For Microsoft Partner Chief Dezen, 2024 Is About ‘Copilot, Copilot, Copilot’

‘The opportunity for partners to build, to sell, manage, deliver copilots for the variety of customer needs that our copilots serve is incredible,’ Microsoft executive Nicole Dezen tells CRN in an interview.

Nicole Dezen, Microsoft’s chief partner officer and corporate vice president of Global Partner Solutions (GPS), said that solution provider conversations with customers around copilots and artificial intelligence are also driving more opportunities for cloud adoption, improved security and customer data estate.

Dezen shared the trend and advice for solution providers selling copilot and AI products from the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant in an interview with CRN after Microsoft revealed new designations for “solutions partners” as part of its annual “state of the partner ecosystem.”

When asked by CRN about her biggest priorities for this year, Dezen kept it simple: “Copilot, copilot, copilot.”

Microsoft Partner Chief Dezen On Copilot

“The opportunity for partners to build, to sell, manage, deliver copilots for the variety of customer needs that our copilots serve is incredible,” Dezen said. “There's a ton of opportunity and lots of work for us to do across the entirety of the partner ecosystem around copilots, around helping them build their own copilots, by embracing Azure OpenAI.”

Even after revealing Microsoft’s latest designations, Dezen said the vendor – which reports having about 400,000 partners worldwide and is a member of CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs – will continue to invest in partner resources this year, including resources for training and small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

“We're actually increasing the amount of technical skilling we're putting in market in order to serve those needs,” Dezen said. “We've added bootcamps, events, certainly more webinars and in-person events, too. … SMB is an incredibly important segment to Microsoft, and we count on our partners to deliver excellence and customer success for the segment. So there will certainly be more coming.”

When asked if Microsoft will provide more license portability to solution providers – an issue hit by some solution providers after the roll out of new commerce experience (NCE) wherein solution providers run into issues bringing on a new customer if the customer is in the middle of a commitment with a previous solution provider – Dezen said there are “no updates on this right now.”

“We constantly look at the feedback that we get from partners, from the market and assess our offerings. That's actually how we got to the small and medium business path for solution partner designations. It was based on partner feedback.”

Here’s more of what Dezen had to say.

What do these partner program changes say about the importance of solution providers for Microsoft’s go-to-market?

There are two things that I talk to our partners about a lot – and I also talk to my colleagues about this a lot internally – one is when partners succeed, Microsoft succeeds. The two really go hand in hand.

And the second is, I've just never seen a better time to be a Microsoft partner. There is so much demand and momentum in the market around what we're doing for AI, and there is such an incredible opportunity for partners to capitalize on that, deliver their own innovation services, IP (intellectual property) capabilities, built on top of our AI platform.

And then we package all of the resources that they need to do that inside of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. … (These channel partner program updates are) a sign of our ongoing commitment to fuel and hydrate and aid in the growth of our partner ecosystem through our investments.

Are you seeing good buy-in from partners around Microsoft’s AI offerings?

The thing that really motivates me about the way that Microsoft has rolled out this AI innovation is that there is actually a role for every single one of our partner types to play.

Whether it's an ISV (independent software vendor) building new IP on top of our AI platform or services partners building, managing, delivering AI copilots, AI services for those customers.

We see our systems integrator partners in particular building so many different kinds of AI practices, including responsible AI practices. … We're quite excited about the new capability we're bringing into Windows and the AI PC with copilot.

We introduced a new key on the Windows keyboard for the first time in decades with the copilot key. So just across the ecosystem, there is a tremendous amount of opportunity.

There are a couple of examples that I've seen. And, my goodness, the use cases – every day, there is something new.

But two that I think can really resonate with a lot of people – one is work that EY did with Microsoft. They created a generative AI chatbot and this one helps business customers answer payroll questions. Employees from across the 159 countries and more than 49 languages that EY’s clients encompass.

Payroll questions can be so common. And it's not a good use of company resources to have to answer those individually. So the chatbot just makes a ton of sense and it's solving a very obvious problem.

The other one I think is really exciting is our partner Icertis, they're in the contract management space, they created a Contract Intelligence copilot. And this one helps customers navigate contracts in natural language as opposed to legalese language.

And then contracts become, really, assets to deliver insights and a capability to drive the business forward. So it's really about business growth and generation. It's quite exciting.

Do these partner program updates hint at future updates we can look forward to from Microsoft?

It's really important that our partners know that when we launch something, that's not the end of the story.

We're constantly looking for feedback from partners. We want to make sure that we're serving the evolving needs of the partner ecosystem and their ability to deliver the needs of customers – which are rapidly changing.

The second thing is we always have a roadmap. … I want partners to feel very confident that we're constantly looking at the ways that we can help them best meet the needs of customers, whether that's industries, which is part of the (new) solution designations we introduced … or through specific solutions as well.

Why are these designations important for solution providers?

It's a great way for partners to differentiate themselves with Microsoft.

Being able to showcase to a customer that a partner has a unique capability in an industry is very, very powerful and compelling. And it helps our partners to capture the attention of those customers.

That, plus the combination of the designations and specializations that they earned from Microsoft, it's a way of validating their capability and skills to the customer.

Any message to solution providers still trying to achieve designations they want?

There are multiple criteria for partners to earn designations. And they're all intentional and thoughtful so that we can be able to showcase to a customer that this partner has the unique capability and has done the hard work to achieve these designations.

I always encourage partners to fully leverage our skilling resources. And I would say they're actually heavily utilized – particularly in this moment of technology innovation with AI.

But it's something that is so meaningful, equally, to our partners and then to the customers in the partners’ ability to showcase that deep, technical understanding.

And so with that, we're actually increasing the amount of technical skilling we're putting in market in order to serve those needs. We've added bootcamps, events, certainly more webinars and in-person events, too.

Any message to partners still very early in their adoption of AI?

We are constantly adding to the resources that are available to partners in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. That is the destination for partners to seek guidance, resources, skilling, go-to-market tools, incentives and so forth.

And we really want to meet partners where they are in their journey. Some partners are still in early days. And some partners have been on this journey for a much longer period of time. And any partner regardless of their maturity in this space will have the ability to achieve their business goals with our program.

What I would say – and I say this to every partner that I talk to – is the very best way for them to be able to develop confidence, credibility, authenticity and experience with these copilots is to use them themselves internally.

The experience of not just deploying the copilots but using the copilots internally – discovering their own use cases, discovering the adoption and change management that needs to happen within their own organizations translates into several different things.

Deep credibility with customers because then they can say to a customer, ‘Oh, we use this ourselves internally. And this was my experience.’

Anybody at Microsoft can speak to their very favorite thing that copilot does for them. For me, it's the meeting summary in Teams meetings so that I know what the actions are that I got, even if I might have been multitasking in a meeting, as an example.

And so for partners to be able to tell those stories to customers with authenticity is great. It also helps our partners get creative and develop their own scenarios and their own use cases for the copilots they might want to build themselves.

And we're seeing more and more of that wave across the partner ecosystem.

Is GenAI a great argument for consolidation around Microsoft products or are customers wanting a multi-vendor approach?

Certainly, when a customer's data is in the Microsoft Graph, they're going to get more power and capability out of the copilots they deploy.

We will meet customers wherever they are, and we want to give them the tools to be creative, to be productive, to deliver business growth, whatever their goals may be.

One of the patterns we've seen that is building momentum and just makes sense is what I would call ‘departmental deployment.’

So if an organization buys 10,000 seats of Copilot for Microsoft 365, the implementations that partners are talking to us more and more about are by departments.

And that way you get the capability within the HR (human resources) department, within the finance organization, within the sales organization, to have everyone on the same page at the same state with their generative AI and their copilots collaborating together, being productive together, being creative together.

And I think we'll see more and more of that as things evolve.

What else are some of your big priorities for this year?

Copilot, copilot, copilot. This will not come as a surprise. We're not subtle about this, and we're quite excited.

The opportunity for partners to build, to sell, manage, deliver copilots for the variety of customer needs that our copilots serve is incredible. GitHub Copilot, it's non-negotiable now in the workflow for developers. We announced … the availability of Security Copilot on April 1. It will also be available in CSP (the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program), which I'm quite excited about.

So there's a ton of opportunity and lots of work for us to do across the entirety of the partner ecosystem around copilots, around helping them build their own copilots, by embracing Azure OpenAI.

And the other really, really critically important area for us to work with our partners right now is around cyber. It's more important than ever that customers have the ability to secure their data estate and count on enterprise-grade security.

And so we're quite optimistic about the way that all of this (comes) together.

Have you seen evidence of Microsoft AI having a ripple effect in spurring cloud business or other parts of the portfolio?

Wholeheartedly yes. These are the stories that partners are calling me, emailing me, excitedly sharing.

When you know partners approach a customer with a Copilot for Microsoft 365 opportunity, the best way for partners to do that is having a discussion about the customer's environment and their security posture, their data estate.

And so often a conversation that begins with Copilot for Microsoft 365 then translates into a Fabric discussion, a security discussion. And often a migration discussion because we've seen so many customers get quite excited about the productivity, the new innovation that copilot and AI in general can deliver for their business.

And the first question that partners will always ask that customer is have you migrated to the cloud yet? And sometimes the answer to that is still no, believe it or not.

And so we've made significant investments in our Azure Migrate and Modernize program to enable partners to help customers with their migration. … In July, we introduced a $100 million investment for Azure Innovate, which then enables the partner to do pre-sales and post-sales work around AI for that customer.

Some solution providers continue to tell CRN that they want to see license portability for new commerce experience (NCE) offers so that they can easily onboard a customer who left a previous solution provider – any updates to share?

There are no updates on this right now. But … we constantly look at the feedback that we get from partners, from the market and assess our offerings. That's actually how we got to the small and medium business path for solution partner designations.

It was based on partner feedback. Partners talk to us about the importance of them being able to showcase their capability to small and medium businesses.

Should solution providers expect more resources around SMB?

SMB is an incredibly important segment to Microsoft, and we count on our partners to deliver excellence and customer success for the segment. So there will certainly be more coming.

Any other updates for solution providers?

We're evolving what we had previously referenced as Microsoft Inspire. And I couldn't be more excited about this. This is all about better aligning with Microsoft Ignite, which is a tier-one customer event.

This is another example of us acting on feedback that we got from partners and customers. There's such a strong desire for partners to be in person with us and for partners to have access not only to Microsoft leaders, but to our customers as well.

It's our biggest event of the year. It's in November in Chicago. November 18 to the 22nd.