230 - Decoding Partner Ecosystem and AI Innovation: A Microsoft Leader Shares All

Oguo Atuanya Join Ultimate Partner®

In this Ultimate Partner episode, I enjoyed welcoming a friend and leader into the studio for an insightful conversation. Oguo Atuanya, a General Manager within Microsoft GPS, leads the selling efforts for one of Microsoft’s most important segments, SMC – Small, Medium, and Corporate.

With over 20 years at Microsoft, Oguo shares his proven track record in global business strategy development, organizational culture transformation, partner ecosystem transformation, and reversing declining businesses. He is educated across three continents and integrates his diverse cultural background and rich career experiences to create effective global strategies, with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as core principles. He operates consistently on his foundational values: Integrity, Dignity, and Dedication.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode

0:02 –  Partner engagement and growth strategies at Microsoft. 

5:25 – Mentorship, family, and mental health awareness. 

11:24 – AI impact and Microsoft’s copilot technology. 

16:16 – AI adoption and transformation in a large multinational company. 

21:25 – AI, security, and partner success in the tech industry. 

25:39 – Microsoft’s mid-market strategy and partner channels. 

31:11 – Microsoft’s SMB strategy, partner engagement, and AI solutions. 36:33 – Partner engagement and success strategies.

44:15 – AI strategy and partner alignment for Microsoft’s new fiscal year.

https://youtu.be/kkM4xUq1pV8?si=yi0LE7rVtft-OnsW

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Transcript

Keywords:

partners, microsoft, ai, talked, cosell, isv, year, organizations, people, solution, opportunities, terms, strategy, impact, cloud, customer, journey, understand, smc, mentoring

Transcript (Generated by Otter A.I. – Please Excuse Any Typos) 

Jay McBain 0:02  

Microsoft’s purpose is in service of your purpose. And again, 2024 is the year that partners come out as the leading edge of the spear on finding this buyer intent you

Vince Menzione 0:13  

show up to every meeting and demonstrate why you are relevant every day, I have to force myself to make sure that I’m taking one step ahead in terms of my own earnings, that flywheel success is where you will build momentum. And that momentum will continue and then you feed into the other systems to say, this is what we did. This is how we did it together.

Vince Menzione 0:32
Welcome back to The Ultimate Partner. I’m Vince Manzi on your host, and I’m on a mission to empower every individual organization and partner to achieve their greatest results through successful partnering. Much of the discussion that we’ve been having is on the tectonic shifts, this decade of the ecosystem, the increasing dominance of the three hyperscalers the changing buying behavior, and the importance of the mid market, what Microsoft calls SMC small, medium and corporate, and this marketplace moment, I’m excited to be joined in the studio today here in Boca Raton, with a leader responsible for many of Microsoft’s largest partners, and is also driving the partner engagement in this mid market that is so important to the future growth and success of the partners working with Microsoft. A go out to Anya is our latest guest, a GM at Microsoft, and a leader that I’ve gotten to know and has been on the podcast before a Google welcome to the podcast

Oguo Atuanya 1:30  

events. Big thanks for having me again. absolutely a pleasure to be back.

Vince Menzione 1:33  

It is so hot. I’m so excited to have you finally in the studio looks great. But you got to be in the room when we just had our big event yesterday, we recorded yesterday, our big event types. And I’m glad you could stick around today, spend a little bit more time with us.

Oguo Atuanya 1:49  

Thank you

Vince Menzione 1:50  

have you have an important role. We got to know each other in fact, because I was working with an organization that was trying to figure out how to work with the partner ecosystem that you manage. But for our listeners, I want you to maybe double d