Session Abstract

Join us to hear why so many Microsoft partners are terrible, and decide for yourself if you're with the leaders or the fools. Microsoft customers are taking charge of their own tech like never before. They're training their teams, hiring their own experts and independent consultants, and building AI, Power Platform, and Fabric workloads independently. Meanwhile, traditional workloads like ERP, CRM, and HRIS - historic rocks in most customers' IT ecosystems - are rapidly becoming less important than they've ever been. You may have even heard whispers that the Microsoft Partner is DEAD! They aren't. But where does all of this change leave Microsoft Partners in the years to come? Well, it's going to be really challenging. Some won't make it, but the smart ones that adapt well will thrive. Come to learn actionable insights on how successful partners are evolving today, how foolish partners are not, what you and your team can do to stay ahead and thrive as a next generation Microsoft partner in the years ahead, and - if you're a Microsoft customer - what you should be looking for in your next partner.

Andrew Welch

Ana’s husband and Alexandra’s dad :-) Also a cloud technology leader, Founder and CTO of Cloud Lighthouse, Microsoft MVP, speaker, published author, and regular writer of essays and white papers on cloud technology including the multi-edition “Crafting your Future-Ready Enterprise AI Strategy”, “Ecosystem-Oriented Architecture in the Public Sector”, “Power Platform in a Modern Data Platform Architecture”, “Scaling your Enterprise Cloud with Power Platform”, and more. I have served as CTO, global Vice President, Practice Director, and VP of Operations, and other tech and business focused roles at various Microsoft partners. I work directly with CXOs, Microsoft partners, Microsoft product engineering groups, technologists, investors, and global humanitarian and governance organizations to guide strategy and ecosystem architecture across the cloud. Previously I have led some of the world’s largest Microsoft adoptions on all seven continents (yes, including Antarctica), serving startup to Fortune 100 organizations, public sector agencies, and global NGOs.