culture, the food, you know, all those things that you would hear normally under, you know, like touristy type type things. But that's a fascinating
Francisco Racionero:One thing, let me say one thing. Valencia was selected the best city in the world for life.
Michiel van Vliet:Work life balance or, you know, working with- I'm not sure who does it, but there's these international organizations that figure out which are the best cities to live, right? From health, you know, financial, work life and everything, right? Food.
Michiel van Vliet:You always get like Toronto and Vancouver I think we had like three Spanish cities in like in the top four or something.
Anthony Carrano:That's that's fascinating. And then to just even go back to the earlier story about just the just the story of resilience and how, you know, I think translating that into as I just think about, you you were just kind of like in going back to the event like, okay, as a thing that come away with just the importance of that, you know, having that tenacity, having that resiliency, especially as a small company, where you just got, know, you're grinding it out, you know, every day. What a, you know, what a, what a, what a powerful story just even to about, if I, if I understood correctly, Paco, where you're saying how there was, you know, you had all these, you know, thousands of people kind of come together, like even before the government did. I mean, that's, that's P2P, right? That's partner, you know, people collaborating to collaborating to collaborating together to create something, you know, of tremendous value.
Michiel van Vliet:Specific point that Paco is making is that we as business owners tend to be mostly male, older, and sometimes we complain about all these young people, right? Young millennials and generation Z. And the first ones that went out the next day and helped clean up and go there were 16 to 25 year olds.
Anthony Carrano:Wow.
Michiel van Vliet:Every day going on again, going on again, going on again, helping.
Anthony Carrano:Wow. That's a great story. I'm really glad you shared that. So thank you.
Anthony Carrano:Eddie?
Eddie Bader:Yeah, no, I was just saying that's a great way to find some common ground when you said, know, Michiel you just talked about, hey. We used to complain about the younger generations, but they were the first ones out there. That's a great thing to to come together and and find more ways and more things that you have in common. And and maybe the gap isn't as big as everybody thinks it is right, which I think is super important. I do I do have a question from talking, though.
Eddie Bader:So you said you've been living in Valencia for twenty five years. I wanna I kinda wanna know how you found Valencia. Did you jump out of a plane and land in Valencia and then decide you're gonna stay there? You know, in your life?
Francisco Racionero:I live here for love. My my wife is from Valencia. So as you know, a man is not from his born, he's where his wife is born. So this is the real case for my own. I live here, I can create my own company and then create and to be the freedom to involve in several projects, not only in business projects, only in other kind of projects, and so this is the consequence of this travel I took several years ago.
Francisco Racionero:So, I think this is the moment for not to help Valencia, you know, without to show who is Valencia, and the new generation, because we are mature people, we are mature men, so we are in my case, you are younger than me, but maybe I am in the finish of my professional career. I look back at who is behind me. So, I can see right now, behind us, behind all of these are people with push, with amazing strength to continue with the business, to continue to grow this country, this region, so to grow with the world at least.
Eddie Bader:Yeah. I think what's really very cool about this conversation is we've kind of come full circle, where we started talking about success for IAMCP Spain, about being, the continuity. Right? Finding leaders that were who were generous and willing to put in the time and take the effort. And now we're talking about the success of a city or the success of the country being in the younger generation and kind of this handover to another group over a period of time and and just knowing that there are generous people who are willing to make the time and commit to, you know, helping Valencia, helping Spain in general.
Eddie Bader:I think that's that's a cool cool story.
Francisco Racionero:It's the simple. It's the simple for the others.
Michiel van Vliet:Well, easy to complain about the next generations, right? Because we have our worldview at our age, right? We expect certain things that might not be normal for them. And I think this is a very good lesson for us to understand, hey, you know, these people can be motivated, they're just motivated in a different way, right? So for us, in the crisis, it was a really positive surprise.
Michiel van Vliet:And I think specifically, Paco kind of changed his whole view on the world positively, right? So we tend to complain sometimes about the next generations, but you know, they just have a different world group.
Eddie Bader:And I I think, coming back to your bit of advice earlier is, you know, be willing to ask that next set of next level questions. Right? Go three or four questions deep and you'll find, you know, you'll find that common ground. You'll find what motivates. You'll find that you have some things in common.
Eddie Bader:I think that's that's an awesome lesson for all of us. It's really cool.
Francisco Racionero:So we are in in my my generation. My generation is the I don't know. It's x generation, but I don't remember. Well, I am sixties. I am 62 in the next month.
Francisco Racionero:So, we live the transformation from the analog to the digital world. So, if my generation could understand these real changes, these incredible changes, the only thing that we have to understand is how the new generation thinks and will think how to how to stir in, how to go with the the new business or with our business in this legacy.
Eddie Bader:So I have a this is a little bit more- This is it's gonna be a combination question. It was gonna be an IAMCP question, but now that we've got this really cool conversation about just life in general and and, you know, Spain and Valencia. So I'm gonna ask two things. Michiel, you you've come to Spain. Right?
Eddie Bader:You, this is you're home now, but you came there. What is what is the biggest benefit of of being in Spain, of being in, you know, in this culture and and with the people that you work with, you know, are friends with and that? And then secondly, IAMCP as a community, what is the the biggest thing that you've gotten from that community? And that question is for both you and and Paco.
Michiel van Vliet:So yeah, so for me there is a first there's a physiological thing, right? So every day I wake up and I open the shutters and the sun is shining, which is quite a you know, has a different really, I think it has a crystal effect on you. Yeah. I live in The Netherlands with lots of rain and grey skies, specifically grey skies, so I think that's very important. And it also makes for people being out on the streets, right?
Michiel van Vliet:The Spanish people are out all the time. They're out in terraces, they're out eating, drinking, shopping, they're outside. So life is outside. So that for me was a big difference. Then another big difference is the importance of family friends.
Michiel van Vliet:So as I remember, I was as an expat first at Unisys and my daughter was in the hospital and I came to work. I'm a Dutchman, came to work. And then the gentleman said, you know, I told him what was happening. He said, well, why are you at work? Go to the hospital, right?
Michiel van Vliet:And then, you know, during the next couple of days, I had everybody calling me, the general manager, the finance director, everybody was genuinely interested figuring out how my daughter was doing. So it's much more of a in The US you work a lot and then you live in The Netherlands you work maybe less than The US, but Italy and Spain is kind of that balance, right? And the same thing goes for customer relations. So it's difficult here to sell because in The Netherlands, you can go to a potential customer who will have a parking space waiting for you. The customer will receive you at the exact time.
Michiel van Vliet:They will give you a cup of coffee. They will listen to your speech and then will say if they're interested or not. Very efficient, right? In Spain it's a lot more inefficient, right? Because you have to do a lot of pre meetings and then you know.
Michiel van Vliet:But once you have gone through that, the relation is almost I wouldn't say like family, but much stronger. So there's a lot more initial barrier, then the relation. So I think here in Spain in general, the relationships are a lot stronger, right? So it's very important to get that trust to build that relation. It's much less transactional in The Netherlands than or in The US I think. So that for me and I kind of forgot the second part of your question, think Eddie.
Eddie Bader:Yeah, it's more about the IAMCP community
Michiel van Vliet:So I think it might be more difficult initially to have a direct business conversation because you will start talking about football or some other things. But as soon as you have that level of trust, you know, there's this openness and long term view on things, right? So, I think that's the same. It's the same in business here as well. So maybe initially more work to be done, but once you've gone through that, it's more long term, it's more permanent.
Eddie Bader:Awesome. Paco, what about you?
Francisco Racionero:Yeah, agree with Michiel from his point of view. I think Spain from the relation is incredible. So, there is a thought about Otto Bismar, the big general from Germany. He said one time, Spain is the stronger country in the world because they are trying to break the country for hundreds of years and they couldn't. So, why is it?
Francisco Racionero:Because the Spanish are there. So, we are maybe not comfortable with our country, with our politicians, like everyone, like everybody in the world, yeah, but at least we row in the same direction. We row in the same direction because the direction is not the country, it's not the region, it's not the IAMCP it's not the business, it's the family. It's the family, it's the friendship. If you are my friendship, work together because I trust in you.
Francisco Racionero:Maybe I will need an NDA, an agreement, or something like that because legally we need to have this kind of documents, but for many times, for me, if I don't have a feel with you, I will not work you. I need to check your hand and see your eyes. Maybe you can lie to me, of course, but I need to trust in my counterpart in the business, and this is the IAMCP. In the IAMCP, we see through the eyes, we shake our hands, And I will see the next year, and I will see the next month in workshop, in another kind of event. So, if I trust in you, I will work with you. If I don't trust in you, really, we will continue my path and if I see you the next time, we will drink a beer and go on.
Michiel van Vliet:And there's this prejudice, right, which exists around Spain or Southern Europe. It's like when I speak to Germans or Netherlands or people from Netherlands somewhere else and they say, Oh, you're in Spain? Oh, siesta, siesta, Spanish are so lazy. To be honest, since I came to Spain, work a lot more hours than I did in The Netherlands. Because the system is more efficient.
Michiel van Vliet:So the first time I went to The US, I stopped my head out at 5:00 P.M. and there was nobody left in the office. I went whoops, right? In The Netherlands it's at six, I came home at seven.
Michiel van Vliet:In Spain, you make very long days from Monday to Thursday. Friday is a little more easier, but the thing is, when you live in richer and more efficient systems like The Netherlands and Germany and Finland, right? You can afford to work less hours, but there's this old prejudice still that, you know, in Southern Europe, there's people are lazy and they work less. No, they work more.
Eddie Bader:That's great perspective and insights. Thank you guys for sharing. That's awesome.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. So kind of as we're wrapping up, I mean, as we've talked, you know, the gamut about, you know, relationships, networking, mini MBA content, you know, the, just the, the beauty of in the story of the area. I kinda would like to, you know, just kinda wrap this up. There was an interesting, data point, you know, coming back to illuminate, where the post event survey showed that 39% of attendees increased their P2P opportunity pipeline, come through. Can you you share maybe just a story or an example of a partnership that was born, you know, there at Illuminate and turned into real business?
Michiel van Vliet:Yeah. Well there's several. Right? But, for example, I just had lunch with one of the, the partners that they're they're a company that was created they were a spin off created four years ago. They're a specialist in Microsoft cloud security. They have their own SOC. And they came to Illuminate, I think, the first time two years ago, right? So and since then they have built a fantastic P2P business, right? Because they have a very clear model, right? They only do Microsoft cloud security SOC.
Michiel van Vliet:They don't get into you know all the things that the other partners might do, right? And they have established really, really, really trusted and transparent relationships because of our event, right? So, and I think their model is now, you know, 90% indirect. Of course, that's easier when you have a clear and non competing thing that you do when you're one of three members in Spain, right? So it's easier, but there's different scales of grey.
Michiel van Vliet:And then the other example, I think it's for us it was a very important example, is Arrow, right? Arrow the distributor. So Arrow reached out to when I was still president in Spain and said: Well, hey, Michiel, we've been trying to get better at business with Microsoft. We have external consultants here. We're not getting anywhere.
Michiel van Vliet:And I said: You know, come to some of our events. So they came. They started learning, started learning, and they went to our big event. Became our first Platinum yearly sponsor, because they went through this mini MBA with us understanding Microsoft what to do, what not to do, right? Because Microsoft has many priorities, right?
Michiel van Vliet:They've done many things and the trick is figuring out what you should be doing and where you should jump and maybe where you should wait a little bit, right? And if you only go as a newbie to Microsoft, you will speak to a person that has an agenda and he will want you to jump or she will want you to jump. And you will think oh Microsoft! First question to all of my people I work with all the time as general managers also: Microsoft told me this and this. And I will say well, oh, the guy that opens the door or Satya Nadella, right?
Michiel van Vliet:Let's figure out. So I don't think those are tools and Arrow has been our platinum sponsors in the beginning. And the great thing that happened is because we started doing all things with Arrow, so all the other distis got FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. So then we got GriSynix, you know, we got Lee Valley, we got some of the other guys in as well, right, so and that's mainly because of the learning that they did through our events.
Francisco Racionero:I can say, I can tell you, for example, my own sample. In my history in the IAMCP, I have worked and work right now with partners in Spain, a lot of them in Spain, in Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, so maybe not all are in the INCP, but in Spain the focus is because, in my case, I specialize in data, in relational data, so I am complementary and I am not competing with others, so they can work us and and working together, really, together like our only company, but this is an absolute success for us because we work with, I think, more than 10 partner to partner companies and 80 at least are in the INCP and if they weren't in the INCP before, I try to join to the IAMCP of course.
Anthony Carrano:That's fantastic, that's fantastic. Well, Paco and Michiel, this was a wonderful conversation. You guys have been really generous with your time. And I really appreciate having you on, you know, the podcast, you know, IAMCP Profiles and Partnership. Last question is, what's the best way, you know, how can people find out about you and connect with you?
Michiel van Vliet:You mean for the events?
Anthony Carrano:I'll have the event, URL in the show notes. But just for, you guys individually.
Michiel van Vliet:Probably the easiest, easiest, you find us on LinkedIn, right? Because we're both daily on LinkedIn, and then we can share emails or whatever. So just type in our names and mine is pretty, if you search for my name in Spain, you will only get one.
Anthony Carrano:What's the one lone Dutchman in Spain? Is that what you're saying?
Michiel van Vliet:With this name and surname, right? I actually created a LinkedIn group. I found all the Michiel van Vliet fleets in the world.
Anthony Carrano:Oh really? Okay.
Michiel van Vliet:Great LinkedIn group between all of us.
Anthony Carrano:That's fantastic.
Francisco Racionero:Also, my name is easy also to recognise on LinkedIn. So, if you write to the LinkedIn page from IAMCP in Spain, our incredible marketing team will answer you in a few minutes maybe. So it's very important for us because our team is incredible. The work that the team for supporting the IAMCP all the year, this work is incredible for us. The organization of the events, the organization of the workshop, the organization of the agendas, really, let me say that we can deploy all of the events of the work that we developed during all the year because we have the best team for these kind of things.
Eddie Bader:Excellent, excellent. Awesome, that's great.
Anthony Carrano:Well, I appreciate you both. Enjoy the rest of your day, gentlemen.
Michiel van Vliet:Thank you.
Francisco Racionero:Thank you very much.
Michiel van Vliet:Glad to be here.
Francisco Racionero:See you.
Anthony Carrano:Wow. That was such a fantastic episode. I really appreciate, both Paco and Michiel just for spending their time. You know, for those that are listening, Illuminate just isn't an event. It's a catalyst, the kind of place where strategy meets serendipity and where the right handshake can change your fiscal year.
Anthony Carrano:If you wanna see the full agenda, explore the networking platform, or secure your spot in Valencia this October, head to the link in the show notes. And today's conversation sparked ideas for your own partnership strategy. Share this episode with a colleague who needs to hear it. But before we kind of wrap up, I definitely want to touch on a couple things that really stood out to us. Eddie?
Eddie Bader:Yeah, I think one of the things that stood out to me was the culture, right? The idea of how they partner and ask that next level set of questions, right? It's not just about what you do but who you are and how they build relationships over time. I think Mihiel mentioned, you know, you might spend more time in Spain upfront creating these, but when you come out of that, work, you have you have a friendship a friendship that you can build upon in in many different ways and that is a really great takeaway because I do believe that can work just just about anywhere.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah there was a ton of really great lessons that I took away from just just this interview. But one that really hit me pretty good. It was you know, also, you know, not only am I principal in Genamis marketing, I help, you know, host this podcast, but I'm also as a chapter president of the Austin IMCP chapter, just hearing about like their success in growing it from, you know, just the emphasis on what the succession planning, how he thought about the the income model, how they went about getting, you know, sponsors to which then led to helping them hire professional help and just that whole mindset of saying, this isn't yes, we're volunteers, we're going to approach this like a business. I thought it was really valuable and just kind of hit me pretty close just being as a chapter president kind of in the thick of it myself.
Eddie Bader:Yeah. And and to add to that, you know, Michiel talked about, being very intentional with IMCP Spain's success and really, you know, nurturing identifying and nurturing the next set of leaders so that there's no drop off once there's a change in leadership. I think that's really important. And then when we brought it full circle towards the end of the conversation, we talked about that same concept, but in terms of the country and of Valencia itself and how there was maybe a perception of the older folks like Paco and Mihiel about, you know, millennials and Gen Z. But then through that unfortunate event that happened with the flooding last year, how these two kinda came together and how they saw that those two, you know, the millennials and Gen Z step up in terms of helping and and putting effort into the community.
Eddie Bader:And I thought it was a very special moment, and I think that is that's not only how, a city and a country build and and grow and continue good things, but it's also a blueprint for what we can do, within chapters in this community.
Anthony Carrano:For everyone listening, here are your next steps. You need to register for this exciting event. You can by visiting iamcp.org and click on the illuminate banner on the homepage or visit the URL for the conference that's in the show notes. Thanks again for joining us on this episode of IMCP profiles and partnership powered by unanimous marketing. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and find it useful and inspiring.
Anthony Carrano: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. So whether you're looking for new customers, new markets, or new solutions, IAMCP can help you achieve your goals. To learn more, visit the website at www.iamcp.org.
