Scaling Smarter: AI, Talent, and Opportunity in the Microsoft Partner Ecosystem
Welcome to profiles and partnership, the podcast where we spotlight the people, ideas, and collaborations shaping the Microsoft partner ecosystem. I'm your cohost, Anthony Carano, and today we're diving into a story that sits right at the intersection
Anthony Carrano:of
Anthony Carrano:innovation, community, and growth. The International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners, better known as IMCP, has always been about one thing, helping partners succeed together. In today's rapidly evolving landscape, that mission has never been more critical. From shifting IT services demands to the ongoing talent shortage and the changes in Microsoft's cloud solution provider program, partners are navigating more complexity than ever before. That's why today's conversation is so timely.
Anthony Carrano:I'm joined by Dux Raymond Sai, Chief Brand Officer at AvPoint, to explore how their partnership with IMCP is designed to empower members to expand services revenue, scale operations, and lead their customers into the age of AI. We'll talk about AvPoint elements, partner talent services, and the exclusive benefits available to IMCP members, and most importantly, how this collaboration is helping partners transform challenges into opportunities. So whether you're a partner looking to grow your services business, a leader trying to scale your team, or simply someone passionate about the future of digital transformation, this episode is for you. Let's dive in. Well, Dux, welcome to the podcast.
Anthony Carrano:We're really excited to have you on with us today.
Dux Raymond Sy:Well, Anthony, Rudy, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to join you in this conversation.
Anthony Carrano:Yes, we're looking forward to covering a whole array of things as it pertains to with AvPoint, how it's going to benefit IMCP members. But before we dive into a lot of that, Dux, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Dux Raymond Sy:Sure. Hey everyone, my name is Dux Raymond Tsai. I serve as the Chief Brand Officer at AvPoint, where we provide the most advanced platform for data security in this new age of AI. And we're so excited to be working with a lot of channel partners around the world, helping them introduce new services offerings, especially a lot of your customers are beginning or maybe in the middle of their AI journey. For me, I'm a I'm a techie.
Dux Raymond Sy:I started my career in assembler. Maybe some of the listeners don't know what that is, but I was a coder back then. And then through my twenty plus years career in this industry evolved through doing sales and business. And today I have the great opportunity to serve the chief brand officer.
Anthony Carrano:Well, in addition to that, you know, with that extensive background, you know, ducks, I might be getting some of the details a little fuzzy. So you give me a little leeway on this one. But, you were at some point part of like the, with the national dragon boat team there in The Philippines. Tell us what's that for those of us who are not
Dux Raymond Sy:familiar with that. So I moved to The United States in 1996. I'm sure some of the listeners weren't born yet. But prior to that, I was born and raised in The Philippines. For those that may not be familiar, Philippines is in Southeast Asia, over 7,600 islands.
Dux Raymond Sy:And water is everywhere. And since a kid, I just love rowing, dragon boat rowing to be specific. It's a big sport out in Asia Pacific. And I think here in Hawaii, DC has a team. In a way there's water.
Dux Raymond Sy:So it's a boat with like 20 people and then there's what's called the spearman in the back steering the boat, making sure it's straight and there's a drummer in front. So I got the opportunity to be a part of the Philippine team. And because back then I was so skinny and small, I was a steersman. My job is to make sure the boat's straight. And I think the pinnacle
Rudy Rodriguez:of my career as a steersman is we ended up in like
Dux Raymond Sy:the Olympics of dragon boat rowing.
Anthony Carrano:Oh, wow.
Dux Raymond Sy:We competed against different countries. And I thought we won, but we won second to China by point tenth of a second. Because it's called both of us going through the finish line and I thought we won, but we didn't. But it was cool. I still have the newspaper clipping from Associated Press published in all the newspapers out there.
Anthony Carrano:Uh-huh. No. That's that's great. Now you're also now and I'm gonna tie this all into partnerships here. So you're also participating in the upcoming Marine Corps Marathon.
Dux Raymond Sy:Yes. Yes. In fact, this weekend here in DC, Marine Corps marathon is big, but this is special because it's a fiftieth Marine Corps marathon. And I'm gonna fess up. I'm turning 50, so it's a big deal for me to run the 50.
Anthony Carrano:50 for 50. That's great.
Rudy Rodriguez:Right?
Anthony Carrano:Oh, that's cool. So let's tie this in. So you've got one situation, you know, a background where you're, you're one of team, one of 20, excuse me, on a team in this dragon boat racing to the Marine Corps marathon where you're obviously, they're just, you're pushing yourself individually. What lessons about a partnership can you, you know, have you learned, you know, from both those experiences?
Dux Raymond Sy:That's a fantastic question, Anthony. I think just looking back through these experiences, there's three key areas around partnership, I think, that I've learned just being in these environments. So first, for example, in dragon boat rowing, where oftentimes going in, when I first signed up,
Rudy Rodriguez:I'm
Dux Raymond Sy:like, Oh, I wanna be an actual rower where I'm gonna sit in the front and I'm gonna row, I'm gonna row, I'm gonna row. So walking in, you have one mindset, but as you work with different teams and people and partners, realize, Oh, my strength is not in that. I'm actually better off being a steersman in the back because I have to consider what everybody else's strength is. So that's one. So the first lesson is you may have an idea of what you think you're good at, the other person's good at, but once you start working together, you realize somebody else is better than me on this part of the initiative and I'm better at something else.
Dux Raymond Sy:And we should be open to that. We can't be We should have that growth mindset and be open to changes and because you'll find out unless you work with people that you may be better at something else. So that's one important lesson. The second lesson with marathon, so to speak, I was actually peer pressured into running. So I'm at AppPoint for thirteen years now and a lot of our senior leaders are runners and marathoners.
Dux Raymond Sy:And I remember when I first joined Atpoint, you know, my boss, the CEO, he's like, Let's go running. We were traveling for a business trip. I'm not gonna say no because my boss wants, you know, my boss thought it was good to run. But then I grew to like it, right? So second lesson is we may do things that we don't like, we don't want, or we don't even expect that we're gonna do, but we end up doing and actually we like it.
Dux Raymond Sy:In some cases, we we we become good at it. Right? The partnership, be open to that as well. And last but not the least, I think for both of these things, partnership takes time. It's not just about the nice press release that's posted on social media, we have pictures together, we're partners, that's just step one.
Dux Raymond Sy:But now if you want partnership to work, we have to really work on it and talk about what are goals? Are the revenues we're trying to hit? Are we there yet? We got to track. If it's working great, if not, how do we pivot?
Dux Raymond Sy:Just like any relationship, we have to be in it for the long term.
Anthony Carrano:That's that's excellent. That's excellent. Just to kind of then piggyback on that kind of leading into this relationship between AvPoint and IAMCP. You know? So, you know, from your perspective, how did the partnership between AvPoint and IAMCP come about and what makes it unique compared to all the other alliances
Rudy Rodriguez:Sure.
Anthony Carrano:In that Microsoft ecosystem?
Dux Raymond Sy:Look, I've been involved in this ecosystem for over twenty years and very familiar with IMCP and the great work and impact it has on a lot of partners globally. I think we're in a very unique juncture, both in the industry, society, and partnerships in general. So I think there's three things that's unique to this partnership. First and foremost, what AppPoint and IMCP can do together to help our customers in the age of AI is very important. Because partners now are on the frenzy because historically, a lot of organizations or customers look at IT vendors or IT service providers as essentially, Oh, you got to back up my servers or you got to install this machine or set up this computer.
Dux Raymond Sy:But we're in a very unique time where we're sitting with our customers as a guide, a thought leader, so to speak, to help them in their AI journey. So I think that's number one, right? We're in the front seat helping our customers navigate through this time of AI and help them grow their business. So that's one big difference. And we're both doing that as a technology vendor and our partners as service providers.
Dux Raymond Sy:The second unique thing is what we want to offer to IMCP members is not just helping grow their revenues in terms of expanding their services in AI. So for example, know, a lot of our customers today, your customers are trying to figure out, okay, how do I get started with Copilot, right? It's not just about buying Copilot licenses or Gemini licenses. Well, partners can help them make sure their data foundation is ready. Are there content or data from twenty years ago?
Dux Raymond Sy:You don't want that because you don't want Copilot to pull up policies from twenty years ago. So how do you make sure your customers have good data quality? Second, how about good data security? If you ask Copilot, show me all the files I have access to with the word salary. You don't want to see other people's salary.
Dux Raymond Sy:That happens today because nobody's malicious, but all the permissions aren't set right on files and teams and SharePoint. So partners can come in and help secure that. And third is data governance. What's an information lifecycle, especially for customers that may be highly regulated, like in health care, government, financial services? Massive opportunity for partners because data fuels AI, which begs the question, that sounds great, Dux, but how do I do all that?
Dux Raymond Sy:This is where we come in as AppPoint, because we have the most comprehensive data protection and data security platform that partners can leverage and build services business off of it. And it's not just projects. Yeah, of course, there's initial consulting projects, but we have a lot of partners around the world building recurring revenue business on top of our technology. So that's the second one, increased revenue, right? So number one, be a thought leader.
Dux Raymond Sy:Second, increased revenue streams by new services, some of them recurring. The last part, which is very special, is we're helping our partners scale their operations. Know, AppPoint has been around twenty three years. We're a global business. We're in 17 countries across 25 offices.
Dux Raymond Sy:And oftentimes partners ask us, you know, apart from your technology, how have you set up this scalable business infrastructure? Well, because we're in different parts of the world, we're tapping into all kinds of amazing talent to help grow our business. So we want to make that available to our partners as well. Because partners may be interested in growing their services practices, but sometimes they get held back or stifled because I don't have enough people, I don't have the right people, I don't have the budget to hire every So single person I what we're doing here with this partnership is we're gonna provide talented folks across sales and marketing and technical, you want a developer, you want a project manager, you want a cybersecurity specialist, a migration engineer, we can offer that full time resource to the partner at a very, very minimal cost. So those are three things, right?
Dux Raymond Sy:Help partners become thought leader, grow their revenue and scale their operations, which is very unique in the industry.
Anthony Carrano:So I'm gonna put you a little bit on the spot as the Chief Brand Officer. You say you're a messaging guru. What's kind of like, if you were to give it like a sound bite, like an overarching vision for this partnership, because you've done a great job really succinctly, you know, breaking down, you know, the, the three areas, but something that, you know, folks listening can walk away with and say, okay, I got it. Like in this sound bite, you know, the vision, you know, for for this partnership as I'm helping, you know, IMCP members become frontier firms in the digital transformation, what would that be?
Dux Raymond Sy:Essentially, you know, we're helping partners expand revenues and scale operations.
Anthony Carrano:That's great. What now as you're as you're applying, you know, coming in and helping with that from your perspective and just with what you know about, you know, IMCP, and its members, what do you see are some of like the biggest pressures IMCP members face today as it pertains to this? We know whether it's the shifting IT services demand, talent shortages, adapting to, you know, the Microsoft changes, etcetera.
Dux Raymond Sy:Yeah, you hit the nail on the head, right? So if we think about the shifting IT service demands, look, with AI, a lot of companies or customers are reconsidering maybe there's some work that AI can do. I don't need to hire technology providers for, or not just technology providers, any kind of vendors for, right? So that's one. And a lot of
Rudy Rodriguez:the
Dux Raymond Sy:traditional IT services model is really under pressure. You've seen even companies as big as Accenture talking about this. Whereas what we can help and offer is that's true, but then let's introduce new services. Right? A lot of partners today, other than the traditional services like, okay, we'll back up your data, we'll do migration for you.
Dux Raymond Sy:Well, what? Everybody and their cousins doing that too. Their customers are so interested now in AI, they need help on how to begin the journey and make sure as they're continuing leveraging AI, making sure their data is secure and data is good quality. Talent shortage you brought up. Like I said, again, depending on where you are in the world, this is true.
Dux Raymond Sy:And apart from the talent shortage, it comes down to cost as well. A lot of partners have limited budget. As much as partners and service providers want to grow and hire as many people as they can, it's not realistic. So what we want to offer and help with is through our network of global talent, we wanna make that available to IMCP partners. And lastly, you know, everybody's changing, even the big hyperscalers.
Anthony Carrano:Mhmm.
Dux Raymond Sy:Microsoft's CSP changes was a huge blow, frankly, to a lot of partners. And we need to adapt quickly and and think about, okay, instead of continuing on this mode of reselling licenses or relying on on Microsoft product margins, what else can we offer to not only sustain but grow our business?
Anthony Carrano:Who would you how would you describe, like, what would be an ideal I was gonna ask, like, in a describe, an ideal partner. Sure. Maybe we could kinda talk about that one, but I'm like, let let's let's let's answer that question. But then also the one is just, you know, I think a lot about, like, for businesses that are, you know, you certain dealing with certain customer situations or at certain, like, inflection points where, like, yeah, I mean, you know, this is where, you know, half point. Right?
Anthony Carrano:So maybe kind of, you know, talk about that a little bit.
Dux Raymond Sy:Yeah. So let me let me paint two examples on how AppPoint can help every IMCP partner. So for example, so there are a lot of partners today, which is great are still managing their customers, Microsoft three sixty five tenant. And when I say managing, it's everything from a new employee, creating new accounts, to making sure passwords are being reset. Then they want to take on new customers as well.
Dux Raymond Sy:So a simple example, through our technology, we have what's called baseline management. Now, what does that mean? So I don't know, Anthony, Rudy, do you ever manage or set up a three sixty five tenant for a customer?
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. Rudy would be involved. I'm more marketing.
Dux Raymond Sy:So That's okay. Rudy nodded her head. Yeah. His head. Sorry.
Dux Raymond Sy:Yeah. So so I would imagine, right, I take on a new customer. Okay. What do I need to set up a three sixty five tenant? Well, I gotta go to Azure setup intra ID.
Dux Raymond Sy:Well, they need Intune. They need this, that. So that whole rigmarole doesn't matter how big or how small that organization is. That whole process would take a couple of days if I'm good for the customers to get going. Now those days equate to hours, man hours or woman hour, right?
Dux Raymond Sy:So we have a technology called baseline management as a part of our platform that as a partner, it's very minimal. It's like $20 a month per tenant. You can essentially apply a template. You can say, Oh, this customer's healthcare customer. Apply the healthcare template to this customer.
Dux Raymond Sy:It will do all the configuration in no more than an hour. And you can charge the same to the customer. One, you make money because now even if you build the same hours, the person's not really working that much time. But at the same time, avoid mistakes because setting up tenants, you go to all these different kinds of configuration, you're on PowerShell. And if you make a mistake, may have to start over.
Dux Raymond Sy:So that's one scenario. Not only you're helping your customer, but now your margins are more because you use our technology. And I can share examples after examples on how our technology can help you and grow your business with services. The other scenario in terms of talent, we have a partner where this partner landed a major contract to be the MSP, managed services provider, of a lot of different offices of a government agency around the country, which is great. It's like 200 offices.
Dux Raymond Sy:But the problem is part of the contract is they have to offer 20 Microsoft 365 support in always email, phone calls. And they try to look for a talent here in The United States. First, you know, the cost tier one support is about $70.80 grand on the average in The US. They couldn't find anybody that can do night shift because the contract's 20 fourseven. So working with a partner, we provided two night shift support resource, three sixty five, night shift East Coast time, and yeah, and and help their business.
Dux Raymond Sy:And the cost for those two, again, I'm just doing a estimate here, I think was around $7,000 a month for two full time resource working night shift. I don't think you can get that $7,000 even for one working night shift here. So those are just some examples and scenarios. So in short, if you want to scale your business in terms of using technology to grow services, we got your back. Second, you want to scale your business in terms of operation, getting right talent to support you, not just technical.
Dux Raymond Sy:I have a partner that we provide a full time marketing person. I have another partner we provided full time SDRs, doing outbound calls to book meetings, right? Because that's the other challenge. Some of our partners are like, I have all these leads. I just don't have time or somebody to call and book meetings.
Dux Raymond Sy:So we can help with that too.
Anthony Carrano:That's excellent. That's excellent.
Dux Raymond Sy:Ruby, I
Anthony Carrano:think you've got some questions.
Rudy Rodriguez:Yeah. Well, ducks, you know, some of the things that you've said, where were you when I needed you during the BPOS days?
Dux Raymond Sy:Right? BPOS.
Rudy Rodriguez:BPOS for those people who, you know, youngsters that are around today don't remember what BPOS
Dux Raymond Sy:was Back in our days, business productivity online services. Yeah.
Rudy Rodriguez:Yeah. Those were some tough days. Those were some tough, tough days. But but I I really appreciate what you've been saying because I really see the benefit of of the services. So I think you call your service AppPoint Elements.
Rudy Rodriguez:Is that correct?
Dux Raymond Sy:That's right. Our technology is called AppPoint Elements, and the way this technology is designed is designed for partners. So a lot of the capabilities we have that we built up in the last twenty plus years, we designed it specific to partners. So you could do things like what I described, baseline management, multi tenant management. You could do storage, data cleansing.
Dux Raymond Sy:So on a regular basis, you can go to a tenant and say, Hey, anything more than ten years old, archive it somewhere. We could do storage optimization, which is huge for customers today because storage is not unlimited in March. And especially with AI, more storage would be created. So we have a technology where partners create a service and say, Hey, we'll make sure your storage is optimized so you don't have to pay extra to Microsoft. I hope Microsoft doesn't listen.
Dux Raymond Sy:But we can take, you know, whatever's old, move it to cold storage or cheaper storage. Right? So we have all these technologies through Elements.
Rudy Rodriguez:So are you targeting very specific types of partners? You know, MSPs in particular, I I would guess?
Dux Raymond Sy:MSPs. We found that MSPs take advantage of this a lot. However, a lot of our SI partners are are leveraging this as well. For example, a lot of the initial CoPilot projects, so they use this technology to go ahead and look at the data estate, they clean the data, secure the data, and then they do CoPilot deployment for customers. So it's really SIs, MSPs that leverages this.
Dux Raymond Sy:And we're seeing a lot of SIs becoming MSPs as well. Because once they're in, they're in the project, they gain the trust, customers want to work with them. So they have a recurring business through our platform.
Rudy Rodriguez:Well, I see the real opportunity is for partners to be able to expand their services and create recurring revenue. So I really see that. How much training does it take for a partner to get up to speed on AppPoint Elements?
Dux Raymond Sy:Great question. Frankly, the good news with AppPoint is not only to provide the technology, we provide the training. Typically, if you're doing it full time, the whole platform, you can learn in a week if you're technical, right? And not only that, in a lot of our some of our partners for their initial engagement, we have a team that helps them side by side in doing the engagement. So we believe that if the partner needs help, we could be side by side with you, train the trainer type of model.
Dux Raymond Sy:In fact, we even go as far as providing templates of statement of work. So it's not just the technical side, the sales, the marketing side. We want to equip partners because these are new line of services. And frankly, these are the things that we've done with our direct big customers. So similar to Microsoft, we work with a lot of large customers directly, but after a certain size, we wanna work with partners and have the partners do services.
Rudy Rodriguez:Okay. Well, a little bit earlier, you mentioned a staffing component to your service. And we all know talent is a huge pain point for all partners right now where everybody's struggling with that. So how does Zafpoint's partner talent services address that gap and then what makes it different from traditional outsourcing and staffing models?
Dux Raymond Sy:Great question. So first and foremost, our talent services is only available to AppPoint partners. We're not a staffing company. We're not in the business of staffing. In the end, we're a software company.
Dux Raymond Sy:And we realize that the talent infrastructure we built for our business can greatly benefit our partners. Because in the end, if our partners' business grow in scale, it means they're gonna need more of our technology. So that's our goal. So that's number one. So you won't find us out there just selling talent and the partner's not using our technology.
Dux Raymond Sy:The second piece is how are we different? I've talked to a lot of partners. They're like, actually, Dux, I've tried this. You know, I went out, you know, I look for a staffing company overseas in LATAM, in Asia. Well, the cost looks attractive, but in the end it was challenging.
Dux Raymond Sy:I have to deal with labor laws, culture, all the HR related stuff. Well, for us, we take care of it because in all of these regions around the world, we have 200 people, 800 people. It's fully functioning because it's supporting AvPoint. It's not like we're gonna create this as a line of business. Even if we don't do this for partners, we're doing it internally.
Dux Raymond Sy:So it's a natural extension where if we help our partners grow in their business, our business will grow. So that's a big difference. And also all these individuals are Microsoft trained and AppPoint trained. So from an onboarding perspective, we essentially take care of everything. So it's a subscription model for our partners.
Dux Raymond Sy:And if it's in this ecosystem, the same level of quality and expectation we have internally is the same thing that partners can expect. Certainly partners are involved in the recruitment, in the interview, but we make it as easy and as simple for partners. So that's the second. And the last thing is, as I've mentioned, we're different than other staffing agencies because we're not a staffing agency. And what's driving this is we wanna make sure our partners are successful.
Dux Raymond Sy:We're already helping them with growing their revenues through our products and they build services. But we feel that it's valuable that we help them scale their operations and no other vendor is doing this. All the other vendor out there is like, Okay, you buy my product, build a service. How you run your business, I can't help you. We want to take it to the next step is we want to help you grow and scale your business with great talent at a at a lower cost.
Rudy Rodriguez:Well, you know, I I know AFPoint has worked with IMCP for many years. And so one of the things is this partnership that you've crafted with IMCP. Can you tell us is are there exclusive benefits for IMCP members? And just tell us a little bit more about the services, you know, how it's structured and and and how those how the fees work and incentives, you know, things like that.
Dux Raymond Sy:Absolutely. So like I said, we're very grateful to be working with IMCP globally. We're involved in a lot of different chapters around the world. So specific to this global partnership, which I'm really excited about, first and foremost, any IMCP member today or a new member, you will get a free license of our fly technology for migration for one project for up to 500 seats. And this is for everybody.
Dux Raymond Sy:There's a place you can sign up so you can avail of this. So from a technology perspective, you can take our world class migration technology and start using it for a project. And you can make money off of it you know, with our technology, that one technology for free. And certainly we would love for you to check out all of our other capabilities in Element as well. So that's one, that's exclusive to IMCP.
Dux Raymond Sy:The second exclusive thing is we waive our placement fee for talent services. So typically for every talent that we place for a partner, we have a placement fee for $2,500 So we're gonna waive that for every member, for IMCP member. So if you end up availing of our partner talent services capability as a partner, You know, once you hire the talent, all you're gonna pay for is the is the monthly fee for that talent. That's it. No placement fee, which is 2,500 for every talent.
Rudy Rodriguez:Wow. That's great. Well, you know, those are great incentives. Those are great incentives for partners to adopt your services. Can those services those incentives accelerate help partners accelerate the adoption and impact, you know, for their business?
Dux Raymond Sy:Yeah. Absolutely. Because we've worked with a bunch of partners already, both on our technology side to grow their revenue and also on the operational side to help scale their team. And we've seen, you know, partners getting the ROI because it works together, right? As as as your business grow as a partner, it's natural that you need people.
Dux Raymond Sy:And and what's holding back a lot of partners is I I spoke with another partner last week. He's like, boy, I wanna do more of these advanced AI services, but I still have all these migration projects I have to do. I'm not gonna turn it away. I go, understood. And we ended up discussing.
Dux Raymond Sy:He's like, can you get me a migration engineer? I go, yeah. So he's gonna hire a migration engineer full time. They'll do all the so this partner will continue to take on migration projects and work. But now this partner will expand into a lot of these new AI services like AI data readiness, data security, AI adoption services.
Dux Raymond Sy:So now it's an opportunity for them to open a new line of business while still continuing existing business that they get.
Rudy Rodriguez:Well, is a really exciting program, I must say. I've been around IMCP since before Windows '95, so we'll go a long time. But one the things that I see is these benefits that you provide can help our existing chapters attract and qualify new members into the program. Can you tell us a little bit about how you've worked with IMCP to help with some of those items?
Dux Raymond Sy:Yes, so what's exciting is as, you know, we're heading into Microsoft Ignite, for example. So this partnership will be shared throughout, certainly online, but also in the upcoming Ignite, and all the chapters as well to promote this so that potential new members can see, Oh, wow, when I join IMCP, I get all these benefits plus these new partnership with AppPoint where it can help my business right away. Certainly IMCP provides a lot of great value on thought leadership events, but this is very tangible. Again, I get a free license for own project on migration, I could go and do migration today. If I'm in mode of planning for next year, which a lot of partners are because you're now thinking about next year budgeting, who am I going to hire or skill set I need.
Dux Raymond Sy:This is a good opportunity for you to talk to us too. And so we can help you with that, you know, starting January. And again, the talent we have are across sales, marketing and technical. You know, happy to talk to folks about that and really excited, not just for current IMCP members, but potentially new ones that hears about this program.
Rudy Rodriguez:Well, these are outstanding benefits and it's been exciting to hear about all of these. Anthony, can I turn it back to you?
Anthony Carrano:Yeah. No, this has been fascinating. And so, you know, I know it goes without saying, you know, AI is shaping, you know, reshaping, I should say, the services landscape. I like you to kind of maybe unpack a little bit more about how how do you see IMCP members leveraging AvPoint's platform to position themselves, right, as leaders, in AI driven innovation.
Dux Raymond Sy:That's a great question, Anthony. You know what I find, and this is natural, right? For any new technology, there's a cycle. AI, initially people thought it was a hype. Ah, you know, it'll go away, which clearly is not.
Dux Raymond Sy:So now customers are looking into what's the impact. So what do I mean by that? So when customers start adopting AI or organizations, frankly, you and I as well, we start thinking, okay, how can it help us save money? That's the original pitch. Oh, with AI, with Copilot, reduce two hours a day or five hours a week, what have you.
Dux Raymond Sy:And that's fine. That's today, those are low hanging fruits, you know, recording meeting, writing emails, what have you. But then the power now is thinking about how can AI dramatically shift and change business. We hear stories now from healthcare, where they said because of AI in a few years, they'll figure out the cure for cancer, which is amazing. There's no way you can do that with human beings alone.
Dux Raymond Sy:The European Parliament, for example, now leverage GenAI and AgenTik AI, so all their archives in the European Parliament is made available to the public in any language, which is awesome. So to your point, right? How should partners think about AI? Number one, you got to think what the business impact is for your customers. That's number one.
Dux Raymond Sy:The second thing I want to bring up, and this is where immediate opportunities for partners is no matter how great the AI is, but if your data estate is no good, AI is no good. Sometimes we blame AI for hallucination, showing things they're not supposed to. Well, guess what? Because the data is bad, right? Imagine your customers, and I know this is true, when they moved to three sixty five, they didn't get rid of stuff.
Dux Raymond Sy:Stuff is still there from twenty years ago, fifteen years ago from VPOS. And then you ask Copilot, what's the latest policy on this, that, the other, it pulls up something from 2012. No good, right? This is an opportunity for you to go in. And by the way, not that customers don't wanna clean it up.
Dux Raymond Sy:They're like, where do I start? There's just so much it's like that TV show hoarders. Right? Like, don't know where to
Anthony Carrano:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Dux Raymond Sy:So we have that technology to help you. Right? Identify what's called redundant, obsolete, trivial data. That alone is a project. And we have a whole template helping partners how to do that project from our technology, the process, everything.
Dux Raymond Sy:Give you the playbook on how to do that. And then past that, that's not a one time job because people continue to create data every single day and AI will create more data. So that could be a recurring opportunity for you. And then data security. You know, today we share stuff left and right.
Dux Raymond Sy:Okay, let me share this Word document with Anthony, with Rudy. And then Rudy shares it with Lisa. Lisa shares it with somebody else. I don't know who ends up having access to it. And then that's why when you ask Copilot, show me all the files that have the word password or salary.
Dux Raymond Sy:I started seeing stuff I'm not supposed to. What partners can do, you can introduce a data security service where a monthly recurring revenue, I'm gonna make sure all your data is secure, only the right people see the right information, AI is secure, right? You can charge a few dollars, you know, per user per month. And we have a technology that does that.
Anthony Carrano:Fantastic.
Dux Raymond Sy:So these are just quick hits and quick examples of the opportunity today. What I'm saying is, sure, as technologists, wanna, Oh, I wanna create like this super cool AI agents. I'm gonna hook up CRM with SAP and run DMC. That's cool. But but but the need today is everybody's data estate is in a bad place.
Anthony Carrano:So now looking ahead then, is a lot of really just great things that are happening. What would you say? What does success look like for this partnership in the next, you know, couple of years, both for AvPoint and, you know, from your perspective for IMCP members?
Dux Raymond Sy:You know, for me, it's simple. Right? My, The conversation I have with IMCP leadership is, in a year from now, if we look back and partners truly grow their business as a result of this, that would be cool. If partners can say, Hey, you know what? Because of AppPoint Technologies and AppPoint Talent, my business grew x percent.
Dux Raymond Sy:That would be huge. Because if if IMCP members business grow, that means our business will grow too.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent. And we're gonna have in the show notes, we'll have all the relevant links on, you know, how people can get connected, learn more about this and whatnot. I'd like to kind of shift as just kind of wrapping up, you know, just, you know, our time together with a couple other just, you know, questions around brand leadership and and, and startup growth, especially just, you know, tapping into some of your experiences. You know, what's, what's interesting docs just as preparing for this, what I found fascinating was just how you went from a, like a very technical, like leadership roles, To, you know, leading, you know, global brand strategy at F, you know, and so, you know, as we're working with, you know, a lot of, you know, partners that are, let's say in the SMB space that are coming in very technical, right. But are trying to then grow their business and they're not as familiar with things around like brand and marketing and whatnot.
Anthony Carrano:What mindset, so specifically what mindset shifts or skill like evolutions were most critical in making that leap right for you from technical leadership to brand stewardship?
Dux Raymond Sy:Great, great question. I think there are two things that help me. Number one, it kind of ties back to your earlier question, right? What what I learned in dragon boat rowing and marathon is just be open to learn new things. Because oftentimes, in my initial transition, when I had to do sales, when I had to do marketing, like, I'm technical.
Dux Raymond Sy:I'm not sales. I can't do sales. I can't do marketing. But the blocker is just in my mindset. Now, certainly I have to learn.
Dux Raymond Sy:I have to learn about sales. I have to learn about marketing, but you just have to be open. So I think that's number one. You have to be open. And number two, everything can be measured.
Dux Raymond Sy:So when I shifted into marketing and branding, I think that's a cool part being technical. You wanna measure stuff, you're logical. Because what I found speaking with true marketers and true brand folks, they're like, Oh, you can't really measure brand. Didn't agree with that. So for example, for brand, at least here at AppPoint, we look at brand from three lenses.
Dux Raymond Sy:Brand awareness. The goal is we need to make sure people that don't know AdPoint should know AdPoint and we can measure it. For example, website views, social follows, right? And who are these people? Our customers, our partners, our employees, our investors.
Dux Raymond Sy:So awareness, we measure and track all that. Second is brand engagement. Specifically positive engagement. For those that already know AppPoint, we want to make sure they love AppPoint. How do we measure that?
Dux Raymond Sy:Well, we look at NPS survey from customers. We look at Gartner reviews, G2 reviews. We look at online what people say about us. Is it good? Is it not good?
Dux Raymond Sy:So we strive that we have positive brand engagement. The last one is brand advocacy. We want to make sure that not only people know us, they love us, but they talk about us. So think case studies. Think partners promoting, Oh, Appoint is great because due to their technology I made so much money.
Dux Raymond Sy:So those are the three areas how we track and measure a brand. So again, are the two advice I have is be open to learn new things because we can learn anything we put our hearts into it. And second, everything's measurable.
Anthony Carrano:That's great. And I got one more question for you, Dax. So I know as a mentor, right? For you being as a mentor for Microsoft, you know, for startups and, you know, working with, you know, seeing, you know, what's with SMBs, What common marketing or growth blind spots do you see? You know, just do you happen to see that, you know, as a common mistake amongst many, you know, small found you know, small company founders?
Dux Raymond Sy:I think that's a great question. So I think the common mistake, number one, there's two I find. A lot of, in our space, a lot of the founders are technical, which is in folks naturally gravitate to that and discount the value of marketing. And I think that's a mistake, right? Because it doesn't mean marketing, you have to spend a lot of money.
Dux Raymond Sy:You could be smart about it. Everybody has limited budget. But I think that's one mistake. Like a lot of technical founders and business owners do not value marketing at all. That's number one.
Dux Raymond Sy:Number two, I think the concept of, you know, people think about marketing, especially in our space, oh, it's B2B marketing. We're not B2C. I think that's not relevant anymore. I think marketing today is more around human connection. So let me give you an example.
Anthony Carrano:Well, it's because there are Cs inside of those Bs, right?
Dux Raymond Sy:Exactly. It's B to H, it's business to human. Let me give you a very simple example, right? I recall a few years ago, internally, we were gonna launch a campaign and I said, and this is maybe four or five years ago. This was, yeah, four or five years ago.
Dux Raymond Sy:I said, You know what? We're also gonna put this on Instagram and TikTok. And then I had some folks internally like, our audience is not there. I mean, we should just do LinkedIn and YouTube and use, why are you on TikTok? Why are we on Instagram?
Dux Raymond Sy:I go, I guarantee you every CIO at 05:00 on a Friday when they go home, they're doom scrolling on Instagram, or on TikTok, or they're on TikTok with their kids. Imagine if no other vendor out there is on TikTok Instagram but we are on a weekend as they're scrolling through dancing videos and then come Monday they jump on LinkedIn, they still see us, right? So my second point is it's about the human connection, You got to go where people are and don't stay in the box of Oh, we have to act and behave a certain way because we're a technology company. Mean, don't do anything stupid or illegal, but you got to go where people are.
Anthony Carrano:Exactly. Exactly. No, that's, that's fantastic advice. I really appreciate you taking some time to share that, those insights with our audiences. Well, has been great, Dux.
Anthony Carrano:Really, this has just been quite a learning experience. I mean, we're gonna have links on how folks can, you know, get connected to AppPoint, take advantage of this partnership. You know, as we wrap up, what's like the best way to for folks to kind of reach out and connect with you?
Dux Raymond Sy:Hit me up on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, X, Blue Sky. It's all in the same name, Meet Ducks. In all seriousness, thank you for this opportunity. And, you know, to all the partners out there, keep at it. And there's tons of opportunities and we're here to help.
Anthony Carrano:Excellent. Have a great rest of the day.
Dux Raymond Sy:Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, Rudy.
Anthony Carrano:That brings us to the end of today's episode of profiles and partnership. A huge thank you to Dux Raymond Tsai from AvePoint for sharing his vision and for his commitment to helping IMCP members thrive in the age of AI. What we've heard today is more than just a partnership announcement. It's a blueprint for how collaboration can drive innovation, scale, and resilience across the Microsoft ecosystem. By combining AvPoint's technology and talent solutions with IMCP's global community, we're seeing a model for how partners can not only adapt to change, but also lead it.
Anthony Carrano:If you're an IMCP member, I encourage you to explore the exclusive benefits available through this partnership. And if you're not yet a member, this is a perfect example of the kind of value and opportunity that comes from being part of this community. Check us out at www.iamcp.org to connect, learn and grow your Microsoft practice. Thanks for listening and as always, stay tuned for more conversations that celebrate the partnership's powering growth, collaboration and transformation across the Microsoft partner network. Until next time, I'm Anthony Coreno, and this has been profiles and partnership.
