March 4, 2025 • 44 mins
What does it take to build successful partnerships and harness the power of technology to drive business growth?
In this episode of IAMCP Profiles in Partnership, hosts Anthony Carrano and Rudy Rodriguez are joined by Gerry Powers, Managing Director of YesDynamic. With over two decades of experience in the business applications space, Gerry shares valuable insights into how his company has leveraged Microsoft Dynamics 365 to help businesses across industries thrive. From working with a startup in the heat pump servicing industry to empowering the largest grocery chain in Ireland with innovative technology solutions, Gerry’s experiences shed light on the essential role of collaboration, trust, and evolving technologies in driving success.
Throughout this episode, Anthony, Rudy, and Gerry discuss:
- Leveraging Technology for Business Growth: Gerry takes us through a fascinating case study of a successful project with a startup in the heat pump servicing industry. He highlights how YesDynamic used Microsoft Dynamics 365 to design a business solution that optimized operations and helped the company grow rapidly, ultimately leading to their acquisition. Gerry shares the challenges they faced, including the technical hurdles of integrating different Microsoft applications and how they overcame them to deliver a seamless experience for their client.
- The Power of Communication and Partnership Selection: Gerry emphasizes the importance of clear communication and carefully selecting the right partners. He shares how YesDynamic’s partnership with the largest grocery chain in Ireland was key to delivering a solution that met the retailer’s needs for gift card sales. Through a thoughtful approach to design, branding, and integration, YesDynamic helped the retailer improve their processes and achieve impressive results, including a 10% increase in gift card sales and a 65% surge in e-card sales during peak seasons.
- Trust and Collaboration in Partnerships: Trust is a central theme throughout Gerry’s journey. He shares that trust between partners is critical for success and explains how mutual respect and aligned goals form the foundation for long-term, fruitful relationships. He also highlights how educating partners to keep pace with technology advancements and supporting them through the learning process is essential for maintaining strong collaborations.
- The Promise of AI in Transforming Business Operations: As AI continues to shape the future of business, Gerry offers a glimpse into how artificial intelligence is already being used to automate processes and improve efficiency. He discusses Microsoft’s sales order agent and its potential to revolutionize the sales process by handling customer inquiries and pricing automatically, reducing the workload for human sales teams. He also shares his vision for how AI will continue to evolve within Microsoft’s ecosystem and its role in enhancing the customer experience.
- Building a Diverse Skillset Across the Stack: Gerry discusses the challenges and rewards of delivering solutions across Microsoft’s entire technology stack, including Business Central, Power Apps, Power Automate, and more. He reflects on the importance of continuously upskilling and ensuring that every team member has the expertise to handle diverse client needs, particularly in an environment where technology is constantly evolving.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the Microsoft partner ecosystem, business applications space, or those looking to understand the role of technology in driving business growth. Gerry’s insights on partnership, trust, and innovation will inspire you to think strategically about how you can leverage technology and build strong, lasting relationships with your partners.
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Episode Transcript
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Anthony Carrano (00:05):
Welcome to the IAMCP Profiles and Partnership,
the podcast that showcases howMicrosoft partners and IAMCP
members boost their business bycollaborating with other members
and partners. I'm your co-host,Anthony Carrano. And in each
episode, I'll be talking to someof the most innovative and
successful partners in theMicrosoft ecosystem. The
(00:26):
International Association ofMicrosoft Channel Partners,
otherwise known as IAMCP, is acommunity of Microsoft partners
who help each other grow andthrive. Members can find and
connect with other partnerslocally and globally and access
exclusive resources andopportunities.
Whether you're looking for newcustomers, new markets, or new
solutions, IAMCP can help youachieve your goals. We'll hear
(00:49):
their stories, learn from theirexperiences, and discover the
best practices and strategiesthey use to increase customer
loyalty and grow revenues.Whether you're a new partner or
an established one, you'll findvaluable insights and
inspiration in this podcast. Wehope you enjoy this podcast and
find it useful and inspiring. Ifyou do, please subscribe, rate,
and review us on your favoritepodcast platform. And don't
(01:12):
forget to follow us on socialmedia and connect with us on our
website,www.profilesinpartnership.com,
where you can find moreinformation, resources, and
opportunities to partner forsuccess. Thank you for
listening, and now let's getstarted with today's episode.
But before we dive into ourinterview, let me ask you a few
questions. As a Microsoftpartner and member of the IAMCP,
(01:34):
how are you developing yourpartner relationships to achieve
your business goals? Whatcriteria do you use to select
the right partner?
Finding the right partner can bechallenging, but it can also be
very rewarding. In fact,according to a channel
profitability study, Microsoftpartners derive margins 19%
higher than the next closestcompetitor. That's a huge
(01:54):
difference, and it shows thepower of partnering. So how do
you leverage the MicrosoftPartner Network and IAMCP to
support your partnerships? Andhow do you ensure success for
your customer?
These are some of the questionswe'll explore in this podcast
with the help of our guest, aP2P worldwide and EMEA Solutions
award winner who is also anexpert in partnering. He'll
(02:16):
share stories, challenges, andsuccesses and give you practical
tips and advice on how topartner for success. Are you
ready to join us on thisjourney? Then stay tuned because
we have a great show for youtoday. Our guest is Gerry Power,
the managing director atYesDynamic, an award winning
team of Microsoft Dynamics 365business application specialist
(02:38):
who implement and support thefull range of Microsoft Dynamics
365 business applications aswell as build power apps and
Power BI dashboards and automateworkflows with Power Automate.
Let's hear what he has to say.
Welcome, Gerry, to the podcasttoday. Really appreciate you
joining us.
Gerry Powers (02:58):
Thank you very much. Looking forward to it.
Anthony Carrano (03:00):
Well, excellent. Let's start off. Tell
us a little bit about yourselfand your role in the company.
Gerry Powers (03:07):
Sure. So I'm managing director of YesDynamic.
I've been working in the biz opsspace for over twenty five years
now, so feeling my age. And,basically, set up the business
after being, you know, ten yearsin the kind of, Microsoft
ecosphere and, really just sawan opportunity for a kind of
(03:30):
different type of model asMicrosoft to kind of migrated
their whole business to thecloud.
Anthony Carrano (03:35):
Excellent. Excellent. And, when did you
join IAMCP?
Gerry Powers (03:39):
Oh, in 2022. Alina Beba, I think it's Beba, had,
recommended us. And, there was alocal chapter that was just
starting in Ireland, so, it justseemed a good time to join.
Anthony Carrano (03:53):
Oh, wow. Okay. So you joined in 2022, and then
you wind up winning, andcongratulations, the worldwide
EMEA Solutions award for P2P.
Gerry Powers (04:04):
Yes.
Anthony Carrano (04:05):
Way to come in strong.
Gerry Powers (04:07):
No. I have to say it was, I was delighted, and our
delivery partner was delightedtoo. And it was a, it was just a
great accolade to, achieve, andand, we really thanked IAMCP for
choosing us.
Anthony Carrano (04:23):
Excellent. Excellent. So with YesDynamic,
maybe tell us a little bit moreabout YesDynamic, the areas that
you guys specialize in?
Gerry Powers (04:30):
Yeah. So, I describe this as a cloud value
added reseller. So the cloud'sreally important in that. That's
where we're really just focusedon CSP, so cloud solution
provider licensing. And, really,the the the important part about
that is that we're very alignedwith Microsoft strategy.
So, Microsoft's very much aroundlicense revenue, and and our
(04:51):
whole business model is based onlicense revenue. So that's the
first thing. The second thing isthat we provide all the business
applications. So, you know, it'sthe full range of Microsoft
Dynamics 365 applications, youknow, so you got Business
Central, which would be our heroproduct. But then you got
customer service, field service,you know, finance operations,
(05:11):
etcetera.
But on top of that, you you gotPower BI, you got Power
Automate, Power Apps. And,actually, just recently, we've
added SAP, a competingtechnology to the mix as well.
So it's really to provide a kindof full range of of,
applications. So when a customercomes to us with an issue or a
problem they wanna resolve, thatwe're we have the technology. We
(05:34):
have the tool the toolkit toanswer and and resolve that
issue.
Anthony Carrano (05:38):
Now I know, you guys do work, you know, you've
done a lot of projects, youknow, with partners.
Yeah. Very partner driven, andyou just, you know, as we talked
earlier a little bit about that,it's really fascinating. So I
know we're looking forward todiving into, some of these
partner stories. Rudy?
Rudy Rodriguez (05:59):
Yeah. Well, Gerry, I really enjoyed reading
the story you submitted, so it'salways great to hear partnering
stories. I'm a very strongproponent of that. And having
been a member of IAMCP for overtwenty five years, I really
enjoy the partnering stories. Soin the in the showcase that
you're about to tell us, can youtell us a little bit about the
client?
And you don't have to give usany names, but can you share
(06:21):
about what the size of thecompany was, the industry, and
the technology that youimplemented?
Gerry Powers (06:26):
Sure. Basically, the story that we won the or the
the customer that we won the theaward for, was a start up
business. They were in the heatpump, servicing industry. So
heat pumps would be prettypopular now as kind of we're
trying to migrate away fromfossil fuels and and to become
more sustainable, heating forthe houses, etcetera. And,
(06:50):
basically, they had the the guywho set up the company had come
from a manufacturer of heatpumps, and then he decided to
set up a a business servicingthis this heat pumps, because,
obviously, the manufacturer wasgetting calls regularly from
customers saying, hey.
You know, I've bought this heatpump from you. You know, it
needs a service. Can yourecommend anyone? So it was a
(07:13):
pretty good, like, strong kindof case for a start up. And what
he had also had experienced thatthat, heat pump manufacturer who
are also actually a customer ofours, they were being have been
using Business Central for tenyears.
And I was actually involved withwhen they they were getting
going, and they're again, just asegue, but they were a company
(07:36):
that had grown from three peoplewhen I first met them in 2009,
2010 time frame, to now there'sabout 500 people around, six
countries around Europe. So realfantastic growth story. So,
anyway, this is a kind of a spinoff from that particular
business, around servicing heatpumps. And what they knew from
(07:57):
their experience of usingBusiness Central was that from
day one, they wanted to automateas much of the business as
possible. So they designed thebusiness around the technology,
which was quite a nice,opportunity for us as a kind of
a greenfield show.
A lot of the issues, as you'dknow, from implementing business
applications is that you'reyou're dealing with a lot of
legacy issues and, you know,data migration and all this
(08:19):
stuff that, you know,historically kinda hampers the
the implementation. Whereas inthis case, it was a greenfield.
They had no technology, very fewcustomers, and they knew exactly
that they wanted to automateeverything. So it was very clear
as we were kind of mapping theprocess flows how we were gonna
be able to use Microsofttechnology to, answer their
(08:41):
issues and and give them asolution.
Anthony Carrano (08:44):
So the you said something really interesting
that, they designed around thebusiness, around the technology.
Isn't it usually the other wayaround? Yeah
Maybe unpack what that was likea little bit.
Gerry Powers (08:58):
Sure. Well, it was just one of the advantages. I
mean, usually, like I say, youand this is, you know, I always
say Microsoft has very much aphilosophy around, you know,
pile them high, sell them cheap.You know, they wanna sell their
software to as many companiesaround the world as they can.
Right?
And so they're trying to createthese standard applications that
(09:18):
every company in the world wantsto to use. But the reality is
that no two companies, even inthe same industry, are the same,
and every company has, you know,something that, you know, is
different about it. And, youknow, 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
(09:39):
from just historical.
Like, this is the way they'vebeen operating for a number of
years, and they either havesystems that are old and because
of those systems, they have todo things a certain way. And
then you're always trying toshoehorn the technology in, you
know, the new technology into toto kind of still mimic the way
they operated in the past.Whereas in this particular case,
(10:01):
because it was a start up, theyhad no history. There was no,
nothing to replace. It was brandnew.
We were able to start with ablank canvas, and we were able
from the very get go to kind ofwork out, okay. So this is what
you're trying to achieve, youknow. And in their case, it was
quite straightforward.Basically, customers are calling
them up or going to theirwebsite, and we're booking
servicing for their heat pumps.And it was kind of like, okay.
(10:24):
So how do we you know, what dowe need to do? We obviously need
to, you know, get paid, so youcollect the credit card. We need
to, book the appointment. Youneed to give them options around
the booking the appointment. Weneed to basically tell the field
service engineer where to go.
We need to be able to calculatethe distance, you know, that the
field engineer is gonna have togo from where he is to where
they are and back again andblock out their calendar. And
(10:47):
then we need to, basically beable to build all this and and
have invoices. And, obviously,if their spare parts are
required, the field serviceengineer needs to be to order
those spare parts and be able toeither, you know, have them in
the boot of his car and use thatas a warehouse or, order them,
come back again, etceteraetcetera. So we were able to
kind of to kind of we didn'thave any constraints around, you
(11:09):
know, this is the way they hadbeen doing it, and therefore, we
were gonna try and mimic that.We were able to kinda say, no.
Let's just start from, the startthe way we wanna finish, I
suppose. And, and that's why itwas very successful.
Anthony Carrano (11:22):
And can you share, have you been able to
kinda go back to, to the clientand see kinda, like, how this
has been successful? How they'vebeen able to measure success
from that? And if so, can youshare a little bit about that?
Gerry Powers (11:36):
Yeah. I don't have- so I have another story
that I did actually have somemetrics that you can maybe talk
about as well...
Anthony Carrano (11:43):
Yes to that one. Okay.
Gerry Powers (11:45):
So we told about that one, but, I can just tell
you in this particular case, thestart up, so this, god. I'm just
trying to remember the datesnow, but I'm pretty sure we
began the project in 2021, andit went live kind of, you know,
middle of 2022, that kind oftime frame. They were they they
sold the business, just sixmonths ago. So they've had a
(12:07):
it's been a it was a verysuccessful, from start up to,
acquired by a a bigger business,and I think it was a that was a
great result for all theshareholders in the business. So
in terms of the technology, Imean, one of the things that
was, again, a bit of a littlebit of a constraint for us, and
(12:27):
this is something, you know,which we can, again, touch on in
terms of Microsoft, but fieldservice was one of the apps that
they were using for their fieldservice engineers, and then
Business Central was the kind ofthe engine of the the billing
and the the kind of theinventory and all that.
And there was no actual seamlessconnection between the two. So
Microsoft were quite of eventhough they're both Dynamics 365
(12:51):
applications, there was onlyrecently in wave two 2024, that
connector was released. So, wehad to basically build the
plumbing between the twoapplications when we went live.
So I suppose the long winded wayof saying to you that they're
obviously very happy with theapplication because they've just
(13:11):
invested in us replacing thatplumbing with the, plumbing that
Microsoft now provides. So nowthe the two applications are
seamless, and they're all in thedata verse as as kind of
advertised.
Anthony Carrano (13:23):
Well, Gerry, that's a fantastic story. I
really appreciate you sharing,that story from when you guys
won the worldwide award. But Ialso know, like, during preshow,
you were sharing a reallyanother really cool story about
I guess you guys were partneredand worked with, the largest
retailer in Ireland. You gottaunpack that for us here.
Gerry Powers (13:42):
Yeah. That was great. So the biggest grocery
chain in Ireland, and they had anew 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 (13:56):
Yeah.
Gerry Powers (13:57):
But the business was growing to, you know, quite
a large, volume. So, we wereable to, propose a solution
based upon Microsoft Dynamics365 sales and also, Power Pages,
which is the kind of portaltechnology. And the the key
there was, because the brand isa very strong brand, that when
(14:19):
users would go to the website toorder the gift cards, that they
would have that brand imageacross the experience. So Power
Pages had to kind of so it it'sbasically just a section on the
website that turns into a PowerPage. But if you're actually
buying a gift card on theirwebsite, you you wouldn't notice
the difference between the thenormal site and this particular
(14:41):
section.
So it was a really good job ofkind of, keeping that brand
integrity across the experience.And then, obviously, having the
back end Dynamics 365 as thestorage for the customer details
and the gift card details andthe balance of the gift card
balance, etcetera. And so thatthat was a really good project.
Rudy Rodriguez (15:02):
That's really interesting. I mean, I know
that's a big thing for a lot ofretailers right now is selling
those gift cards.
Gerry Powers (15:09):
Yeah. And in their particular case sorry. It was
just because you'd asked earlierabout metrics, and I had kind of
prepared some that they've kindagrown by, 10% in terms of sales
in the last- this Christmas istheir big busy period, and that
was their second time kind ofhaving the system live for for
that busy period. So they wereup by about 10% of gift card
(15:33):
sales, but the the reallyimpressive was their e-card
sales was up by 65%. So, youknow, it was a a fantastic, I
suppose, a testament to, youknow, what, putting a system in
to automate the process candeliver.
Rudy Rodriguez (15:50):
So are customers able to check their balances?
You you mentioned that, onlineas well?
Gerry Powers (15:55):
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 giftcards that, ensuring that they
were, you know, activated andthat the giver was kind of
properly recognized. So that wasthe an important part of the the
(16:17):
process.
Rudy Rodriguez (16:18):
That's really great because that's- I know
that's a big moneymaker andunderstanding the balances. That
drives a lot of customersatisfaction as well because
they wanna know if the cards areif there's any balance on it, if
they're live, and how much theyhave remaining. And that drives
additional sales as well.
Gerry Powers (16:35):
Absolutely. And then on top of that, next year,
it's they're they're lookingahead to that there's, that the
corporate gift, so for employeesand stuff coming up to
Christmas, you know, as a kindof a reward or recognition for
employees that there's a new taxrate base rebate increase, which
is gonna again, you know,increase the kinda e-card and
(16:58):
the gift card, volumes. They'relooking at between 30% and 40%
increase next year.
Rudy Rodriguez (17:04):
That's really great because that drives a lot
of customer loyalty as well. Alot of customer loyalty. That's
great to hear. Great to hear.How long did it take you to
implement all that?
Gerry Powers (17:13):
Oh, that project was I mean, you know, it was
kind of in a three to six monthkinda it was more around six
month, really. But, again, a lotof 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 withOracle.
They'd worked with, you know,other technologies before, but
(17:35):
never Microsoft. So there was aquite a good education component
to it in terms of even just, youknow, educating the IT team on
how you provision users and, youknow, add the licenses to users.
All that was brand new to them.So that that kinda delayed it a
little bit. But, yeah, we wereon like, the the big thing was
to be live for the Christmasperiod.
(17:56):
It was October the the yearbefore. And then this year, they
would just went through theirsecond Christmas period, and it
went really well.
Rudy Rodriguez (18:04):
That's really great. Is that driving any other
Power BI type business to givethem more more, more reporting
on on the, you know, on thesuccess of the program or
anything else?
Gerry Powers (18:15):
We hope so. Yeah. That's always the hope. In their
particular case, they acquired aapp business, and they're now
kind of very focused on bringingthat kind of app business into
their retail solution. So, we'llhave to wait and see.
But, I mean, it's certainly it'shelped us with other customers
(18:37):
and talking about the story andand, you know, everyone would
know who they are, in Irelandparticularly. And, so it gives
other customers a lot ofconfidence that we've worked
with them, that they'll workwith us.
Rudy Rodriguez (18:50):
So do you use that... have you created a case
study for that that, you andyour sales team could use to
help drive additional business?
Gerry Powers (18:59):
Unfortunately, this particular company are
quite publicity shy. So, whichis why I'm kinda not mentioning
their name or or, but so we'renot. But look. We, obviously,
you know, tell people we'retalking to who we're working
with, and their reputationprecedes them. So, that in
itself is great for us.
Rudy Rodriguez (19:20):
Anthony could show you a story as to how we do
that to not mention names, butget that story out. So yeah.
Gerry Powers (19:28):
Yeah. Well, we'll have to, yeah, learn from that
book.
Rudy Rodriguez (19:31):
Yeah. No. There's a great opportunity for
you. So that's very, verypositive. So how did you find
that customer? Was that on yourown efforts, or are you working
through another partner on that?Or you tell us a little bit
about that.
Gerry Powers (19:43):
Actually was with Microsoft, actually, which is
great. So Microsoft, Ireland'sso Microsoft's EMEA headquarters
are based in in Dublin. Okay. Sothey have about 3,000 employees
working in Leopardstown, whichis very close to where we are.
And, of that then, there's theIrish subsidiary, which would be
about a 20 people or so.
So we'd be be quite, wellconnected, with the Irish
(20:06):
subsidiary. And one of the, kindof account managers there, who
was very, good to bring us intothe, or introduce us into the
customer.
Rudy Rodriguez (20:16):
So that's part of the co selling with
Microsoft. That's great to hear.
Gerry Powers (20:19):
Exactly.
Rudy Rodriguez (20:19):
Great to hear.
Anthony Carrano (20:21):
Yeah. That just opened up some other questions,
for me. I mean, because I knowyou're a very, you know, a
partner driven company. So whatare some things like, what's
your criteria for selecting apartner, you know, as a
participant for the solution?
Gerry Powers (20:40):
Yeah. So yeah. So this we actually have, partner
to partner, relationships withfive 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 theproblem we're trying to fix, and
(21:01):
that determines pretty muchwhich partner we're gonna bring
the opportunity to or who we'regonna work with.
I mean, we've one kind of corepartner. CTAS is their name.
They're based in Chennai inIndia. And, Murali, who's, just
a super guy, he, and I kindafirst got acquainted back in
2016. So we've been kindaworking together since then.
(21:22):
Ninety-percent of the work we'redoing is with CTAS, but, you
know, there are otheropportunities. I mentioned SAP,
for example. There's anothercompany 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, andit's just which customer is
(21:43):
going to want to work with whichpartner.
And it's kind of identifying,obviously, the budget that the
customer has, you know, the sizeof that customer, and then
really the key pieces, theculture of that customer. You
know, what's their what what arethey like? You know? And what do
they like? I mean, the you know,you get a good feel for that.
Like, I've been, like I said,doing this for twenty five
(22:04):
years, so I'm able to prettymuch decide quite quickly who's
the appropriate partner and andtake it from there.
Anthony Carrano (22:12):
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 hetalking about? But then as you
explained, it's like, ah, Igotcha.
Gerry Powers (22:26):
Yeah. You got some horses who are good in the on on
web brand and-
Anthony Carrano (22:29):
I gotcha. I gotcha. I was tracking with you
as you started unpacking that. Iwas like, okay.
Yep. That's great. So, with Imean, obviously, you know, being
a, you know, twenty five plusyear, you know, veteran in the
space, I mean, you were making adecision you know, business
decision for, you know, for yourcompany, YesDynamic. Why the
decision to sell, like, as apartner driven versus a focus on
(22:53):
going direct?
Gerry Powers (22:54):
Yeah. So I kinda mentioned that earlier that it's
really to be aligned withMicrosoft. So, basically,
Microsoft drives the wholemarket that drives the industry.
I mean, we mentioned earlierabout AI. I mean, they're
driving AI. I mean, that's justthey're bringing everyone
screaming along with them.That's just the way it works. We
want the whole idea behind thebusiness model is to align
(23:16):
absolutely with them, and whatMicrosoft are interested in is
license revenue. So I wanted tobuild a business that's around
license revenue because thatway, we're gonna be aligned as
close as we are to the waythey're going and and what
they're doing. And that strategyis it's just kinda worked out,
in terms of, you know, I thinkthe market was ready for it. So
(23:38):
it's good timing.
Anthony Carrano (23:40):
And then kind of a little bit more of a
piggyback on this because I knowyou, you know, you mentioned,
like, for earlier when you'retalking about working with the
largest, you know, grocer, youknow, there in Ireland and how
that was through a co-sell withMicrosoft. I know we talk with a
lot of partners who and we evenget a lot of inquiries from, you
know, different companies like,"Hey. Can you help us, you know,
(24:01):
be aligned with Microsoft?" Andwe wanna get more co-sell, you
know, motions with Microsoft.What I know you probably know
the first thing you're gonna sayis, you know, make sure you're
aligned with what Microsoftwants to do.
So in addition to that point,right, what are some other
recommendations, that you wouldhave for partners who wanna get,
you know, have more co-sellopportunities, you know, with
(24:23):
Microsoft to be to positionthemselves to have those kind of
opportunities?
Gerry Powers (24:28):
Well, in terms of I suppose, you know, look, the
the biggest advice or the bestadvice that I, got was that, you
know, the sellers that you'reworking with at Microsoft, all
of KPIs, and, to understandtheir KPI. Because sometimes
their KPI and and your KPI arenot the same. So you you try to
(24:50):
make sure you're helping theirKPI. So that's one thing on a
kind of practical level. But Ithink the business application
space in particular is quiteconfusing.
And I think what we've donequite well is we've worked very
well with the sellers to makesure that they're positioning
the right product for the rightcustomer. And that involves, you
(25:14):
know, understanding what thecustomer is trying to achieve.
So, you know, we invest quite abit of time in that, making sure
you know, it's all part of thequalification process, but it's
also making sure that, you know,we're not selling them, you
know, finance when BusinessCentral is appropriate or that,
you know, we're selling them aPowerApp instead of a sales
(25:35):
professional license if PowerAppis gonna do the the trick. It's
not always that the smallest thecheaper solution is gonna be the
best. I'm just saying that thereare examples of helping
Microsoft to right size thesolution because there's a kind
of a generally, in in Microsoft,there'd be a kind of tendency
to, you know, whatever is beingpushed from down on high to kind
(25:57):
of bring that out to market, andthat's not always what the
customer needs.
Anthony Carrano (26:02):
Oh, that's excellent. Excellent advice. So
as, you know, being a partnerdriven company, I'll let you
kinda be curious to see, youknow, you can answer this how
you want, whether you wanna, youknow, share about your
experience in the story that youwon, you wanna address it
specifically, with the, youknow, working with the largest,
you know, grocer there inIreland. Or if you wanna answer
(26:24):
it, maybe just taking a stepback and addressing it maybe in
the macro. What are some, like,the challenges that you
experience in some of theseengagements, you know, being a
partner driven company? And, youknow, if so, how do you work
together to, to to overcomethose?
Gerry Powers (26:41):
To be honest, where I pick whatever example I
was picking, it's always thesame issue, which is
communication. Right? Socommunication is and this is the
same, you know, you know, andkind of what I just said there
about, you know, right fittingthe solution. That's a
communication issue. You know,it's not a product issue.
It's an actual communicatingwith the customer to, like,
(27:04):
understand exactly what theirneed is and then get the right
solution for it. And in the sameway in delivering
implementations, you gotta makesure that that communication
between the customer and thedelivery partner is in sync, and
that's just the cause andbattle. That's the, you know,
that's the challenge that wehave to overcome every project
that we're working on. And, youknow, we do that. We've kind of
(27:27):
brought in stricter processes,around the kind of project
management of application, youknow, having guided guardrails
and just, you know, checkpointsthroughout the project.
And then a key part of that isimproved documentation as well
so that we're backing it up withactual physical documentation
that kinda supports, you know,what we're saying we're gonna
(27:48):
deliver or what we're, you know,to to keep the expectations in
line. And I suppose that'll bethe final thing about
communication is expectationbecause if the customer's
expectations are out of whackwith, you know, what they're
getting, they're gonna bedisappointed. So you have to
communicate early on exactlywhat the, you know, expectations
(28:09):
should be. I'm a firm believerin under promising and over
delivering. You know? So promiseless and deliver more, as as
much as you can.
Anthony Carrano (28:19):
Yeah. Yeah. No. That's excellent. Excellent
advice.
Rudy Rodriguez (28:23):
So, Gerry, you know, just a little while ago,
you mentioned the the two letterword AI. And then what do you
see on the horizon? How do yousee AI affecting your business?
And and how are you preparingyour company to be ready for the
onslaught of artificialintelligence?
Gerry Powers (28:43):
Yeah. Well, that's a that's a loaded question.
Rudy Rodriguez (28:46):
Right?
Gerry Powers (28:47):
Yeah. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, firstly, we
have no choice. Right?
So, like I said, you know,Microsoft's driving it, so we're
just gonna have to follow what'scoming. You know, I think at the
moment, we're still in the hypephase where there's an awful lot
of talk about AI. And,obviously, you know, I now use
Copilot, you know, forsearching. I don't use search
(29:08):
engines anymore.
I find you ask a question, youget an answer. That's fantastic.
We do a little bit of, you know,drafting, you know, responses
and proposals and the like usingAI is quite good just to get you
started. So you can already seesome benefits. But, obviously,
the the big or the first realkind of innovation that that
(29:28):
Microsoft have brought togetheror that that we've been been
able to kind of review is thissales order agent, which is
coming in Business Central.
And that's an agent who canbasically take an order, so an
inquiry from a customer. So thecustomer will send an email into
it. An email will have to go toa specific email address,
(29:48):
saying, "Hey. Can you give us aprice for this particular
product?" And the AI will goback and forth qualifying that
opportunity and then pulling theprice, giving a response to the
customer.
And then when the customer'sready to order, a human comes it
gets notified and gets involvedin the, sales process. So that's
(30:10):
a really specific example of,you know, Microsoft taking this
technology and applying this toa general use case that most
companies should be able toavail of, particularly someone
in the distribution typebusiness, where they get a lot
of inquiries for for pricing up,you know, standard products. So
(30:32):
I see that as being a hugedifferentiator between Microsoft
technology and other products.Like, I don't see the other,
vendors having that kind ofagent baked into their product.
I mean, I know Salesforce have acustomer service agent for on
the customer service side, butsales is such a key component,
(30:53):
and a very kind of, manual, kindof human heavy kind of, process
that if you're able to get anagent to do it, that's gonna be
a big win.
Rudy Rodriguez (31:03):
No. That's great. I do and I've seen it in
action. I have a neighbor whoworked for a computer
manufacturer and how he was ableto use that for getting price
quotes out so much faster andhow much that's helped him in
his business. And so there's alot of improvements, but there's
still a lot of trepidation outin the marketplace right now as
(31:23):
to what am I gonna do with this,especially in the SMB space is,
how are we going to use it? Andthat's a challenge for partners
to be able to explain.
Gerry Powers (31:34):
Well, absolutely. And, you know, again, it's like
how is it actually you know, sothat we've only seen it in the
preview kind of demo kind of,environment. How it actually
works in practice is somethingthat, you know, I haven't
actually experienced yet. And,you know, again, going back to
that expectation thing, youknow, we've gotta make sure
(31:54):
that, you know, obviously, youknow, you gotta tell a computer
what to do. And if that processisn't clear, then the AI agent's
not gonna be clear.
And so you've got to make surethat it's, you know, the
customer knows that it'ssuitable for this particular,
scenario. It might not besuitable for another scenario
(32:17):
and to just make sure thoseexpectations are in line with
the reality. But I do think it'sgonna, you know, you can see
that innovation is happening soquickly. So, know, they're
starting with the sales orderagent. It's gonna move into the
vendor order agent.
It's gonna, you know, then gointo the item order agent, the
warehouse order agent, etcetera.And so soon, you're gonna have
these agents, like, specializedin particular skill sets across
(32:41):
the stack, and I think that'squite exciting.
Rudy Rodriguez (32:44):
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 itaffects especially larger
companies, especially whenyou're talking about the order
agents. I had the great pleasureof selling some of those in the
in the past, you know, severalyears ago. And we took a a a
(33:04):
soft drink manufacturer, wasable to process orders, and
people were I mean, the agentswork night and day.
They just never slowed down, andit really impacted their
business. So it the cost was wasnot detrimental to the sale at
all. It actually increased salesdramatically.
Gerry Powers (33:22):
Well, that's the promise of it. And, I mean, to
be honest, I've seen there was apresentation just recently on
how, like, the vision kind ofMicrosoft seemed to have. And I
mean, this is just, you know, ininverted quotes. So this is not,
no no, secret information here,but it's where the actual
interface that customers aregonna have to with the business
(33:44):
applications is gonna be theCopilot or a kind of a, so in
essence, like, where you wouldask the Business Central, for
example, to raise an invoice forsuch a customer and, you know,
such and such quantities,etcetera, and the agent would go
off and do that. That they seemto be kind of reimagining that
(34:05):
whole interface of how customerswill kinda interact with the
business applications.
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. Andwhat I tend to, you know, see
from my, again, experienceworking with Microsoft since
2008 is that they're very, veryclear on their strategy, and it
(34:26):
just, you know, it might not beobvious how it's gonna look now,
but, that's the way they'regoing. Especially in the
Business Central side, I reallysee it affecting accounts
payable very dramatically. Verydramatically.
Well, you can see that even withthe the way the, scanning the
documents in there. That's nowthat used to be a kind of an add
(34:48):
in that you would need topurchase. Now it's part of the
solution. So that's the waythey're looking at it as well. I
think accounts payable is a keyfunction.
Rudy Rodriguez (34:57):
So as you're envisioning all these
improvements in services, howare you educating your partners
to help them, you know, sell andand get you into more accounts
as well. Right?
Gerry Powers (35:08):
Well, that's one of the things that we've been
kinda lucky with the deliverypartners that we're working with
is that, you know and it was,again, you know, going back to
the rationale of why thisdelivery model seemed to work
well for us was because now youdon't just have Dynamics as an
isolated kind of, you know, soit certainly was in the case,
(35:31):
and a lot of partners locallywould be very much, you know,
focused on one particularapplication, and that's all they
would do is implement that oneapplication. But, you know,
through the two examples that wediscussed there, it's it's
across the stack. You know, youcan't just do, you know,
Business Central. You've gottado Power Apps, Power Automate,
Power BI, Power Pages, plus, youknow, field service I mentioned
(35:55):
in the first example. So youhave to have that skill set
across the full stack.
And that's obviously verydifficult to do, you know,
because the old expression, youknow, jack of all trades, master
of none. You know? So, you know,by having such a breadth of
technologies that you gotta keeppace with and all these
technologies are changing everysix months as they're adding new
(36:17):
features and functionality. It'svery difficult to keep up and
keep educated, and then yougotta do that across the whole
stack. So that's even morechallenging.
And so that's why, I suppose,the delivery partners we work
with have the scale and thebreadth that they have
resources, you know, skilled ineach of those areas. So and that
(36:37):
was one of the reasons why,this, I suppose, you know, has
been successful in that. Like Isay, whatever problem's been
thrown at us, we have been ableto resolve it because we do have
the skill set.
Rudy Rodriguez (36:48):
That's great to hear. Very, very great to hear.
You know, not every partner hasgoes through all that, and it's
part of the growth experience ofbeing a partner. Right? Part of
the growth experience.
Do you find that, your IAMCPpartners are all that dedicated
to to that growth anddevelopment of of their own
businesses?
Gerry Powers (37:06):
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 ofthe questions that have been
asked was around, you know, whatmakes a successful partnership
and having the aligned goals,you know, which we talked about
with Microsoft. That's a reallykey one. So, you know, again,
(37:28):
that for me is one of the biglessons is that, you know, we
all are aiming in the samedirection. We all know what
we're trying to achieve, and,therefore, we'll work together.
You know? Whereas if there's anykind of misaligned goals, that's
when the partnership kinda breakup.
Rudy Rodriguez (37:47):
Oh, well, that's great advice. That's great
advice to give any company, youknow, in partnering. You know,
that was one of the questions Iwanted to ask. What advice do
you have, you know, to givecompanies like yours regarding
partnering? And you've givensome great advice to the
partners.
Gerry Powers (38:02):
Yeah. And, I mean, the first thing I would I would
say on that one, though, is Ihave down here a 110% trust. You
know? So it's not even a 100%.It's it's even more than you
know?
You have to trust your partner,you know, because once you lose
that trust, then it's it's veryhard to to make it work. So you,
you know? And the second thing Ihad is a, you know, a friend in
(38:23):
need is a friend indeed. So it'syou know, you know, when you're
not you know, it's when you'restruggling, that's when that
trust and that kind ofpartnership is most important.
And then the final thing wasjust that it's a two way street,
you know.
So, you know, we've had someexperience of this of working
with partners where it's been akind of one way street, and it
(38:43):
just doesn't work. But bothpartners have to, be getting
something out of us. You know,it has to be a a quid pro quo.
And once one partner tries tokind of dominate or kind of,
exploit, I think is probably thebest word, and other partners,
it's, again, it's not gonnawork, you know, because it's it
has to be a partnership ofequals and, and and and, two way
(39:06):
street.
Rudy Rodriguez (39:07):
That's great advice. Very, very great advice.
Really appreciate that.
Anthony Carrano (39:11):
Gerry, this has been fantastic. I really
appreciate you taking time withus and just dropping a lot of,
really good nuggets, throughoutthe 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 ofthe things that YesDynamic is
offering?
Gerry Powers (39:28):
Yeah. So, obviously, our website,
yesdynamic.com, is kind of thebest place to, to to see the
full range of products that weoffer. And then, you know,
LinkedIn, if they just look meup on LinkedIn and obviously,
anyone, any partner wants tochat, just, you know, message
me, and I'll definitely comeback. And always always open to,
(39:49):
you know, having a conversation.You know, something may come,
but something may not, but it'syou always learn something.
Anthony Carrano (39:55):
Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you once
again, for being on the showtoday, and, have a great day.
Gerry Powers (40:02):
Well, thank you very much for for having me, and
it's been a real pleasure, to tomeet you both and to chat with
you both, and we look forward tochatting again.
Rudy Rodriguez (40:10):
Look forward to chatting with you again too, and
maybe we'll chat again on SaintPatty's Day.
Gerry Powers (40:16):
Exactly.That's great.
Rudy Rodriguez (40:17):
Have a great day, sir. Take care.
Gerry Powers (40:19):
Thank you.
Anthony Carrano (40:22):
Well, that was a great episode. I really
appreciate, just the perspectiveand the advice that Gerry gave.
It was really fun, especiallyhearing, from somebody over in
EMEA and, just, just some oftheir thoughts and successes on
P2P. In particular, Rudy, I justreally thought his advice he
just provides some great advicefor partners who wanna have more
(40:44):
co-sell opportunities withMicrosoft. And as, you know, as
you and I both know, I mean, wework with a lot of partners who
want such a, you know,opportunities and we break these
things down.
But just to hear his perspectiveas someone who's successfully
doing it and how he broke itdown, he said, number one, you
have to be aligned withMicrosoft. I just, I just
(41:06):
thought that was I mean, thatwas great. I mean, it's so
obvious. But two, how he thenmentioned how it's really
important that you need tounderstand what are Microsoft's
KPIs, and how are you gonna helpthem be successful. And that's
part of that alignment piece.
But then how you also balancethat with, you know, the
(41:27):
customer experience and makingsure that you're right sizing,
if you will, you know, what'sthe appropriate, you know,
business, you know, applicationand just make sure there's a
solid customer, you know,product fit. So that way, you
know, everybody's successful init. You know, his company, you
know, has a partner successful,Microsoft successful, but also
(41:47):
then the customer successful inthat. And that's you know, those
things really create a lot ofthose co-sell opportunities. So
I really appreciated him sharingthat.
Rudy Rodriguez (41:56):
That was excellent advice that he gave
and and especially onunderstanding Microsoft's KPIs.
I found that very useful. Theother thing that I found useful
was his thoroughness in hisapproach with communications and
building a strong communicationstream with partners because you
have to vet your partners. Andhe had a very strong vetting
(42:17):
process in how he works withpartners and building that trust
relationship that's so so key tobeing successful. If you can't
build trust with your partners,then you will fail.
And so he had a great storythere about how he he approached
it and how where he learned it,how he learned it, and how he
(42:38):
continues to practice that on adaily basis. That's just the key
to success. I really appreciatedthat story.
Anthony Carrano (42:45):
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 onthe promise and the potential
of, you know, the sales orderagent and how, you know, this AI
is not only gonna help customersand make an impact with their
(43:08):
business, but also reallygreatly improve, you know, the
customer experience and how,customers will have a have an
opportunity and how what thoseinteractions are gonna look
like. So I thought that wasreally fascinating, and it's
gonna be fun to see how, youknow, this plays out over the
next, you know, one, three, fiveyear period of time.
Rudy Rodriguez (43:28):
Absolutely. It was a great conversation with
Gerry, and I hope our our ourlisteners really enjoy it. So in
saying that, I wanna thank allof you for joining us on this
episode of IAMCP Profiles inPartnership powered by Dunamis
Marketing. We hope you enjoyedthis podcast and find it useful
and inspiring. If you did,please subscribe, rate, and
(43:49):
review us on your favoritepodcast platform.
One of the best ways to partnerfor success is to join IAMCP, a
community of Microsoft partnerswho help each other grow and
thrive. IAMCP members can findand connect with other partners
locally and globally and accessexclusive resources and
opportunities. Whether you'relooking for new customers, new
(44:12):
markets, or new solutions, IAMCPcan help you achieve your goals.
To learn more, visit the website@www.iamcp.org.
Welcome to the IAMCP Profiles and Partnership,
the podcast that showcases howMicrosoft partners and IAMCP
members boost their business bycollaborating with other members
and partners. I'm your co-host,Anthony Carrano. And in each
episode, I'll be talking to someof the most innovative and
successful partners in theMicrosoft ecosystem. The
(00:26):
International Association ofMicrosoft Channel Partners,
otherwise known as IAMCP, is acommunity of Microsoft partners
who help each other grow andthrive. Members can find and
connect with other partnerslocally and globally and access
exclusive resources andopportunities.
Whether you're looking for newcustomers, new markets, or new
solutions, IAMCP can help youachieve your goals. We'll hear
(00:49):
their stories, learn from theirexperiences, and discover the
best practices and strategiesthey use to increase customer
loyalty and grow revenues.Whether you're a new partner or
an established one, you'll findvaluable insights and
inspiration in this podcast. Wehope you enjoy this podcast and
find it useful and inspiring. Ifyou do, please subscribe, rate,
and review us on your favoritepodcast platform. And don't
(01:12):
forget to follow us on socialmedia and connect with us on our
website,www.profilesinpartnership.com,
where you can find moreinformation, resources, and
opportunities to partner forsuccess. Thank you for
listening, and now let's getstarted with today's episode.
But before we dive into ourinterview, let me ask you a few
questions. As a Microsoftpartner and member of the IAMCP,
(01:34):
how are you developing yourpartner relationships to achieve
your business goals? Whatcriteria do you use to select
the right partner?
Finding the right partner can bechallenging, but it can also be
very rewarding. In fact,according to a channel
profitability study, Microsoftpartners derive margins 19%
higher than the next closestcompetitor. That's a huge
(01:54):
difference, and it shows thepower of partnering. So how do
you leverage the MicrosoftPartner Network and IAMCP to
support your partnerships? Andhow do you ensure success for
your customer?
These are some of the questionswe'll explore in this podcast
with the help of our guest, aP2P worldwide and EMEA Solutions
award winner who is also anexpert in partnering. He'll
(02:16):
share stories, challenges, andsuccesses and give you practical
tips and advice on how topartner for success. Are you
ready to join us on thisjourney? Then stay tuned because
we have a great show for youtoday. Our guest is Gerry Power,
the managing director atYesDynamic, an award winning
team of Microsoft Dynamics 365business application specialist
(02:38):
who implement and support thefull range of Microsoft Dynamics
365 business applications aswell as build power apps and
Power BI dashboards and automateworkflows with Power Automate.
Let's hear what he has to say.
Welcome, Gerry, to the podcasttoday. Really appreciate you
joining us.
Gerry Powers (02:58):
Thank you very much. Looking forward to it.
Anthony Carrano (03:00):
Well, excellent. Let's start off. Tell
us a little bit about yourselfand your role in the company.
Gerry Powers (03:07):
Sure. So I'm managing director of YesDynamic.
I've been working in the biz opsspace for over twenty five years
now, so feeling my age. And,basically, set up the business
after being, you know, ten yearsin the kind of, Microsoft
ecosphere and, really just sawan opportunity for a kind of
(03:30):
different type of model asMicrosoft to kind of migrated
their whole business to thecloud.
Anthony Carrano (03:35):
Excellent. Excellent. And, when did you
join IAMCP?
Gerry Powers (03:39):
Oh, in 2022. Alina Beba, I think it's Beba, had,
recommended us. And, there was alocal chapter that was just
starting in Ireland, so, it justseemed a good time to join.
Anthony Carrano (03:53):
Oh, wow. Okay. So you joined in 2022, and then
you wind up winning, andcongratulations, the worldwide
EMEA Solutions award for P2P.
Gerry Powers (04:04):
Yes.
Anthony Carrano (04:05):
Way to come in strong.
Gerry Powers (04:07):
No. I have to say it was, I was delighted, and our
delivery partner was delightedtoo. And it was a, it was just a
great accolade to, achieve, andand, we really thanked IAMCP for
choosing us.
Anthony Carrano (04:23):
Excellent. Excellent. So with YesDynamic,
maybe tell us a little bit moreabout YesDynamic, the areas that
you guys specialize in?
Gerry Powers (04:30):
Yeah. So, I describe this as a cloud value
added reseller. So the cloud'sreally important in that. That's
where we're really just focusedon CSP, so cloud solution
provider licensing. And, really,the the the important part about
that is that we're very alignedwith Microsoft strategy.
So, Microsoft's very much aroundlicense revenue, and and our
(04:51):
whole business model is based onlicense revenue. So that's the
first thing. The second thing isthat we provide all the business
applications. So, you know, it'sthe full range of Microsoft
Dynamics 365 applications, youknow, so you got Business
Central, which would be our heroproduct. But then you got
customer service, field service,you know, finance operations,
(05:11):
etcetera.
But on top of that, you you gotPower BI, you got Power
Automate, Power Apps. And,actually, just recently, we've
added SAP, a competingtechnology to the mix as well.
So it's really to provide a kindof full range of of,
applications. So when a customercomes to us with an issue or a
problem they wanna resolve, thatwe're we have the technology. We
(05:34):
have the tool the toolkit toanswer and and resolve that
issue.
Anthony Carrano (05:38):
Now I know, you guys do work, you know, you've
done a lot of projects, youknow, with partners.
Yeah. Very partner driven, andyou just, you know, as we talked
earlier a little bit about that,it's really fascinating. So I
know we're looking forward todiving into, some of these
partner stories. Rudy?
Rudy Rodriguez (05:59):
Yeah. Well, Gerry, I really enjoyed reading
the story you submitted, so it'salways great to hear partnering
stories. I'm a very strongproponent of that. And having
been a member of IAMCP for overtwenty five years, I really
enjoy the partnering stories. Soin the in the showcase that
you're about to tell us, can youtell us a little bit about the
client?
And you don't have to give usany names, but can you share
(06:21):
about what the size of thecompany was, the industry, and
the technology that youimplemented?
Gerry Powers (06:26):
Sure. Basically, the story that we won the or the
the customer that we won the theaward for, was a start up
business. They were in the heatpump, servicing industry. So
heat pumps would be prettypopular now as kind of we're
trying to migrate away fromfossil fuels and and to become
more sustainable, heating forthe houses, etcetera. And,
(06:50):
basically, they had the the guywho set up the company had come
from a manufacturer of heatpumps, and then he decided to
set up a a business servicingthis this heat pumps, because,
obviously, the manufacturer wasgetting calls regularly from
customers saying, hey.
You know, I've bought this heatpump from you. You know, it
needs a service. Can yourecommend anyone? So it was a
(07:13):
pretty good, like, strong kindof case for a start up. And what
he had also had experienced thatthat, heat pump manufacturer who
are also actually a customer ofours, they were being have been
using Business Central for tenyears.
And I was actually involved withwhen they they were getting
going, and they're again, just asegue, but they were a company
(07:36):
that had grown from three peoplewhen I first met them in 2009,
2010 time frame, to now there'sabout 500 people around, six
countries around Europe. So realfantastic growth story. So,
anyway, this is a kind of a spinoff from that particular
business, around servicing heatpumps. And what they knew from
(07:57):
their experience of usingBusiness Central was that from
day one, they wanted to automateas much of the business as
possible. So they designed thebusiness around the technology,
which was quite a nice,opportunity for us as a kind of
a greenfield show.
A lot of the issues, as you'dknow, from implementing business
applications is that you'reyou're dealing with a lot of
legacy issues and, you know,data migration and all this
(08:19):
stuff that, you know,historically kinda hampers the
the implementation. Whereas inthis case, it was a greenfield.
They had no technology, very fewcustomers, and they knew exactly
that they wanted to automateeverything. So it was very clear
as we were kind of mapping theprocess flows how we were gonna
be able to use Microsofttechnology to, answer their
(08:41):
issues and and give them asolution.
Anthony Carrano (08:44):
So the you said something really interesting
that, they designed around thebusiness, around the technology.
Isn't it usually the other wayaround? Yeah
Maybe unpack what that was likea little bit.
Gerry Powers (08:58):
Sure. Well, it was just one of the advantages. I
mean, usually, like I say, youand this is, you know, I always
say Microsoft has very much aphilosophy around, you know,
pile them high, sell them cheap.You know, they wanna sell their
software to as many companiesaround the world as they can.
Right?
And so they're trying to createthese standard applications that
(09:18):
every company in the world wantsto to use. But the reality is
that no two companies, even inthe same industry, are the same,
and every company has, you know,something that, you know, is
different about it. And, youknow, 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
(09:39):
from just historical.
Like, this is the way they'vebeen operating for a number of
years, and they either havesystems that are old and because
of those systems, they have todo things a certain way. And
then you're always trying toshoehorn the technology in, you
know, the new technology into toto kind of still mimic the way
they operated in the past.Whereas in this particular case,
(10:01):
because it was a start up, theyhad no history. There was no,
nothing to replace. It was brandnew.
We were able to start with ablank canvas, and we were able
from the very get go to kind ofwork out, okay. So this is what
you're trying to achieve, youknow. And in their case, it was
quite straightforward.Basically, customers are calling
them up or going to theirwebsite, and we're booking
servicing for their heat pumps.And it was kind of like, okay.
(10:24):
So how do we you know, what dowe need to do? We obviously need
to, you know, get paid, so youcollect the credit card. We need
to, book the appointment. Youneed to give them options around
the booking the appointment. Weneed to basically tell the field
service engineer where to go.
We need to be able to calculatethe distance, you know, that the
field engineer is gonna have togo from where he is to where
they are and back again andblock out their calendar. And
(10:47):
then we need to, basically beable to build all this and and
have invoices. And, obviously,if their spare parts are
required, the field serviceengineer needs to be to order
those spare parts and be able toeither, you know, have them in
the boot of his car and use thatas a warehouse or, order them,
come back again, etceteraetcetera. So we were able to
kind of to kind of we didn'thave any constraints around, you
(11:09):
know, this is the way they hadbeen doing it, and therefore, we
were gonna try and mimic that.We were able to kinda say, no.
Let's just start from, the startthe way we wanna finish, I
suppose. And, and that's why itwas very successful.
Anthony Carrano (11:22):
And can you share, have you been able to
kinda go back to, to the clientand see kinda, like, how this
has been successful? How they'vebeen able to measure success
from that? And if so, can youshare a little bit about that?
Gerry Powers (11:36):
Yeah. I don't have- so I have another story
that I did actually have somemetrics that you can maybe talk
about as well...
Anthony Carrano (11:43):
Yes to that one. Okay.
Gerry Powers (11:45):
So we told about that one, but, I can just tell
you in this particular case, thestart up, so this, god. I'm just
trying to remember the datesnow, but I'm pretty sure we
began the project in 2021, andit went live kind of, you know,
middle of 2022, that kind oftime frame. They were they they
sold the business, just sixmonths ago. So they've had a
(12:07):
it's been a it was a verysuccessful, from start up to,
acquired by a a bigger business,and I think it was a that was a
great result for all theshareholders in the business. So
in terms of the technology, Imean, one of the things that
was, again, a bit of a littlebit of a constraint for us, and
(12:27):
this is something, you know,which we can, again, touch on in
terms of Microsoft, but fieldservice was one of the apps that
they were using for their fieldservice engineers, and then
Business Central was the kind ofthe engine of the the billing
and the the kind of theinventory and all that.
And there was no actual seamlessconnection between the two. So
Microsoft were quite of eventhough they're both Dynamics 365
(12:51):
applications, there was onlyrecently in wave two 2024, that
connector was released. So, wehad to basically build the
plumbing between the twoapplications when we went live.
So I suppose the long winded wayof saying to you that they're
obviously very happy with theapplication because they've just
(13:11):
invested in us replacing thatplumbing with the, plumbing that
Microsoft now provides. So nowthe the two applications are
seamless, and they're all in thedata verse as as kind of
advertised.
Anthony Carrano (13:23):
Well, Gerry, that's a fantastic story. I
really appreciate you sharing,that story from when you guys
won the worldwide award. But Ialso know, like, during preshow,
you were sharing a reallyanother really cool story about
I guess you guys were partneredand worked with, the largest
retailer in Ireland. You gottaunpack that for us here.
Gerry Powers (13:42):
Yeah. That was great. So the biggest grocery
chain in Ireland, and they had anew 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 (13:56):
Yeah.
Gerry Powers (13:57):
But the business was growing to, you know, quite
a large, volume. So, we wereable to, propose a solution
based upon Microsoft Dynamics365 sales and also, Power Pages,
which is the kind of portaltechnology. And the the key
there was, because the brand isa very strong brand, that when
(14:19):
users would go to the website toorder the gift cards, that they
would have that brand imageacross the experience. So Power
Pages had to kind of so it it'sbasically just a section on the
website that turns into a PowerPage. But if you're actually
buying a gift card on theirwebsite, you you wouldn't notice
the difference between the thenormal site and this particular
(14:41):
section.
So it was a really good job ofkind of, keeping that brand
integrity across the experience.And then, obviously, having the
back end Dynamics 365 as thestorage for the customer details
and the gift card details andthe balance of the gift card
balance, etcetera. And so thatthat was a really good project.
Rudy Rodriguez (15:02):
That's really interesting. I mean, I know
that's a big thing for a lot ofretailers right now is selling
those gift cards.
Gerry Powers (15:09):
Yeah. And in their particular case sorry. It was
just because you'd asked earlierabout metrics, and I had kind of
prepared some that they've kindagrown by, 10% in terms of sales
in the last- this Christmas istheir big busy period, and that
was their second time kind ofhaving the system live for for
that busy period. So they wereup by about 10% of gift card
(15:33):
sales, but the the reallyimpressive was their e-card
sales was up by 65%. So, youknow, it was a a fantastic, I
suppose, a testament to, youknow, what, putting a system in
to automate the process candeliver.
Rudy Rodriguez (15:50):
So are customers able to check their balances?
You you mentioned that, onlineas well?
Gerry Powers (15:55):
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 giftcards that, ensuring that they
were, you know, activated andthat the giver was kind of
properly recognized. So that wasthe an important part of the the
(16:17):
process.
Rudy Rodriguez (16:18):
That's really great because that's- I know
that's a big moneymaker andunderstanding the balances. That
drives a lot of customersatisfaction as well because
they wanna know if the cards areif there's any balance on it, if
they're live, and how much theyhave remaining. And that drives
additional sales as well.
Gerry Powers (16:35):
Absolutely. And then on top of that, next year,
it's they're they're lookingahead to that there's, that the
corporate gift, so for employeesand stuff coming up to
Christmas, you know, as a kindof a reward or recognition for
employees that there's a new taxrate base rebate increase, which
is gonna again, you know,increase the kinda e-card and
(16:58):
the gift card, volumes. They'relooking at between 30% and 40%
increase next year.
Rudy Rodriguez (17:04):
That's really great because that drives a lot
of customer loyalty as well. Alot of customer loyalty. That's
great to hear. Great to hear.How long did it take you to
implement all that?
Gerry Powers (17:13):
Oh, that project was I mean, you know, it was
kind of in a three to six monthkinda it was more around six
month, really. But, again, a lotof 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 withOracle.
They'd worked with, you know,other technologies before, but
(17:35):
never Microsoft. So there was aquite a good education component
to it in terms of even just, youknow, educating the IT team on
how you provision users and, youknow, add the licenses to users.
All that was brand new to them.So that that kinda delayed it a
little bit. But, yeah, we wereon like, the the big thing was
to be live for the Christmasperiod.
(17:56):
It was October the the yearbefore. And then this year, they
would just went through theirsecond Christmas period, and it
went really well.
Rudy Rodriguez (18:04):
That's really great. Is that driving any other
Power BI type business to givethem more more, more reporting
on on the, you know, on thesuccess of the program or
anything else?
Gerry Powers (18:15):
We hope so. Yeah. That's always the hope. In their
particular case, they acquired aapp business, and they're now
kind of very focused on bringingthat kind of app business into
their retail solution. So, we'llhave to wait and see.
But, I mean, it's certainly it'shelped us with other customers
(18:37):
and talking about the story andand, you know, everyone would
know who they are, in Irelandparticularly. And, so it gives
other customers a lot ofconfidence that we've worked
with them, that they'll workwith us.
Rudy Rodriguez (18:50):
So do you use that... have you created a case
study for that that, you andyour sales team could use to
help drive additional business?
Gerry Powers (18:59):
Unfortunately, this particular company are
quite publicity shy. So, whichis why I'm kinda not mentioning
their name or or, but so we'renot. But look. We, obviously,
you know, tell people we'retalking to who we're working
with, and their reputationprecedes them. So, that in
itself is great for us.
Rudy Rodriguez (19:20):
Anthony could show you a story as to how we do
that to not mention names, butget that story out. So yeah.
Gerry Powers (19:28):
Yeah. Well, we'll have to, yeah, learn from that
book.
Rudy Rodriguez (19:31):
Yeah. No. There's a great opportunity for
you. So that's very, verypositive. So how did you find
that customer? Was that on yourown efforts, or are you working
through another partner on that?Or you tell us a little bit
about that.
Gerry Powers (19:43):
Actually was with Microsoft, actually, which is
great. So Microsoft, Ireland'sso Microsoft's EMEA headquarters
are based in in Dublin. Okay. Sothey have about 3,000 employees
working in Leopardstown, whichis very close to where we are.
And, of that then, there's theIrish subsidiary, which would be
about a 20 people or so.
So we'd be be quite, wellconnected, with the Irish
(20:06):
subsidiary. And one of the, kindof account managers there, who
was very, good to bring us intothe, or introduce us into the
customer.
Rudy Rodriguez (20:16):
So that's part of the co selling with
Microsoft. That's great to hear.
Gerry Powers (20:19):
Exactly.
Rudy Rodriguez (20:19):
Great to hear.
Anthony Carrano (20:21):
Yeah. That just opened up some other questions,
for me. I mean, because I knowyou're a very, you know, a
partner driven company. So whatare some things like, what's
your criteria for selecting apartner, you know, as a
participant for the solution?
Gerry Powers (20:40):
Yeah. So yeah. So this we actually have, partner
to partner, relationships withfive 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 theproblem we're trying to fix, and
(21:01):
that determines pretty muchwhich partner we're gonna bring
the opportunity to or who we'regonna work with.
I mean, we've one kind of corepartner. CTAS is their name.
They're based in Chennai inIndia. And, Murali, who's, just
a super guy, he, and I kindafirst got acquainted back in
2016. So we've been kindaworking together since then.
(21:22):
Ninety-percent of the work we'redoing is with CTAS, but, you
know, there are otheropportunities. I mentioned SAP,
for example. There's anothercompany 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, andit's just which customer is
(21:43):
going to want to work with whichpartner.
And it's kind of identifying,obviously, the budget that the
customer has, you know, the sizeof that customer, and then
really the key pieces, theculture of that customer. You
know, what's their what what arethey like? You know? And what do
they like? I mean, the you know,you get a good feel for that.
Like, I've been, like I said,doing this for twenty five
(22:04):
years, so I'm able to prettymuch decide quite quickly who's
the appropriate partner and andtake it from there.
Anthony Carrano (22:12):
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 hetalking about? But then as you
explained, it's like, ah, Igotcha.
Gerry Powers (22:26):
Yeah. You got some horses who are good in the on on
web brand and-
Anthony Carrano (22:29):
I gotcha. I gotcha. I was tracking with you
as you started unpacking that. Iwas like, okay.
Yep. That's great. So, with Imean, obviously, you know, being
a, you know, twenty five plusyear, you know, veteran in the
space, I mean, you were making adecision you know, business
decision for, you know, for yourcompany, YesDynamic. Why the
decision to sell, like, as apartner driven versus a focus on
(22:53):
going direct?
Gerry Powers (22:54):
Yeah. So I kinda mentioned that earlier that it's
really to be aligned withMicrosoft. So, basically,
Microsoft drives the wholemarket that drives the industry.
I mean, we mentioned earlierabout AI. I mean, they're
driving AI. I mean, that's justthey're bringing everyone
screaming along with them.That's just the way it works. We
want the whole idea behind thebusiness model is to align
(23:16):
absolutely with them, and whatMicrosoft are interested in is
license revenue. So I wanted tobuild a business that's around
license revenue because thatway, we're gonna be aligned as
close as we are to the waythey're going and and what
they're doing. And that strategyis it's just kinda worked out,
in terms of, you know, I thinkthe market was ready for it. So
(23:38):
it's good timing.
Anthony Carrano (23:40):
And then kind of a little bit more of a
piggyback on this because I knowyou, you know, you mentioned,
like, for earlier when you'retalking about working with the
largest, you know, grocer, youknow, there in Ireland and how
that was through a co-sell withMicrosoft. I know we talk with a
lot of partners who and we evenget a lot of inquiries from, you
know, different companies like,"Hey. Can you help us, you know,
(24:01):
be aligned with Microsoft?" Andwe wanna get more co-sell, you
know, motions with Microsoft.What I know you probably know
the first thing you're gonna sayis, you know, make sure you're
aligned with what Microsoftwants to do.
So in addition to that point,right, what are some other
recommendations, that you wouldhave for partners who wanna get,
you know, have more co-sellopportunities, you know, with
(24:23):
Microsoft to be to positionthemselves to have those kind of
opportunities?
Gerry Powers (24:28):
Well, in terms of I suppose, you know, look, the
the biggest advice or the bestadvice that I, got was that, you
know, the sellers that you'reworking with at Microsoft, all
of KPIs, and, to understandtheir KPI. Because sometimes
their KPI and and your KPI arenot the same. So you you try to
(24:50):
make sure you're helping theirKPI. So that's one thing on a
kind of practical level. But Ithink the business application
space in particular is quiteconfusing.
And I think what we've donequite well is we've worked very
well with the sellers to makesure that they're positioning
the right product for the rightcustomer. And that involves, you
(25:14):
know, understanding what thecustomer is trying to achieve.
So, you know, we invest quite abit of time in that, making sure
you know, it's all part of thequalification process, but it's
also making sure that, you know,we're not selling them, you
know, finance when BusinessCentral is appropriate or that,
you know, we're selling them aPowerApp instead of a sales
(25:35):
professional license if PowerAppis gonna do the the trick. It's
not always that the smallest thecheaper solution is gonna be the
best. I'm just saying that thereare examples of helping
Microsoft to right size thesolution because there's a kind
of a generally, in in Microsoft,there'd be a kind of tendency
to, you know, whatever is beingpushed from down on high to kind
(25:57):
of bring that out to market, andthat's not always what the
customer needs.
Anthony Carrano (26:02):
Oh, that's excellent. Excellent advice. So
as, you know, being a partnerdriven company, I'll let you
kinda be curious to see, youknow, you can answer this how
you want, whether you wanna, youknow, share about your
experience in the story that youwon, you wanna address it
specifically, with the, youknow, working with the largest,
you know, grocer there inIreland. Or if you wanna answer
(26:24):
it, maybe just taking a stepback and addressing it maybe in
the macro. What are some, like,the challenges that you
experience in some of theseengagements, you know, being a
partner driven company? And, youknow, if so, how do you work
together to, to to overcomethose?
Gerry Powers (26:41):
To be honest, where I pick whatever example I
was picking, it's always thesame issue, which is
communication. Right? Socommunication is and this is the
same, you know, you know, andkind of what I just said there
about, you know, right fittingthe solution. That's a
communication issue. You know,it's not a product issue.
It's an actual communicatingwith the customer to, like,
(27:04):
understand exactly what theirneed is and then get the right
solution for it. And in the sameway in delivering
implementations, you gotta makesure that that communication
between the customer and thedelivery partner is in sync, and
that's just the cause andbattle. That's the, you know,
that's the challenge that wehave to overcome every project
that we're working on. And, youknow, we do that. We've kind of
(27:27):
brought in stricter processes,around the kind of project
management of application, youknow, having guided guardrails
and just, you know, checkpointsthroughout the project.
And then a key part of that isimproved documentation as well
so that we're backing it up withactual physical documentation
that kinda supports, you know,what we're saying we're gonna
(27:48):
deliver or what we're, you know,to to keep the expectations in
line. And I suppose that'll bethe final thing about
communication is expectationbecause if the customer's
expectations are out of whackwith, you know, what they're
getting, they're gonna bedisappointed. So you have to
communicate early on exactlywhat the, you know, expectations
(28:09):
should be. I'm a firm believerin under promising and over
delivering. You know? So promiseless and deliver more, as as
much as you can.
Anthony Carrano (28:19):
Yeah. Yeah. No. That's excellent. Excellent
advice.
Rudy Rodriguez (28:23):
So, Gerry, you know, just a little while ago,
you mentioned the the two letterword AI. And then what do you
see on the horizon? How do yousee AI affecting your business?
And and how are you preparingyour company to be ready for the
onslaught of artificialintelligence?
Gerry Powers (28:43):
Yeah. Well, that's a that's a loaded question.
Rudy Rodriguez (28:46):
Right?
Gerry Powers (28:47):
Yeah. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, firstly, we
have no choice. Right?
So, like I said, you know,Microsoft's driving it, so we're
just gonna have to follow what'scoming. You know, I think at the
moment, we're still in the hypephase where there's an awful lot
of talk about AI. And,obviously, you know, I now use
Copilot, you know, forsearching. I don't use search
(29:08):
engines anymore.
I find you ask a question, youget an answer. That's fantastic.
We do a little bit of, you know,drafting, you know, responses
and proposals and the like usingAI is quite good just to get you
started. So you can already seesome benefits. But, obviously,
the the big or the first realkind of innovation that that
(29:28):
Microsoft have brought togetheror that that we've been been
able to kind of review is thissales order agent, which is
coming in Business Central.
And that's an agent who canbasically take an order, so an
inquiry from a customer. So thecustomer will send an email into
it. An email will have to go toa specific email address,
(29:48):
saying, "Hey. Can you give us aprice for this particular
product?" And the AI will goback and forth qualifying that
opportunity and then pulling theprice, giving a response to the
customer.
And then when the customer'sready to order, a human comes it
gets notified and gets involvedin the, sales process. So that's
(30:10):
a really specific example of,you know, Microsoft taking this
technology and applying this toa general use case that most
companies should be able toavail of, particularly someone
in the distribution typebusiness, where they get a lot
of inquiries for for pricing up,you know, standard products. So
(30:32):
I see that as being a hugedifferentiator between Microsoft
technology and other products.Like, I don't see the other,
vendors having that kind ofagent baked into their product.
I mean, I know Salesforce have acustomer service agent for on
the customer service side, butsales is such a key component,
(30:53):
and a very kind of, manual, kindof human heavy kind of, process
that if you're able to get anagent to do it, that's gonna be
a big win.
Rudy Rodriguez (31:03):
No. That's great. I do and I've seen it in
action. I have a neighbor whoworked for a computer
manufacturer and how he was ableto use that for getting price
quotes out so much faster andhow much that's helped him in
his business. And so there's alot of improvements, but there's
still a lot of trepidation outin the marketplace right now as
(31:23):
to what am I gonna do with this,especially in the SMB space is,
how are we going to use it? Andthat's a challenge for partners
to be able to explain.
Gerry Powers (31:34):
Well, absolutely. And, you know, again, it's like
how is it actually you know, sothat we've only seen it in the
preview kind of demo kind of,environment. How it actually
works in practice is somethingthat, you know, I haven't
actually experienced yet. And,you know, again, going back to
that expectation thing, youknow, we've gotta make sure
(31:54):
that, you know, obviously, youknow, you gotta tell a computer
what to do. And if that processisn't clear, then the AI agent's
not gonna be clear.
And so you've got to make surethat it's, you know, the
customer knows that it'ssuitable for this particular,
scenario. It might not besuitable for another scenario
(32:17):
and to just make sure thoseexpectations are in line with
the reality. But I do think it'sgonna, you know, you can see
that innovation is happening soquickly. So, know, they're
starting with the sales orderagent. It's gonna move into the
vendor order agent.
It's gonna, you know, then gointo the item order agent, the
warehouse order agent, etcetera.And so soon, you're gonna have
these agents, like, specializedin particular skill sets across
(32:41):
the stack, and I think that'squite exciting.
Rudy Rodriguez (32:44):
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 itaffects especially larger
companies, especially whenyou're talking about the order
agents. I had the great pleasureof selling some of those in the
in the past, you know, severalyears ago. And we took a a a
(33:04):
soft drink manufacturer, wasable to process orders, and
people were I mean, the agentswork night and day.
They just never slowed down, andit really impacted their
business. So it the cost was wasnot detrimental to the sale at
all. It actually increased salesdramatically.
Gerry Powers (33:22):
Well, that's the promise of it. And, I mean, to
be honest, I've seen there was apresentation just recently on
how, like, the vision kind ofMicrosoft seemed to have. And I
mean, this is just, you know, ininverted quotes. So this is not,
no no, secret information here,but it's where the actual
interface that customers aregonna have to with the business
(33:44):
applications is gonna be theCopilot or a kind of a, so in
essence, like, where you wouldask the Business Central, for
example, to raise an invoice forsuch a customer and, you know,
such and such quantities,etcetera, and the agent would go
off and do that. That they seemto be kind of reimagining that
(34:05):
whole interface of how customerswill kinda interact with the
business applications.
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. Andwhat I tend to, you know, see
from my, again, experienceworking with Microsoft since
2008 is that they're very, veryclear on their strategy, and it
(34:26):
just, you know, it might not beobvious how it's gonna look now,
but, that's the way they'regoing. Especially in the
Business Central side, I reallysee it affecting accounts
payable very dramatically. Verydramatically.
Well, you can see that even withthe the way the, scanning the
documents in there. That's nowthat used to be a kind of an add
(34:48):
in that you would need topurchase. Now it's part of the
solution. So that's the waythey're looking at it as well. I
think accounts payable is a keyfunction.
Rudy Rodriguez (34:57):
So as you're envisioning all these
improvements in services, howare you educating your partners
to help them, you know, sell andand get you into more accounts
as well. Right?
Gerry Powers (35:08):
Well, that's one of the things that we've been
kinda lucky with the deliverypartners that we're working with
is that, you know and it was,again, you know, going back to
the rationale of why thisdelivery model seemed to work
well for us was because now youdon't just have Dynamics as an
isolated kind of, you know, soit certainly was in the case,
(35:31):
and a lot of partners locallywould be very much, you know,
focused on one particularapplication, and that's all they
would do is implement that oneapplication. But, you know,
through the two examples that wediscussed there, it's it's
across the stack. You know, youcan't just do, you know,
Business Central. You've gottado Power Apps, Power Automate,
Power BI, Power Pages, plus, youknow, field service I mentioned
(35:55):
in the first example. So youhave to have that skill set
across the full stack.
And that's obviously verydifficult to do, you know,
because the old expression, youknow, jack of all trades, master
of none. You know? So, you know,by having such a breadth of
technologies that you gotta keeppace with and all these
technologies are changing everysix months as they're adding new
(36:17):
features and functionality. It'svery difficult to keep up and
keep educated, and then yougotta do that across the whole
stack. So that's even morechallenging.
And so that's why, I suppose,the delivery partners we work
with have the scale and thebreadth that they have
resources, you know, skilled ineach of those areas. So and that
(36:37):
was one of the reasons why,this, I suppose, you know, has
been successful in that. Like Isay, whatever problem's been
thrown at us, we have been ableto resolve it because we do have
the skill set.
Rudy Rodriguez (36:48):
That's great to hear. Very, very great to hear.
You know, not every partner hasgoes through all that, and it's
part of the growth experience ofbeing a partner. Right? Part of
the growth experience.
Do you find that, your IAMCPpartners are all that dedicated
to to that growth anddevelopment of of their own
businesses?
Gerry Powers (37:06):
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 ofthe questions that have been
asked was around, you know, whatmakes a successful partnership
and having the aligned goals,you know, which we talked about
with Microsoft. That's a reallykey one. So, you know, again,
(37:28):
that for me is one of the biglessons is that, you know, we
all are aiming in the samedirection. We all know what
we're trying to achieve, and,therefore, we'll work together.
You know? Whereas if there's anykind of misaligned goals, that's
when the partnership kinda breakup.
Rudy Rodriguez (37:47):
Oh, well, that's great advice. That's great
advice to give any company, youknow, in partnering. You know,
that was one of the questions Iwanted to ask. What advice do
you have, you know, to givecompanies like yours regarding
partnering? And you've givensome great advice to the
partners.
Gerry Powers (38:02):
Yeah. And, I mean, the first thing I would I would
say on that one, though, is Ihave down here a 110% trust. You
know? So it's not even a 100%.It's it's even more than you
know?
You have to trust your partner,you know, because once you lose
that trust, then it's it's veryhard to to make it work. So you,
you know? And the second thing Ihad is a, you know, a friend in
(38:23):
need is a friend indeed. So it'syou know, you know, when you're
not you know, it's when you'restruggling, that's when that
trust and that kind ofpartnership is most important.
And then the final thing wasjust that it's a two way street,
you know.
So, you know, we've had someexperience of this of working
with partners where it's been akind of one way street, and it
(38:43):
just doesn't work. But bothpartners have to, be getting
something out of us. You know,it has to be a a quid pro quo.
And once one partner tries tokind of dominate or kind of,
exploit, I think is probably thebest word, and other partners,
it's, again, it's not gonnawork, you know, because it's it
has to be a partnership ofequals and, and and and, two way
(39:06):
street.
Rudy Rodriguez (39:07):
That's great advice. Very, very great advice.
Really appreciate that.
Anthony Carrano (39:11):
Gerry, this has been fantastic. I really
appreciate you taking time withus and just dropping a lot of,
really good nuggets, throughoutthe 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 ofthe things that YesDynamic is
offering?
Gerry Powers (39:28):
Yeah. So, obviously, our website,
yesdynamic.com, is kind of thebest place to, to to see the
full range of products that weoffer. And then, you know,
LinkedIn, if they just look meup on LinkedIn and obviously,
anyone, any partner wants tochat, just, you know, message
me, and I'll definitely comeback. And always always open to,
(39:49):
you know, having a conversation.You know, something may come,
but something may not, but it'syou always learn something.
Anthony Carrano (39:55):
Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you once
again, for being on the showtoday, and, have a great day.
Gerry Powers (40:02):
Well, thank you very much for for having me, and
it's been a real pleasure, to tomeet you both and to chat with
you both, and we look forward tochatting again.
Rudy Rodriguez (40:10):
Look forward to chatting with you again too, and
maybe we'll chat again on SaintPatty's Day.
Gerry Powers (40:16):
Exactly.That's great.
Rudy Rodriguez (40:17):
Have a great day, sir. Take care.
Gerry Powers (40:19):
Thank you.
Anthony Carrano (40:22):
Well, that was a great episode. I really
appreciate, just the perspectiveand the advice that Gerry gave.
It was really fun, especiallyhearing, from somebody over in
EMEA and, just, just some oftheir thoughts and successes on
P2P. In particular, Rudy, I justreally thought his advice he
just provides some great advicefor partners who wanna have more
(40:44):
co-sell opportunities withMicrosoft. And as, you know, as
you and I both know, I mean, wework with a lot of partners who
want such a, you know,opportunities and we break these
things down.
But just to hear his perspectiveas someone who's successfully
doing it and how he broke itdown, he said, number one, you
have to be aligned withMicrosoft. I just, I just
(41:06):
thought that was I mean, thatwas great. I mean, it's so
obvious. But two, how he thenmentioned how it's really
important that you need tounderstand what are Microsoft's
KPIs, and how are you gonna helpthem be successful. And that's
part of that alignment piece.
But then how you also balancethat with, you know, the
(41:27):
customer experience and makingsure that you're right sizing,
if you will, you know, what'sthe appropriate, you know,
business, you know, applicationand just make sure there's a
solid customer, you know,product fit. So that way, you
know, everybody's successful init. You know, his company, you
know, has a partner successful,Microsoft successful, but also
(41:47):
then the customer successful inthat. And that's you know, those
things really create a lot ofthose co-sell opportunities. So
I really appreciated him sharingthat.
Rudy Rodriguez (41:56):
That was excellent advice that he gave
and and especially onunderstanding Microsoft's KPIs.
I found that very useful. Theother thing that I found useful
was his thoroughness in hisapproach with communications and
building a strong communicationstream with partners because you
have to vet your partners. Andhe had a very strong vetting
(42:17):
process in how he works withpartners and building that trust
relationship that's so so key tobeing successful. If you can't
build trust with your partners,then you will fail.
And so he had a great storythere about how he he approached
it and how where he learned it,how he learned it, and how he
(42:38):
continues to practice that on adaily basis. That's just the key
to success. I really appreciatedthat story.
Anthony Carrano (42:45):
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 onthe promise and the potential
of, you know, the sales orderagent and how, you know, this AI
is not only gonna help customersand make an impact with their
(43:08):
business, but also reallygreatly improve, you know, the
customer experience and how,customers will have a have an
opportunity and how what thoseinteractions are gonna look
like. So I thought that wasreally fascinating, and it's
gonna be fun to see how, youknow, this plays out over the
next, you know, one, three, fiveyear period of time.
Rudy Rodriguez (43:28):
Absolutely. It was a great conversation with
Gerry, and I hope our our ourlisteners really enjoy it. So in
saying that, I wanna thank allof you for joining us on this
episode of IAMCP Profiles inPartnership powered by Dunamis
Marketing. We hope you enjoyedthis podcast and find it useful
and inspiring. If you did,please subscribe, rate, and
(43:49):
review us on your favoritepodcast platform.
One of the best ways to partnerfor success is to join IAMCP, a
community of Microsoft partnerswho help each other grow and
thrive. IAMCP members can findand connect with other partners
locally and globally and accessexclusive resources and
opportunities. Whether you'relooking for new customers, new
(44:12):
markets, or new solutions, IAMCPcan help you achieve your goals.
To learn more, visit the website@www.iamcp.org.
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