Navigating Co-Sell Opportunities and Partner Growth with Gerry Power
Welcome to the IAMCP Profiles and Partnership, the podcast that showcases how Microsoft partners and IAMCP members boost their business by collaborating with other members and partners. I'm your co-host, Anthony Carrano. And in each episode, I'll be talking to some of the most innovative and successful partners in the Microsoft ecosystem. The International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners, otherwise known as IAMCP, is a community of Microsoft partners who help each other grow and thrive. Members can find and connect with other partners locally and globally and access exclusive resources and opportunities.
Anthony Carrano:Whether you're looking for new customers, new markets, or new solutions, IAMCP can help you achieve your goals. We'll hear their stories, learn from their experiences, and discover the best practices and strategies they use to increase customer loyalty and grow revenues. Whether you're a new partner or an established one, you'll find valuable insights and inspiration in this podcast. We hope you enjoy this podcast and find it useful and inspiring. If you do, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to follow us on social media and connect with us on our website, www.profilesinpartnership.com, where you can find more information, resources, and opportunities to partner for success. Thank you for listening, and now let's get started with today's episode.
Anthony Carrano:But before we dive into our interview, let me ask you a few questions. As a Microsoft partner and member of the IAMCP, how are you developing your partner relationships to achieve your business goals? What criteria do you use to select the right partner?
Anthony Carrano:Finding the right partner can be challenging, but it can also be very rewarding. In fact, according to a channel profitability study, Microsoft partners derive margins 19% higher than the next closest competitor. That's a huge difference, and it shows the power of partnering. So how do you leverage the Microsoft Partner Network and IAMCP to support your partnerships? And how do you ensure success for your customer?
Anthony Carrano:These are some of the questions we'll explore in this podcast with the help of our guest, a P2P worldwide and EMEA Solutions award winner who is also an expert in partnering. He'll share stories, challenges, and successes and give you practical tips and advice on how to partner for success. Are you ready to join us on this journey? Then stay tuned because we have a great show for you today. Our guest is Gerry Power, the managing director at YesDynamic, an award winning team of Microsoft Dynamics 365 business application specialist who implement and support the full range of Microsoft Dynamics 365 business applications as well as build power apps and Power BI dashboards and automate workflows with Power Automate. Let's hear what he has to say.
Anthony Carrano:Welcome, Gerry, to the podcast today. Really appreciate you joining us.
Gerry Powers:Thank you very much. Looking forward to it.
Anthony Carrano:Well, excellent. Let's start off. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in the company.
Gerry Powers:Sure. So I'm managing director of YesDynamic. I've been working in the biz ops space for over twenty five years now, so feeling my age. And, basically, set up the business after being, you know, ten years in the kind of, Microsoft ecosphere and, really just saw an opportunity for a kind of different type of model as Microsoft to kind of migrated their whole business to the cloud.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent. Excellent. And, when did you join IAMCP?
Gerry Powers:Oh, in 2022. Alina Beba, I think it's Beba, had, recommended us. And, there was a local chapter that was just starting in Ireland, so, it just seemed a good time to join.
Anthony Carrano:Oh, wow. Okay. So you joined in 2022, and then you wind up winning, and congratulations, the worldwide EMEA Solutions award for P2P.
Gerry Powers:Yes.
Anthony Carrano:Way to come in strong.
Gerry Powers:No. I have to say it was, I was delighted, and our delivery partner was delighted too. And it was a, it was just a great accolade to, achieve, and and, we really thanked IAMCP for choosing us.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent. Excellent. So with YesDynamic, maybe tell us a little bit more about YesDynamic, the areas that you guys specialize in?
Gerry Powers:Yeah. So, I describe this as a cloud value added reseller. So the cloud's really important in that. That's where we're really just focused on CSP, so cloud solution provider licensing. And, really, the the the important part about that is that we're very aligned with Microsoft strategy.
Gerry Powers:So, Microsoft's very much around license revenue, and and our whole business model is based on license revenue. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that we provide all the business applications. So, you know, it's the full range of Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications, you know, so you got Business Central, which would be our hero product. But then you got customer service, field service, you know, finance operations, etcetera.
Gerry Powers:But on top of that, you you got Power BI, you got Power Automate, Power Apps. And, actually, just recently, we've added SAP, a competing technology to the mix as well. So it's really to provide a kind of full range of of, applications. So when a customer comes to us with an issue or a problem they wanna resolve, that we're we have the technology. We have the tool the toolkit to answer and and resolve that issue.
Anthony Carrano:Now I know, you guys do work, you know, you've done a lot of projects, you know, with partners.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. Very partner driven, and you just, you know, as we talked earlier a little bit about that, it's really fascinating. So I know we're looking forward to diving into, some of these partner stories. Rudy?
Rudy Rodriguez:Yeah. Well, Gerry, I really enjoyed reading the story you submitted, so it's always great to hear partnering stories. I'm a very strong proponent of that. And having been a member of IAMCP for over twenty five years, I really enjoy the partnering stories. So in the in the showcase that you're about to tell us, can you tell us a little bit about the client?
Rudy Rodriguez:And you don't have to give us any names, but can you share about what the size of the company was, the industry, and the technology that you implemented?
Gerry Powers:Sure. Basically, the story that we won the or the the customer that we won the the award for, was a start up business. They were in the heat pump, servicing industry. So heat pumps would be pretty popular now as kind of we're trying to migrate away from fossil fuels and and to become more sustainable, heating for the houses, etcetera. And, basically, they had the the guy who set up the company had come from a manufacturer of heat pumps, and then he decided to set up a a business servicing this this heat pumps, because, obviously, the manufacturer was getting calls regularly from customers saying, hey.
Gerry Powers:You know, I've bought this heat pump from you. You know, it needs a service. Can you recommend anyone? So it was a pretty good, like, strong kind of case for a start up. And what he had also had experienced that that, heat pump manufacturer who are also actually a customer of ours, they were being have been using Business Central for ten years.
Gerry Powers:And I was actually involved with when they they were getting going, and they're again, just a segue, but they were a company that had grown from three people when I first met them in 2009, 2010 time frame, to now there's about 500 people around, six countries around Europe. So real fantastic growth story. So, anyway, this is a kind of a spin off from that particular business, around servicing heat pumps. And what they knew from their experience of using Business Central was that from day one, they wanted to automate as much of the business as possible. So they designed the business around the technology, which was quite a nice, opportunity for us as a kind of a greenfield show.
Gerry Powers:A lot of the issues, as you'd know, from implementing business applications is that you're you're dealing with a lot of legacy issues and, you know, data migration and all this stuff that, you know, historically kinda hampers the the implementation. Whereas in this case, it was a greenfield. They had no technology, very few customers, and they knew exactly that they wanted to automate everything. So it was very clear as we were kind of mapping the process flows how we were gonna be able to use Microsoft technology to, answer their issues and and give them a solution.
Anthony Carrano:So the you said something really interesting that, they designed around the business, around the technology. Isn't it usually the other way around? Yeah
Anthony Carrano:Maybe unpack what that was like a little bit.
Gerry Powers:Sure. Well, it was just one of the advantages. I mean, usually, like I say, you and this is, you know, I always say Microsoft has very much a philosophy around, you know, pile them high, sell them cheap. You know, they wanna sell their software to as many companies around the world as they can. Right?
Gerry Powers:And so they're trying to create these standard applications that every company in the world wants to to use. But the reality is that no two companies, even in the same industry, are the same, and every company has, you know, something that, you know, is different about it. And, you know, a lot of times, the companies themselves think, oh, we're just so straightforward, simple, but they never are. Right? And a lot of that comes from just historical.
Gerry Powers:Like, this is the way they've been operating for a number of years, and they either have systems that are old and because of those systems, they have to do things a certain way. And then you're always trying to shoehorn the technology in, you know, the new technology into to to kind of still mimic the way they operated in the past. Whereas in this particular case, because it was a start up, they had no history. There was no, nothing to replace. It was brand new.
Gerry Powers:We were able to start with a blank canvas, and we were able from the very get go to kind of work out, okay. So this is what you're trying to achieve, you know. And in their case, it was quite straightforward. Basically, customers are calling them up or going to their website, and we're booking servicing for their heat pumps. And it was kind of like, okay.
Gerry Powers:So how do we you know, what do we need to do? We obviously need to, you know, get paid, so you collect the credit card. We need to, book the appointment. You need to give them options around the booking the appointment. We need to basically tell the field service engineer where to go.
Gerry Powers:We need to be able to calculate the distance, you know, that the field engineer is gonna have to go from where he is to where they are and back again and block out their calendar. And then we need to, basically be able to build all this and and have invoices. And, obviously, if their spare parts are required, the field service engineer needs to be to order those spare parts and be able to either, you know, have them in the boot of his car and use that as a warehouse or, order them, come back again, etcetera etcetera. So we were able to kind of to kind of we didn't have any constraints around, you know, this is the way they had been doing it, and therefore, we were gonna try and mimic that. We were able to kinda say, no.
Gerry Powers:Let's just start from, the start the way we wanna finish, I suppose. And, and that's why it was very successful.
Anthony Carrano:And can you share, have you been able to kinda go back to, to the client and see kinda, like, how this has been successful? How they've been able to measure success from that? And if so, can you share a little bit about that?
Gerry Powers:Yeah. I don't have- so I have another story that I did actually have some metrics that you can maybe talk about as well...
Anthony Carrano:Yes to that one. Okay.
Gerry Powers:So we told about that one, but, I can just tell you in this particular case, the start up, so this, god. I'm just trying to remember the dates now, but I'm pretty sure we began the project in 2021, and it went live kind of, you know, middle of 2022, that kind of time frame. They were they they sold the business, just six months ago. So they've had a it's been a it was a very successful, from start up to, acquired by a a bigger business, and I think it was a that was a great result for all the shareholders in the business. So in terms of the technology, I mean, one of the things that was, again, a bit of a little bit of a constraint for us, and this is something, you know, which we can, again, touch on in terms of Microsoft, but field service was one of the apps that they were using for their field service engineers, and then Business Central was the kind of the engine of the the billing and the the kind of the inventory and all that.
Gerry Powers:And there was no actual seamless connection between the two. So Microsoft were quite of even though they're both Dynamics 365 applications, there was only recently in wave two 2024, that connector was released. So, we had to basically build the plumbing between the two applications when we went live. So I suppose the long winded way of saying to you that they're obviously very happy with the application because they've just invested in us replacing that plumbing with the, plumbing that Microsoft now provides. So now the the two applications are seamless, and they're all in the data verse as as kind of advertised.
Anthony Carrano:Well, Gerry, that's a fantastic story. I really appreciate you sharing, that story from when you guys won the worldwide award. But I also know, like, during preshow, you were sharing a really another really cool story about I guess you guys were partnered and worked with, the largest retailer in Ireland. You gotta unpack that for us here.
Gerry Powers:Yeah. That was great. So the biggest grocery chain in Ireland, and they had a new part of their business, which was around gift cards. And, they were kinda managing the sales of these gift cards, etcetera, on Excel spreadsheets.
Rudy Rodriguez:Yeah.
Gerry Powers:But the business was growing to, you know, quite a large, volume. So, we were able to, propose a solution based upon Microsoft Dynamics 365 sales and also, Power Pages, which is the kind of portal technology. And the the key there was, because the brand is a very strong brand, that when users would go to the website to order the gift cards, that they would have that brand image across the experience. So Power Pages had to kind of so it it's basically just a section on the website that turns into a Power Page. But if you're actually buying a gift card on their website, you you wouldn't notice the difference between the the normal site and this particular section.
Gerry Powers:So it was a really good job of kind of, keeping that brand integrity across the experience. And then, obviously, having the back end Dynamics 365 as the storage for the customer details and the gift card details and the balance of the gift card balance, etcetera. And so that that was a really good project.
Rudy Rodriguez:That's really interesting. I mean, I know that's a big thing for a lot of retailers right now is selling those gift cards.
Gerry Powers:Yeah. And in their particular case sorry. It was just because you'd asked earlier about metrics, and I had kind of prepared some that they've kinda grown by, 10% in terms of sales in the last- this Christmas is their big busy period, and that was their second time kind of having the system live for for that busy period. So they were up by about 10% of gift card sales, but the the really impressive was their e-card sales was up by 65%. So, you know, it was a a fantastic, I suppose, a testament to, you know, what, putting a system in to automate the process can deliver.
Rudy Rodriguez:So are customers able to check their balances? You you mentioned that, online as well?
Gerry Powers:Absolutely. So it's basically all tied into a management of your your card. And, I suppose the big part is, you know, because these are gift cards that, ensuring that they were, you know, activated and that the giver was kind of properly recognized. So that was the an important part of the the process.
Rudy Rodriguez:That's really great because that's- I know that's a big moneymaker and understanding the balances. That drives a lot of customer satisfaction as well because they wanna know if the cards are if there's any balance on it, if they're live, and how much they have remaining. And that drives additional sales as well.
Gerry Powers:Absolutely. And then on top of that, next year, it's they're they're looking ahead to that there's, that the corporate gift, so for employees and stuff coming up to Christmas, you know, as a kind of a reward or recognition for employees that there's a new tax rate base rebate increase, which is gonna again, you know, increase the kinda e-card and the gift card, volumes. They're looking at between 30% and 40% increase next year.
Rudy Rodriguez:That's really great because that drives a lot of customer loyalty as well. A lot of customer loyalty. That's great to hear. Great to hear. How long did it take you to implement all that?
Gerry Powers:Oh, that project was I mean, you know, it was kind of in a three to six month kinda it was more around six month, really. But, again, a lot of that was the process. So this was the first time that this, retailer had ever implemented a Microsoft business application. So it was brand new to the company. They'd worked with Oracle.
Gerry Powers:They'd worked with, you know, other technologies before, but never Microsoft. So there was a quite a good education component to it in terms of even just, you know, educating the IT team on how you provision users and, you know, add the licenses to users. All that was brand new to them. So that that kinda delayed it a little bit. But, yeah, we were on like, the the big thing was to be live for the Christmas period.
Gerry Powers:It was October the the year before. And then this year, they would just went through their second Christmas period, and it went really well.
Rudy Rodriguez:That's really great. Is that driving any other Power BI type business to give them more more, more reporting on on the, you know, on the success of the program or anything else?
Gerry Powers:We hope so. Yeah. That's always the hope. In their particular case, they acquired a app business, and they're now kind of very focused on bringing that kind of app business into their retail solution. So, we'll have to wait and see.
Gerry Powers:But, I mean, it's certainly it's helped us with other customers and talking about the story and and, you know, everyone would know who they are, in Ireland particularly. And, so it gives other customers a lot of confidence that we've worked with them, that they'll work with us.
Rudy Rodriguez:So do you use that... have you created a case study for that that, you and your sales team could use to help drive additional business?
Gerry Powers:Unfortunately, this particular company are quite publicity shy. So, which is why I'm kinda not mentioning their name or or, but so we're not. But look. We, obviously, you know, tell people we're talking to who we're working with, and their reputation precedes them. So, that in itself is great for us.
Rudy Rodriguez:Anthony could show you a story as to how we do that to not mention names, but get that story out. So yeah.
Gerry Powers:Yeah. Well, we'll have to, yeah, learn from that book.
Rudy Rodriguez:Yeah. No. There's a great opportunity for you. So that's very, very positive. So how did you find that customer? Was that on your own efforts, or are you working through another partner on that? Or you tell us a little bit about that.
Gerry Powers:Actually was with Microsoft, actually, which is great. So Microsoft, Ireland's so Microsoft's EMEA headquarters are based in in Dublin. Okay. So they have about 3,000 employees working in Leopardstown, which is very close to where we are. And, of that then, there's the Irish subsidiary, which would be about a 20 people or so.
Gerry Powers:So we'd be be quite, well connected, with the Irish subsidiary. And one of the, kind of account managers there, who was very, good to bring us into the, or introduce us into the customer.
Rudy Rodriguez:So that's part of the co selling with Microsoft. That's great to hear.
Gerry Powers:Exactly.
Rudy Rodriguez:Great to hear.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. That just opened up some other questions, for me. I mean, because I know you're a very, you know, a partner driven company. So what are some things like, what's your criteria for selecting a partner, you know, as a participant for the solution?
Gerry Powers:Yeah. So yeah. So this we actually have, partner to partner, relationships with five partners, currently. And our criteria I mean, it's very, very much the first thing is horses for courses. So, basically, we see what the issue is, what you know, what's the problem we're trying to fix, and that determines pretty much which partner we're gonna bring the opportunity to or who we're gonna work with.
Gerry Powers:I mean, we've one kind of core partner. CTAS is their name. They're based in Chennai in India. And, Murali, who's, just a super guy, he, and I kinda first got acquainted back in 2016. So we've been kinda working together since then.
Gerry Powers:Ninety-percent of the work we're doing is with CTAS, but, you know, there are other opportunities. I mentioned SAP, for example. There's another company called Synovia who we do a little bit of work with. And, anyway, like I said, it's horses for courses is the first thing. And the second thing, though, is really about the customer, and it's just which customer is going to want to work with which partner.
Gerry Powers:And it's kind of identifying, obviously, the budget that the customer has, you know, the size of that customer, and then really the key pieces, the culture of that customer. You know, what's their what what are they like? You know? And what do they like? I mean, the you know, you get a good feel for that.
Gerry Powers:Like, I've been, like I said, doing this for twenty five years, so I'm able to pretty much decide quite quickly who's the appropriate partner and and take it from there.
Anthony Carrano:I love that phrase. Horses for courses. So of all the interviews I've done, nobody has actually used that. At first, I was like, what is he talking about? But then as you explained, it's like, ah, I gotcha.
Gerry Powers:Yeah. You got some horses who are good in the on on web brand and-
Anthony Carrano:I gotcha. I gotcha. I was tracking with you as you started unpacking that. I was like, okay.
Anthony Carrano:Yep. That's great. So, with I mean, obviously, you know, being a, you know, twenty five plus year, you know, veteran in the space, I mean, you were making a decision you know, business decision for, you know, for your company, YesDynamic. Why the decision to sell, like, as a partner driven versus a focus on going direct?
Gerry Powers:Yeah. So I kinda mentioned that earlier that it's really to be aligned with Microsoft. So, basically, Microsoft drives the whole market that drives the industry. I mean, we mentioned earlier about AI. I mean, they're driving AI. I mean, that's just they're bringing everyone screaming along with them. That's just the way it works. We want the whole idea behind the business model is to align absolutely with them, and what Microsoft are interested in is license revenue. So I wanted to build a business that's around license revenue because that way, we're gonna be aligned as close as we are to the way they're going and and what they're doing. And that strategy is it's just kinda worked out, in terms of, you know, I think the market was ready for it. So it's good timing.
Anthony Carrano:And then kind of a little bit more of a piggyback on this because I know you, you know, you mentioned, like, for earlier when you're talking about working with the largest, you know, grocer, you know, there in Ireland and how that was through a co-sell with Microsoft. I know we talk with a lot of partners who and we even get a lot of inquiries from, you know, different companies like, "Hey. Can you help us, you know, be aligned with Microsoft?" And we wanna get more co-sell, you know, motions with Microsoft. What I know you probably know the first thing you're gonna say is, you know, make sure you're aligned with what Microsoft wants to do.
Anthony Carrano:So in addition to that point, right, what are some other recommendations, that you would have for partners who wanna get, you know, have more co-sell opportunities, you know, with Microsoft to be to position themselves to have those kind of opportunities?
Gerry Powers:Well, in terms of I suppose, you know, look, the the biggest advice or the best advice that I, got was that, you know, the sellers that you're working with at Microsoft, all of KPIs, and, to understand their KPI. Because sometimes their KPI and and your KPI are not the same. So you you try to make sure you're helping their KPI. So that's one thing on a kind of practical level. But I think the business application space in particular is quite confusing.
Gerry Powers:And I think what we've done quite well is we've worked very well with the sellers to make sure that they're positioning the right product for the right customer. And that involves, you know, understanding what the customer is trying to achieve. So, you know, we invest quite a bit of time in that, making sure you know, it's all part of the qualification process, but it's also making sure that, you know, we're not selling them, you know, finance when Business Central is appropriate or that, you know, we're selling them a PowerApp instead of a sales professional license if PowerApp is gonna do the the trick. It's not always that the smallest the cheaper solution is gonna be the best. I'm just saying that there are examples of helping Microsoft to right size the solution because there's a kind of a generally, in in Microsoft, there'd be a kind of tendency to, you know, whatever is being pushed from down on high to kind of bring that out to market, and that's not always what the customer needs.
Anthony Carrano:Oh, that's excellent. Excellent advice. So as, you know, being a partner driven company, I'll let you kinda be curious to see, you know, you can answer this how you want, whether you wanna, you know, share about your experience in the story that you won, you wanna address it specifically, with the, you know, working with the largest, you know, grocer there in Ireland. Or if you wanna answer it, maybe just taking a step back and addressing it maybe in the macro. What are some, like, the challenges that you experience in some of these engagements, you know, being a partner driven company? And, you know, if so, how do you work together to, to to overcome those?
Gerry Powers:To be honest, where I pick whatever example I was picking, it's always the same issue, which is communication. Right? So communication is and this is the same, you know, you know, and kind of what I just said there about, you know, right fitting the solution. That's a communication issue. You know, it's not a product issue.
Gerry Powers:It's an actual communicating with the customer to, like, understand exactly what their need is and then get the right solution for it. And in the same way in delivering implementations, you gotta make sure that that communication between the customer and the delivery partner is in sync, and that's just the cause and battle. That's the, you know, that's the challenge that we have to overcome every project that we're working on. And, you know, we do that. We've kind of brought in stricter processes, around the kind of project management of application, you know, having guided guardrails and just, you know, checkpoints throughout the project.
Gerry Powers:And then a key part of that is improved documentation as well so that we're backing it up with actual physical documentation that kinda supports, you know, what we're saying we're gonna deliver or what we're, you know, to to keep the expectations in line. And I suppose that'll be the final thing about communication is expectation because if the customer's expectations are out of whack with, you know, what they're getting, they're gonna be disappointed. So you have to communicate early on exactly what the, you know, expectations should be. I'm a firm believer in under promising and over delivering. You know? So promise less and deliver more, as as much as you can.
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. Yeah. No. That's excellent. Excellent advice.
Rudy Rodriguez:So, Gerry, you know, just a little while ago, you mentioned the the two letter word AI. And then what do you see on the horizon? How do you see AI affecting your business? And and how are you preparing your company to be ready for the onslaught of artificial intelligence?
Gerry Powers:Yeah. Well, that's a that's a loaded question.
Rudy Rodriguez:Right?
Gerry Powers:Yeah. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, firstly, we have no choice. Right?
Gerry Powers:So, like I said, you know, Microsoft's driving it, so we're just gonna have to follow what's coming. You know, I think at the moment, we're still in the hype phase where there's an awful lot of talk about AI. And, obviously, you know, I now use Copilot, you know, for searching. I don't use search engines anymore.
Gerry Powers:I find you ask a question, you get an answer. That's fantastic. We do a little bit of, you know, drafting, you know, responses and proposals and the like using AI is quite good just to get you started. So you can already see some benefits. But, obviously, the the big or the first real kind of innovation that that Microsoft have brought together or that that we've been been able to kind of review is this sales order agent, which is coming in Business Central.
Gerry Powers:And that's an agent who can basically take an order, so an inquiry from a customer. So the customer will send an email into it. An email will have to go to a specific email address, saying, "Hey. Can you give us a price for this particular product?" And the AI will go back and forth qualifying that opportunity and then pulling the price, giving a response to the customer.
Gerry Powers:And then when the customer's ready to order, a human comes it gets notified and gets involved in the, sales process. So that's a really specific example of, you know, Microsoft taking this technology and applying this to a general use case that most companies should be able to avail of, particularly someone in the distribution type business, where they get a lot of inquiries for for pricing up, you know, standard products. So I see that as being a huge differentiator between Microsoft technology and other products. Like, I don't see the other, vendors having that kind of agent baked into their product. I mean, I know Salesforce have a customer service agent for on the customer service side, but sales is such a key component, and a very kind of, manual, kind of human heavy kind of, process that if you're able to get an agent to do it, that's gonna be a big win.
Rudy Rodriguez:No. That's great. I do and I've seen it in action. I have a neighbor who worked for a computer manufacturer and how he was able to use that for getting price quotes out so much faster and how much that's helped him in his business. And so there's a lot of improvements, but there's still a lot of trepidation out in the marketplace right now as to what am I gonna do with this, especially in the SMB space is, how are we going to use it? And that's a challenge for partners to be able to explain.
Gerry Powers:Well, absolutely. And, you know, again, it's like how is it actually you know, so that we've only seen it in the preview kind of demo kind of, environment. How it actually works in practice is something that, you know, I haven't actually experienced yet. And, you know, again, going back to that expectation thing, you know, we've gotta make sure that, you know, obviously, you know, you gotta tell a computer what to do. And if that process isn't clear, then the AI agent's not gonna be clear.
Gerry Powers:And so you've got to make sure that it's, you know, the customer knows that it's suitable for this particular, scenario. It might not be suitable for another scenario and to just make sure those expectations are in line with the reality. But I do think it's gonna, you know, you can see that innovation is happening so quickly. So, know, they're starting with the sales order agent. It's gonna move into the vendor order agent.
Gerry Powers:It's gonna, you know, then go into the item order agent, the warehouse order agent, etcetera. And so soon, you're gonna have these agents, like, specialized in particular skill sets across the stack, and I think that's quite exciting.
Rudy Rodriguez:Oh, well, we've seen the evolution over the last few years. Pretty dramatic. Pretty dramatic as to how it's affecting everything and how it affects especially larger companies, especially when you're talking about the order agents. I had the great pleasure of selling some of those in the in the past, you know, several years ago. And we took a a a soft drink manufacturer, was able to process orders, and people were I mean, the agents work night and day.
Rudy Rodriguez:They just never slowed down, and it really impacted their business. So it the cost was was not detrimental to the sale at all. It actually increased sales dramatically.
Gerry Powers:Well, that's the promise of it. And, I mean, to be honest, I've seen there was a presentation just recently on how, like, the vision kind of Microsoft seemed to have. And I mean, this is just, you know, in inverted quotes. So this is not, no no, secret information here, but it's where the actual interface that customers are gonna have to with the business applications is gonna be the Copilot or a kind of a, so in essence, like, where you would ask the Business Central, for example, to raise an invoice for such a customer and, you know, such and such quantities, etcetera, and the agent would go off and do that. That they seem to be kind of reimagining that whole interface of how customers will kinda interact with the business applications.
Gerry Powers:And that's really I mean, obviously, you know, I think that's a kind of a five year, six year development cycle, but that's the way it's going. And what I tend to, you know, see from my, again, experience working with Microsoft since 2008 is that they're very, very clear on their strategy, and it just, you know, it might not be obvious how it's gonna look now, but, that's the way they're going. Especially in the Business Central side, I really see it affecting accounts payable very dramatically. Very dramatically.
Gerry Powers:Well, you can see that even with the the way the, scanning the documents in there. That's now that used to be a kind of an add in that you would need to purchase. Now it's part of the solution. So that's the way they're looking at it as well. I think accounts payable is a key function.
Rudy Rodriguez:So as you're envisioning all these improvements in services, how are you educating your partners to help them, you know, sell and and get you into more accounts as well. Right?
Gerry Powers:Well, that's one of the things that we've been kinda lucky with the delivery partners that we're working with is that, you know and it was, again, you know, going back to the rationale of why this delivery model seemed to work well for us was because now you don't just have Dynamics as an isolated kind of, you know, so it certainly was in the case, and a lot of partners locally would be very much, you know, focused on one particular application, and that's all they would do is implement that one application. But, you know, through the two examples that we discussed there, it's it's across the stack. You know, you can't just do, you know, Business Central. You've gotta do Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, plus, you know, field service I mentioned in the first example. So you have to have that skill set across the full stack.
Gerry Powers:And that's obviously very difficult to do, you know, because the old expression, you know, jack of all trades, master of none. You know? So, you know, by having such a breadth of technologies that you gotta keep pace with and all these technologies are changing every six months as they're adding new features and functionality. It's very difficult to keep up and keep educated, and then you gotta do that across the whole stack. So that's even more challenging.
Gerry Powers:And so that's why, I suppose, the delivery partners we work with have the scale and the breadth that they have resources, you know, skilled in each of those areas. So and that was one of the reasons why, this, I suppose, you know, has been successful in that. Like I say, whatever problem's been thrown at us, we have been able to resolve it because we do have the skill set.
Rudy Rodriguez:That's great to hear. Very, very great to hear. You know, not every partner has goes through all that, and it's part of the growth experience of being a partner. Right? Part of the growth experience.
Rudy Rodriguez:Do you find that, your IAMCP partners are all that dedicated to to that growth and development of of their own businesses?
Gerry Powers:Oh, absolutely. I mean, everyone's trying to, you know, make sure that, you know, like, everyone sees, you know and again, it was it was one of the questions that have been asked was around, you know, what makes a successful partnership and having the aligned goals, you know, which we talked about with Microsoft. That's a really key one. So, you know, again, that for me is one of the big lessons is that, you know, we all are aiming in the same direction. We all know what we're trying to achieve, and, therefore, we'll work together. You know? Whereas if there's any kind of misaligned goals, that's when the partnership kinda break up.
Rudy Rodriguez:Oh, well, that's great advice. That's great advice to give any company, you know, in partnering. You know, that was one of the questions I wanted to ask. What advice do you have, you know, to give companies like yours regarding partnering? And you've given some great advice to the partners.
Gerry Powers:Yeah. And, I mean, the first thing I would I would say on that one, though, is I have down here a 110% trust. You know? So it's not even a 100%. It's it's even more than you know?
Gerry Powers:You have to trust your partner, you know, because once you lose that trust, then it's it's very hard to to make it work. So you, you know? And the second thing I had is a, you know, a friend in need is a friend indeed. So it's you know, you know, when you're not you know, it's when you're struggling, that's when that trust and that kind of partnership is most important. And then the final thing was just that it's a two way street, you know.
Gerry Powers:So, you know, we've had some experience of this of working with partners where it's been a kind of one way street, and it just doesn't work. But both partners have to, be getting something out of us. You know, it has to be a a quid pro quo. And once one partner tries to kind of dominate or kind of, exploit, I think is probably the best word, and other partners, it's, again, it's not gonna work, you know, because it's it has to be a partnership of equals and, and and and, two way street.
Rudy Rodriguez:That's great advice. Very, very great advice. Really appreciate that.
Anthony Carrano:Gerry, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate you taking time with us and just dropping a lot of, really good nuggets, throughout the episode. So as we wrap up, what are how are some ways that, where can people go to find out more about you and, just some of the things that YesDynamic is offering?
Gerry Powers:Yeah. So, obviously, our website, yesdynamic.com, is kind of the best place to, to to see the full range of products that we offer. And then, you know, LinkedIn, if they just look me up on LinkedIn and obviously, anyone, any partner wants to chat, just, you know, message me, and I'll definitely come back. And always always open to, you know, having a conversation. You know, something may come, but something may not, but it's you always learn something.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you once again, for being on the show today, and, have a great day.
Gerry Powers:Well, thank you very much for for having me, and it's been a real pleasure, to to meet you both and to chat with you both, and we look forward to chatting again.
Rudy Rodriguez:Look forward to chatting with you again too, and maybe we'll chat again on Saint Patty's Day.
Gerry Powers:Exactly.That's great.
Rudy Rodriguez:Have a great day, sir. Take care.
Gerry Powers:Thank you.
Anthony Carrano:Well, that was a great episode. I really appreciate, just the perspective and the advice that Gerry gave. It was really fun, especially hearing, from somebody over in EMEA and, just, just some of their thoughts and successes on P2P. In particular, Rudy, I just really thought his advice he just provides some great advice for partners who wanna have more co-sell opportunities with Microsoft. And as, you know, as you and I both know, I mean, we work with a lot of partners who want such a, you know, opportunities and we break these things down.
Anthony Carrano:But just to hear his perspective as someone who's successfully doing it and how he broke it down, he said, number one, you have to be aligned with Microsoft. I just, I just thought that was I mean, that was great. I mean, it's so obvious. But two, how he then mentioned how it's really important that you need to understand what are Microsoft's KPIs, and how are you gonna help them be successful. And that's part of that alignment piece.
Anthony Carrano:But then how you also balance that with, you know, the customer experience and making sure that you're right sizing, if you will, you know, what's the appropriate, you know, business, you know, application and just make sure there's a solid customer, you know, product fit. So that way, you know, everybody's successful in it. You know, his company, you know, has a partner successful, Microsoft successful, but also then the customer successful in that. And that's you know, those things really create a lot of those co-sell opportunities. So I really appreciated him sharing that.
Rudy Rodriguez:That was excellent advice that he gave and and especially on understanding Microsoft's KPIs. I found that very useful. The other thing that I found useful was his thoroughness in his approach with communications and building a strong communication stream with partners because you have to vet your partners. And he had a very strong vetting process in how he works with partners and building that trust relationship that's so so key to being successful. If you can't build trust with your partners, then you will fail.
Rudy Rodriguez:And so he had a great story there about how he he approached it and how where he learned it, how he learned it, and how he continues to practice that on a daily basis. That's just the key to success. I really appreciated that story.
Anthony Carrano:Well, it's also, you know, really nice to hear, especially someone who's, you know, is a twenty five year veteran and doing, you know, business applications through as a partner driven, you know, company. But, also, it was great just to get his perspective on the promise and the potential of, you know, the sales order agent and how, you know, this AI is not only gonna help customers and make an impact with their business, but also really greatly improve, you know, the customer experience and how, customers will have a have an opportunity and how what those interactions are gonna look like. So I thought that was really fascinating, and it's gonna be fun to see how, you know, this plays out over the next, you know, one, three, five year period of time.
Rudy Rodriguez:Absolutely. It was a great conversation with Gerry, and I hope our our our listeners really enjoy it. So in saying that, I wanna thank all of you for joining us on this episode of IAMCP Profiles in Partnership powered by Dunamis Marketing. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and find it useful and inspiring. If you did, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Rudy Rodriguez: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, visit the website @www.iamcp.org.
