November 4, 2025 • 46 mins
How AvePoint and IAMCP Are Shaping the Future of Services, Scaling, and Recurring Revenue
AvePoint and IAMCP reveal how strategic partnerships and AI-powered solutions fuel scalable growth and recurring revenue for partners.
Welcome to Profiles in Partnership. In this episode, AvePoint’s Dux Raymond Sy joins Dunamis Marketing’s Anthony Carrano and Rudy Rodriguez to break down how Microsoft partners can leverage AI, operational efficiency, and exclusive incentives for scalable, recurring growth. If you’re a growth-focused Microsoft partner, discover how this partnership strategies unlock new revenue streams and simplify talent scaling—all without jargon or complexity.
Key Discussion Points:
1. Strategic Partnership Power: The AvePoint-IAMCP alliance offers investors a proven model for scaling through collaboration and shared resources.
2. AI-Driven Service Expansion: Partners can unlock new revenue streams by deploying AI solutions, enhancing data security, and optimizing operations.
3. Recurring Revenue Opportunities: AvePoint’s platform enables partners to shift from one-off projects to recurring service models, driving predictable cash flow.
4. Talent Solutions for Scaling: AvePoint’s global talent services let partners expand without costly hiring, addressing labor shortages and boosting efficiency.
5. Exclusive Member Benefits: IAMCP members receive free migration licenses and waived placement fees, accelerating adoption and ROI.
6. Operational Efficiency: Automated tools and templates reduce setup time, minimize errors, and maximize margins—crucial for investors seeking scalable growth.
7. Partner-Ready Growth Strategies: By diversifying offerings and capitalizing on AI adoption, partners can position themselves as leaders in the ecosystem.
Chapters & Timestamps
• [00:00] Episode Introduction: Welcome, overview of the Microsoft partner ecosystem, and episode focus.
• [00:22] Guest Background: Dux Sy’s journey from coder to Chief Brand Officer; personal growth lessons.
• [03:24] Lessons in Partnership: Insights from team sports and marathons—how collaboration fuels growth.
• [06:58] AvePoint & IAMCP Collaboration: Unique partnership advantages and investor relevance.
• [09:10] AI and Data Readiness: Opportunities for partners in AI, data security, and governance.
• [10:35] Scaling Operations: AvePoint’s talent solutions for efficient partner expansion.
• [27:34] Exclusive Member Benefits: Special offers for IAMCP partners, including free licenses and waived fees.
• [29:29] Partner-Focused Takeaways: How benefits accelerate partner growth.
• [39:02] Brand Leadership & Growth : Mindset shifts for scaling, marketing, and business evolution.
• [44:40] Closing Thoughts: How to connect, next steps, and episode wrap-up.
Notable Quotes from Dux Raymond Sy:
• Partners as Strategic Advisors: "We’re in a very unique time where we’re sitting with our customers as a guide, a thought leader, so to speak, to help them in their AI journey."
• Humility and Adaptability: "You may have an idea of what you think you’re good at, the other person’s good at, but once you start working together, you realize somebody else is better than me on this part of the initiative, and I’m better at something else. And we should be open to that."
• Results-driven Adaptable Partnerships
"It’s not just about the nice press release that’s posted on social media... If you want partnership to work, we have to really work on it and talk about what are goals. What are the revenues we’re trying to hit? Are we there yet? We gotta track. If it’s working great, if not, how do we pivot?"
• Data Quality Drives AI
"No matter how great the AI is, but if your data estate is no good, AI is no good... Sometimes we blame AI for hallucination, showing things they’re not supposed to. Well, guess what? Because the data is bad."
• Openness drives growth
"Be open to learn new things. Because oftentimes, in my initial transition, when I had to do sales, when I had to do marketing, I’m technical... But the blocker is just in my mindset."
Guest:
Dux Raymond Sy: LinkedIn
Chief Brand Officer of AvePoint
For more information about this partnership: AvePoint | IAMCP
Hosts:
Anthony Carrano, Principal at Dunamis Marketing: LinkedIn
Rudy Rodriguez, Principal at Dunamis Marketing: LinkedIn
Dunamis Marketing Corporate Website: Dunamis Marketing
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anthony Carrano (00:05):
Welcome to Profiles and Partnership, the
podcast where we spotlight thepeople, ideas, and
collaborations shaping theMicrosoft partner ecosystem. I'm
your cohost, Anthony Carrano,and today we're diving into a
story that sits right at theintersection of innovation,
community, and growth. TheInternational Association of
Microsoft Channel Partners,better known as IAMCP, has
(00:27):
always been about one thing,helping partners succeed
together. In today's rapidlyevolving landscape, that mission
has never been more critical.From shifting IT services
demands to the ongoing talentshortage and the changes in
Microsoft's cloud solutionprovider program, partners are
navigating more complexity thanever before. That's why today's
(00:48):
conversation is so timely.
I'm joined by Dux Raymond Sy,Chief Brand Officer at AvePoint,
to explore how their partnershipwith IAMCP is designed to
empower members to expandservices revenue, scale
operations, and lead theircustomers into the age of AI.
We'll talk about AvePointelements, partner talent
services, and the exclusivebenefits available to IAMCP
(01:12):
members, and most importantly,how this collaboration is
helping partners transformchallenges into opportunities.
So whether you're a partnerlooking to grow your services
business, a leader trying toscale your team, or simply
someone passionate about thefuture of digital
transformation, this episode isfor you. Let's dive in.
Well, Dux, welcome to thepodcast. We're really excited to
(01:35):
have you on with us today.
Dux Raymond Sy (01:36):
Well, Anthony, Rudy, thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to join you inthis conversation.
Anthony Carrano (01:41):
Yes, we're looking forward to covering a
whole array of things as itpertains to with AvePoint, how
it's going to benefit IAMCPmembers. But before we dive into
a lot of that, Dux, why don'tyou tell us a little bit about
yourself?
Dux Raymond Sy (01:52):
Sure. Hey everyone, my name is Dux Raymond
Sy. I serve as the Chief BrandOfficer at AvePoint, where we
provide the most advancedplatform for data security in
this new age of AI. And we're soexcited to be working with a lot
of channel partners around theworld, helping them introduce
new services offerings,especially a lot of your
customers are beginning or maybein the middle of their AI
(02:15):
journey. For me, I'm a I'm atechie.
I started my career inassembler. Maybe some of the
listeners don't know what thatis, but I was a coder back then.
And then through my twenty plusyears career in this industry
evolved through doing sales andbusiness. And today I have the
great opportunity to serve thechief brand officer.
Anthony Carrano (02:33):
Well, in addition to that, you know, with
that extensive background, youknow, ducks, I might be getting
some of the details a littlefuzzy. So you give me a little
leeway on this one. But, youwere at some point part of like
the, with the national dragonboat team there in The
Philippines. Tell us what's thatfor those of us who are not
(02:54):
familiar with that.
Dux Raymond Sy (02:56):
So I moved to The United States in 1996. I'm
sure some of the listenersweren't born yet. But prior to
that, I was born and raised inThe Philippines. For those that
may not be familiar, Philippinesis in Southeast Asia, over 7,600
islands.
And water is everywhere. Andsince a kid, I just love rowing,
(03:19):
dragon boat rowing to bespecific. It's a big sport out
in Asia Pacific. And I thinkhere in Hawaii, DC has a team.
Anywhere there's water.
So it's a boat with like 20people and then there's what's
called the spearman in the backsteering the boat, making sure
it's straight and there's adrummer in front. So I got the
(03:39):
opportunity to be a part of thePhilippine team. And because
back then I was so skinny andsmall, I was a steersman. My job
is to make sure the boat'sstraight. And I think the
pinnacle of my career as asteersman is we ended up in like
the Olympics of dragon boatrowing.
Anthony Carrano (04:00):
Oh, wow.
Dux Raymond Sy (04:00):
We competed against different countries. And
I thought we won, but we wonsecond to China by point tenth
of a second. Because it's calledboth of us going through the
finish line and I thought wewon, but we didn't. But it was
cool. I still have the newspaperclipping from Associated Press
published in all the newspapersout there.
Anthony Carrano (04:20):
Uh-huh. No. That's that's great. Now you're
also now and I'm gonna tie thisall into partnerships here. So
you're also participating in theupcoming Marine Corps Marathon.
Dux Raymond Sy (04:29):
Yes. Yes. In fact, this weekend here in DC,
Marine Corps marathon is big,but this is special because it's
a fiftieth Marine Corpsmarathon. And I'm gonna fess up.
I'm turning 50, so it's a bigdeal for me to run the 50.
Anthony Carrano (04:44):
50 for 50. That's great.
Oh, that's cool. So let's tiethis in. So you've got one
situation, you know, abackground where you're, you're
one of team, one of 20, excuseme, on a team in this dragon
boat racing to the Marine Corpsmarathon where you're obviously,
they're just, you're pushingyourself individually. What
(05:05):
lessons about a partnership canyou, you know, have you learned,
you know, from both thoseexperiences?
Dux Raymond Sy (05:13):
That's a fantastic question, Anthony. I
think just looking back throughthese experiences, there's three
key areas around partnership, Ithink, that I've learned just
being in these environments. Sofirst, for example, in dragon
boat rowing, where oftentimesgoing in, when I first signed
(05:34):
up, I'm like, Oh, I wanna be anactual rower where I'm gonna sit
in the front and I'm gonna row,I'm gonna row, I'm gonna row. So
walking in, you have onemindset, but as you work with
different teams and people andpartners, realize, Oh, my
strength is not in that. I'mactually better off being a
(05:55):
steersman in the back because Ihave to consider what everybody
else's strength is. So that'sone. So the first lesson is you
may have an idea of what youthink you're good at, the other
person's good at, but once youstart working together, you
realize somebody else is betterthan me on this part of the
initiative and I'm better atsomething else.
(06:16):
And we should be open to that.We can't be- We should have that
growth mindset and be open tochanges and because you'll find
out unless you work with peoplethat you may be better at
something else. So that's oneimportant lesson. The second
lesson with marathon, so tospeak, I was actually peer
pressured into running. So I'mat AvePoint for thirteen years
(06:39):
now and a lot of our seniorleaders are runners and
marathoners.
And I remember when I firstjoined AvePoint, you know, my
boss, the CEO, he's like, Let'sgo running. We were traveling
for a business trip. I'm notgonna say no because my boss
wants, you know, my boss thoughtit was good to run. But then I
grew to like it, right? Sosecond lesson is we may do
(07:00):
things that we don't like, wedon't want, or we don't even
expect that we're gonna do, butwe end up doing and actually we
like it.
In some cases, we we we becomegood at it. Right? The
partnership, be open to that aswell. And last but not the
least, I think for both of thesethings, partnership takes time.
(07:24):
It's not just about the nicepress release that's posted on
social media, we have picturestogether, we're partners, that's
just step one.
But now if you want partnershipto work, we have to really work
on it and talk about what aregoals? Are the revenues we're
trying to hit? Are we there yet?We got to track. If it's working
(07:45):
great, if not, how do we pivot?Just like any relationship, we
have to be in it for the longterm.
Anthony Carrano (07:52):
That's that's excellent. That's excellent.
Just to kind of then piggybackon that kind of leading into
this relationship betweenAvePoint and IAMCP. You know?
So, you know, from yourperspective, how did the
partnership between AvePoint andIAMCP come about and what makes
it unique compared to all theother alliances
Rudy Rodriguez (08:11):
Sure.
Anthony Carrano (08:11):
In that Microsoft ecosystem?
Dux Raymond Sy (08:13):
Look, I've been involved in this ecosystem for
over twenty years and veryfamiliar with IAMCP and the
great work and impact it has ona lot of partners globally. I
think we're in a very uniquejuncture, both in the industry,
society, and partnerships ingeneral. So I think there's
three things that's unique tothis partnership. First and
(08:35):
foremost, what AvePoint andIAMCP can do together to help
our customers in the age of AIis very important. Because
partners now are on the frenzybecause historically, a lot of
organizations or customers lookat IT vendors or IT service
providers as essentially, Oh,you got to back up my servers or
(09:00):
you got to install this machineor set up this computer.
But we're in a very unique timewhere we're sitting with our
customers as a guide, a thoughtleader, so to speak, to help
them in their AI journey. So Ithink that's number one, right?
We're in the front seat helpingour customers navigate through
(09:22):
this time of AI and help themgrow their business. So that's
one big difference. And we'reboth doing that as a technology
vendor and our partners asservice providers.
The second unique thing is whatwe want to offer to IAMCP
members is not just helping growtheir revenues in terms of
(09:47):
expanding their services in AI.So for example, know, a lot of
our customers today, yourcustomers are trying to figure
out, okay, how do I get startedwith Copilot, right? It's not
just about buying Copilotlicenses or Gemini licenses.
Well, partners can help themmake sure their data foundation
is ready. Are there content ordata from twenty years ago?
(10:10):
You don't want that because youdon't want Copilot to pull up
policies from twenty years ago.So how do you make sure your
customers have good dataquality? Second, how about good
data security? If you askCopilot, show me all the files I
have access to with the wordsalary. You don't want to see
other people's salary.
That happens today becausenobody's malicious, but all the
(10:32):
permissions aren't set right onfiles and teams and SharePoint.
So partners can come in and helpsecure that. And third is data
governance. What's aninformation lifecycle,
especially for customers thatmay be highly regulated, like in
health care, government,financial services? Massive
opportunity for partners becausedata fuels AI, which begs the
(10:57):
question, that sounds great,Dux, but how do I do all that?
This is where we come in asAvePoint, because we have the
most comprehensive dataprotection and data security
platform that partners canleverage and build services
business off of it. And it's notjust projects. Yeah, of course,
there's initial consultingprojects, but we have a lot of
(11:17):
partners around the worldbuilding recurring revenue
business on top of ourtechnology. So that's the second
one, increased revenue, right?So number one, be a thought
leader.
Second, increased revenuestreams by new services, some of
them recurring. The last part,which is very special, is we're
helping our partners scale theiroperations. Know, AvePoint has
(11:39):
been around twenty three years.We're a global business. We're
in 17 countries across 25offices.
And oftentimes partners ask us,you know, apart from your
technology, how have you set upthis scalable business
infrastructure? Well, becausewe're in different parts of the
world, we're tapping into allkinds of amazing talent to help
(12:02):
grow our business. So we want tomake that available to our
partners as well. Becausepartners may be interested in
growing their servicespractices, but sometimes they
get held back or stifled becauseI don't have enough people, I
don't have the right people, Idon't have the budget to hire
every So single person I whatwe're doing here with this
(12:25):
partnership is we're gonnaprovide talented folks across
sales and marketing andtechnical, you want a developer,
you want a project manager, youwant a cybersecurity specialist,
a migration engineer, we canoffer that full time resource to
the partner at a very, veryminimal cost. So those are three
(12:48):
things, right?
Help partners become thoughtleader, grow their revenue and
scale their operations, which isvery unique in the industry.
Anthony Carrano (12:54):
So I'm gonna put you a little bit on the spot
as the Chief Brand Officer. Yousay you're a messaging guru.
What's kind of like, if you wereto give it like a sound bite,
like an overarching vision forthis partnership, because you've
done a great job reallysuccinctly, you know, breaking
down, you know, the, the threeareas, but something that, you
know, folks listening can walkaway with and say, okay, I got
(13:17):
it. Like in this sound bite, youknow, the vision, you know, for
for this partnership as I'mhelping, you know, IAMCP members
become frontier firms in thedigital transformation, what
would that be?
Dux Raymond Sy (13:28):
Essentially, you know, we're helping partners
expand revenues and scaleoperations.
Anthony Carrano (13:38):
That's great. What now as you're as you're
applying, you know, coming inand helping with that from your
perspective and just with whatyou know about, you know, IAMCP,
and its members, what do you seeare some of like the biggest
pressures IAMCP members facetoday as it pertains to this? We
(13:58):
know whether it's the shiftingIT services demand, talent
shortages, adapting to, youknow, the Microsoft changes,
etcetera.
Dux Raymond Sy (14:06):
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head, right? So
if we think about the shiftingIT service demands, look, with
AI, a lot of companies orcustomers are reconsidering
maybe there's some work that AIcan do. I don't need to hire
technology providers for, or notjust technology providers, any
(14:27):
kind of vendors for, right? Sothat's one. And a lot of the
traditional IT services model isreally under pressure. You've
seen even companies as big asAccenture talking about this.
Whereas what we can help andoffer is that's true, but then
(14:48):
let's introduce new services.Right? A lot of partners today,
other than the traditionalservices like, okay, we'll back
up your data, we'll do migrationfor you.
Well, what? Everybody and theircousins doing that too. Their
customers are so interested nowin AI, they need help on how to
begin the journey and make sureas they're continuing leveraging
(15:08):
AI, making sure their data issecure and data is good quality.
Talent shortage you brought up.Like I said, again, depending on
where you are in the world, thisis true.
And apart from the talentshortage, it comes down to cost
as well. A lot of partners havelimited budget. As much as
partners and service providerswant to grow and hire as many
(15:32):
people as they can, it's notrealistic. So what we want to
offer and help with is throughour network of global talent, we
wanna make that available toIAMCP partners. And lastly, you
know, everybody's changing, eventhe big hyperscalers.
Anthony Carrano (15:49):
Mhmm.
Dux Raymond Sy (15:49):
Microsoft's CSP changes was a huge blow,
frankly, to a lot of partners.And we need to adapt quickly and
and think about, okay, insteadof continuing on this mode of
reselling licenses or relying onon Microsoft product margins,
(16:09):
what else can we offer to notonly sustain but grow our
business?
Anthony Carrano (16:14):
Who would you how would you describe, like,
what would be an ideal I wasgonna ask, like, in a describe,
an ideal partner.
Dux Raymond Sy (16:22):
Sure.
Anthony Carrano (16:24):
Maybe we could kinda talk about that one, but
I'm like, let let's let's let'sanswer that question. But then
also the one is just, you know,I think a lot about, like, for
businesses that are, you know,you certain dealing with certain
customer situations or atcertain, like, inflection points
where, like, yeah, I mean, youknow, this is where, you know,
(16:44):
half point. Right?
So maybe kind of, you know, talkabout that a little bit.
Dux Raymond Sy (16:48):
Yeah. So let me let me paint two examples on how
AvePoint can help every IAMCPpartner. So for example, so
there are a lot of partnerstoday, which is great are still
managing their customers,Microsoft 365 tenant. And when I
say managing, it's everythingfrom a new employee, creating
(17:09):
new accounts, to making surepasswords are being reset. Then
they want to take on newcustomers as well.
So a simple example, through ourtechnology, we have what's
called baseline management. Now,what does that mean? So I don't
know, Anthony, Rudy, do you evermanage or set up a 365 tenant
(17:31):
for a customer?
Anthony Carrano (17:32):
Yeah. Rudy would be involved. I'm more
marketing.
Dux Raymond Sy (17:35):
That's okay. Rudy nodded her head. His head.
Sorry.
Yeah. So so I would imagine,right, I take on a new customer.
Okay. What do I need to set up a365 tenant? Well, I gotta go to
Azure setup Entra ID.
Well, they need Intune. Theyneed this, that. So that whole
rigmarole doesn't matter how bigor how small that organization
is. That whole process wouldtake a couple of days if I'm
(17:58):
good for the customers to getgoing. Now those days equate to
hours, man hours or woman hour,right?
So we have a technology calledbaseline management as a part of
our platform that as a partner,it's very minimal. It's like $20
a month per tenant. You canessentially apply a template.
(18:23):
You can say, Oh, this customer'shealthcare customer. Apply the
healthcare template to thiscustomer.
It will do all the configurationin no more than an hour. And you
can charge the same to thecustomer. One, you make money
because now even if you buildthe same hours, the person's not
really working that much time.But at the same time, avoid
(18:44):
mistakes because setting uptenants, you go to all these
different kinds ofconfiguration, you're on
PowerShell. And if you make amistake, may have to start over.
So that's one scenario. Not onlyyou're helping your customer,
but now your margins are morebecause you use our technology.
And I can share examples afterexamples on how our technology
(19:05):
can help you and grow yourbusiness with services. The
other scenario in terms oftalent, we have a partner where
this partner landed a majorcontract to be the MSP, managed
services provider, of a lot ofdifferent offices of a
government agency around thecountry, which is great. It's
like 200 offices.
(19:27):
But the problem is part of thecontract is they have to offer
20 Microsoft 365 support inalways email, phone calls. And
they try to look for a talenthere in The United States.
First, you know, the cost tierone support is about $70 or $80
(19:47):
grand on the average in The US.They couldn't find anybody that
can do night shift because thecontract's 24/7. So working with
a partner, we provided two nightshift support resource, 365,
(20:08):
night shift East Coast time, andyeah, and and help their
business.
And the cost for those two,again, I'm just doing a estimate
here, I think was around $7,000a month for two full time
resource working night shift. Idon't think you can get that
(20:29):
$7,000 even for one workingnight shift here. So those are
just some examples andscenarios. So in short, if you
want to scale your business interms of using technology to
grow services, we got your back.Second, you want to scale your
business in terms of operation,getting right talent to support
(20:50):
you, not just technical.
I have a partner that we providea full time marketing person. I
have another partner we providedfull time SDRs, doing outbound
calls to book meetings, right?Because that's the other
challenge. Some of our partnersare like, I have all these
leads. I just don't have time orsomebody to call and book
meetings.
So we can help with that too.
Anthony Carrano (21:11):
That's excellent. That's excellent.
Rudy, I think you've got somequestions.
Rudy Rodriguez (21:15):
Yeah. Well, Dux, you know, some of the things
that you've said, where were youwhen I needed you during the
BPOS days?
Dux Raymond Sy (21:21):
Right? BPOS.
Rudy Rodriguez (21:23):
BPOS for those people who, you know, youngsters
that are around today don'tremember what BPOS was
Dux Raymond Sy (21:29):
Back in our days, business productivity
online services. Yeah.
Rudy Rodriguez (21:32):
Yeah. Those were some tough days. Those were some
tough, tough days. But but I Ireally appreciate what you've
been saying because I really seethe benefit of of the services.
So I think you call your serviceAvePoint Elements. Is that
correct?
Dux Raymond Sy (21:46):
That's right. Our technology is called
AvePoint Elements, and the waythis technology is designed is
designed for partners. So a lotof the capabilities we have that
we built up in the last twentyplus years, we designed it
specific to partners. So youcould do things like what I
described, baseline management,multi tenant management. You
(22:07):
could do storage, datacleansing.
So on a regular basis, you cango to a tenant and say, Hey,
anything more than ten yearsold, archive it somewhere. We
could do storage optimization,which is huge for customers
today because storage is notunlimited in March. And
especially with AI, more storagewould be created. So we have a
(22:29):
technology where partners createa service and say, Hey, we'll
make sure your storage isoptimized so you don't have to
pay extra to Microsoft. I hopeMicrosoft doesn't listen.
But we can take, you know,whatever's old, move it to cold
storage or cheaper storage.Right? So we have all these
technologies through Elements.
Rudy Rodriguez (22:47):
So are you targeting very specific types of
partners? You know, MSPs inparticular, I I would guess?
Dux Raymond Sy (22:54):
MSPs. We found that MSPs take advantage of this
a lot. However, a lot of our SIpartners are are leveraging this
as well. For example, a lot ofthe initial Copilot projects, so
they use this technology to goahead and look at the data
estate, they clean the data,secure the data, and then they
(23:16):
do Copilot deployment forcustomers. So it's really SIs,
MSPs that leverages this.
And we're seeing a lot of SIsbecoming MSPs as well. Because
once they're in, they're in theproject, they gain the trust,
customers want to work withthem. So they have a recurring
business through our platform.
Rudy Rodriguez (23:37):
Well, I see the real opportunity is for partners
to be able to expand theirservices and create recurring
revenue. So I really see that.How much training does it take
for a partner to get up to speedon AvePoint Elements?
Dux Raymond Sy (23:52):
Great question. Frankly, the good news with
AvePoint is not only to providethe technology, we provide the
training. Typically, if you'redoing it full time, the whole
platform, you can learn in aweek if you're technical, right?
And not only that, in a lot ofour some of our partners for
their initial engagement, wehave a team that helps them side
(24:14):
by side in doing the engagement.So we believe that if the
partner needs help, we could beside by side with you, train the
trainer type of model.
In fact, we even go as far asproviding templates of statement
of work. So it's not just thetechnical side, the sales, the
marketing side. We want to equippartners because these are new
(24:34):
line of services. And frankly,these are the things that we've
done with our direct bigcustomers. So similar to
Microsoft, we work with a lot oflarge customers directly, but
after a certain size, we wannawork with partners and have the
partners do services.
Rudy Rodriguez (24:52):
Okay. Well, a little bit earlier, you
mentioned a staffing componentto your service. And we all know
talent is a huge pain point forall partners right now where
everybody's struggling withthat. So how does AvePoint's
partner talent services addressthat gap and then what makes it
different from traditionaloutsourcing and staffing models?
Dux Raymond Sy (25:13):
Great question. So first and foremost, our
talent services is onlyavailable to AvePoint partners.
We're not a staffing company.We're not in the business of
staffing. In the end, we're asoftware company.
And we realize that the talentinfrastructure we built for our
business can greatly benefit ourpartners. Because in the end, if
our partners' business grow inscale, it means they're gonna
(25:37):
need more of our technology. Sothat's our goal. So that's
number one. So you won't find usout there just selling talent
and the partner's not using ourtechnology.
The second piece is how are wedifferent? I've talked to a lot
of partners. They're like,actually, Dux, I've tried this.
You know, I went out, you know,I look for a staffing company
overseas in LATAM, in Asia.Well, the cost looks attractive,
(26:00):
but in the end it waschallenging.
I have to deal with labor laws,culture, all the HR related
stuff. Well, for us, we takecare of it because in all of
these regions around the world,we have 200 people, 800 people.
It's fully functioning becauseit's supporting AvPoint. It's
(26:20):
not like we're gonna create thisas a line of business. Even if
we don't do this for partners,we're doing it internally.
So it's a natural extensionwhere if we help our partners
grow in their business, ourbusiness will grow. So that's a
big difference. And also allthese individuals are Microsoft
(26:40):
trained and AvePoint trained. Sofrom an onboarding perspective,
we essentially take care ofeverything. So it's a
subscription model for ourpartners.
And if it's in this ecosystem,the same level of quality and
expectation we have internallyis the same thing that partners
(27:03):
can expect. Certainly partnersare involved in the recruitment,
in the interview, but we make itas easy and as simple for
partners. So that's the second.And the last thing is, as I've
mentioned, we're different thanother staffing agencies because
we're not a staffing agency. Andwhat's driving this is we wanna
make sure our partners aresuccessful.
(27:23):
We're already helping them withgrowing their revenues through
our products and they buildservices. But we feel that it's
valuable that we help them scaletheir operations and no other
vendor is doing this. All theother vendor out there is like,
Okay, you buy my product, builda service. How you run your
business, I can't help you. Wewant to take it to the next step
is we want to help you grow andscale your business with great
(27:46):
talent at a at a lower cost.
Rudy Rodriguez (27:50):
Well, you know, I I know AvePoint has worked
with IAMCP for many years. Andso one of the things is this
partnership that you've craftedwith IAMCP. Can you tell us is
are there exclusive benefits forIAMCP members? And just tell us
a little bit more about theservices, you know, how it's
structured and and and how thosehow the fees work and
(28:10):
incentives, you know, thingslike that.
Dux Raymond Sy (28:12):
Absolutely. So like I said, we're very grateful
to be working with IAMCPglobally. We're involved in a
lot of different chapters aroundthe world. So specific to this
global partnership, which I'mreally excited about, first and
foremost, any IAMCP member todayor a new member, you will get a
(28:34):
free license of our flytechnology for migration for one
project for up to 500 seats. Andthis is for everybody.
There's a place you can sign upso you can avail of this. So
from a technology perspective,you can take our world class
migration technology and startusing it for a project. And you
(28:55):
can make money off of it youknow, with our technology, that
one technology for free. Andcertainly we would love for you
to check out all of our othercapabilities in Element as well.
So that's one, that's exclusiveto IAMCP.
The second exclusive thing is wewaive our placement fee for
talent services. So typicallyfor every talent that we place
(29:19):
for a partner, we have aplacement fee for $2,500 so
we're gonna waive that for everymember, for IAMCP member. So if
you end up availing of ourpartner talent services
capability as a partner, Youknow, once you hire the talent,
all you're gonna pay for is theis the monthly fee for that
(29:41):
talent. That's it. No placementfee, which is $2,500 for every
talent.
Rudy Rodriguez (29:46):
Wow. That's great. Well, you know, those are
great incentives. Those aregreat incentives for partners to
adopt your services. Can thoseservices those incentives
accelerate help partnersaccelerate the adoption and
impact, you know, for theirbusiness?
Dux Raymond Sy (30:02):
Yeah. Absolutely. Because we've worked
with a bunch of partnersalready, both on our technology
side to grow their revenue andalso on the operational side to
help scale their team. And we'veseen, you know, partners getting
the ROI because it workstogether, right? As as as your
business grow as a partner, it'snatural that you need people.
(30:25):
And and what's holding back alot of partners is I I spoke
with another partner last week.He's like, boy, I wanna do more
of these advanced AI services,but I still have all these
migration projects I have to do.I'm not gonna turn it away. I
go, understood. And we ended updiscussing.
He's like, can you get me amigration engineer? I go, yeah.
(30:45):
So he's gonna hire a migrationengineer full time. They'll do
all the so this partner willcontinue to take on migration
projects and work. But now thispartner will expand into a lot
of these new AI services like AIdata readiness, data security,
AI adoption services.
So now it's an opportunity forthem to open a new line of
(31:06):
business while still continuingexisting business that they get.
Rudy Rodriguez (31:11):
Well, it is a really exciting program, I must
say. I've been around IAMCPsince before Windows '95, so
we'll go a long time. But onethe things that I see is these
benefits that you provide canhelp our existing chapters
attract and qualify new membersinto the program. Can you tell
(31:35):
us a little bit about how you'veworked with IAMCP to help with
some of those items?
Dux Raymond Sy (31:40):
Yes, so what's exciting is as, you know, we're
heading into Microsoft Ignite,for example. So this partnership
will be shared throughout,certainly online, but also in
the upcoming Ignite, and all thechapters as well to promote this
so that potential new memberscan see, Oh, wow, when I join
(32:04):
IAMCP, I get all these benefitsplus these new partnership with
AvePoint where it can help mybusiness right away. Certainly
IAMCP provides a lot of greatvalue on thought leadership
events, but this is verytangible. Again, I get a free
license for own project onmigration, I could go and do
migration today. If I'm in modeof planning for next year, which
(32:31):
a lot of partners are becauseyou're now thinking about next
year budgeting, who am I goingto hire or skill set I need.
This is a good opportunity foryou to talk to us too. And so we
can help you with that, youknow, starting January. And
again, the talent we have areacross sales, marketing and
technical. You know, happy totalk to folks about that and
(32:55):
really excited, not just forcurrent IAMCP members, but
potentially new ones that hearsabout this program.
Rudy Rodriguez (33:02):
Well, these are outstanding benefits and it's
been exciting to hear about allof these. Anthony, can I turn it
back to you?
Anthony Carrano (33:09):
Yeah. No, this has been fascinating. And so,
you know, I know it goes withoutsaying, you know, AI is shaping,
you know, reshaping, I shouldsay, the services landscape. I
like you to kind of maybe unpacka little bit more about how how
do you see IAMCP membersleveraging AvePoint's platform
to position themselves, right,as leaders, in AI driven
(33:31):
innovation.
Dux Raymond Sy (33:32):
That's a great question, Anthony. You know what
I find, and this is natural,right? For any new technology,
there's a cycle. AI, initiallypeople thought it was a hype.
Ah, you know, it'll go away,which clearly is not.
So now customers are lookinginto what's the impact. So what
do I mean by that? So whencustomers start adopting AI or
(33:55):
organizations, frankly, you andI as well, we start thinking,
okay, how can it help us savemoney? That's the original
pitch. Oh, with AI, withCopilot, reduce two hours a day
or five hours a week, what haveyou.
And that's fine. That's today,those are low hanging fruits,
you know, recording meeting,writing emails, what have you.
But then the power now isthinking about how can AI
(34:18):
dramatically shift and changebusiness. We hear stories now
from healthcare, where they saidbecause of AI in a few years,
they'll figure out the cure forcancer, which is amazing.
There's no way you can do thatwith human beings alone.
The European Parliament, forexample, now leverage GenAI and
AgenTik AI, so all theirarchives in the European
(34:41):
Parliament is made available tothe public in any language,
which is awesome. So to yourpoint, right? How should
partners think about AI? Numberone, you got to think what the
business impact is for yourcustomers. That's number one.
The second thing I want to bringup, and this is where immediate
(35:02):
opportunities for partners is nomatter how great the AI is, but
if your data estate is no good,AI is no good. Sometimes we
blame AI for hallucination,showing things they're not
supposed to. Well, guess what?Because the data is bad, right?
Imagine your customers, and Iknow this is true, when they
(35:25):
moved to 365, they didn't getrid of stuff.
Stuff is still there from twentyyears ago, fifteen years ago
from VPOS. And then you askCopilot, what's the latest
policy on this, that, the other,it pulls up something from 2012.
No good, right? This is anopportunity for you to go in.
And by the way, not thatcustomers don't wanna clean it
up.
They're like, where do I start?There's just so much it's like
(35:48):
that TV show Hoarders. Right?Like, don't know where to
Anthony Carrano (35:51):
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Dux Raymond Sy (35:52):
So we have that technology to help you. Right?
Identify what's calledredundant, obsolete, trivial
data. That alone is a project.And we have a whole template
helping partners how to do thatproject from our technology, the
process, everything.
Give you the playbook on how todo that. And then past that,
(36:13):
that's not a one time jobbecause people continue to
create data every single day andAI will create more data. So
that could be a recurringopportunity for you. And then
data security. You know, todaywe share stuff left and right.
Okay, let me share this Worddocument with Anthony, with
Rudy. And then Rudy shares itwith Lisa. Lisa shares it with
(36:34):
somebody else. I don't know whoends up having access to it. And
then that's why when you askCopilot, show me all the files
that have the word password orsalary.
I started seeing stuff I'm notsupposed to. What partners can
do, you can introduce a datasecurity service where a monthly
recurring revenue, I'm gonnamake sure all your data is
(36:56):
secure, only the right peoplesee the right information, AI is
secure, right? You can charge afew dollars, you know, per user
per month. And we have atechnology that does that.
Anthony Carrano (37:06):
Fantastic.
Dux Raymond Sy (37:06):
So these are just quick hits and quick
examples of the opportunitytoday. What I'm saying is, sure,
as technologists, wanna, Oh, Iwanna create like this super
cool AI agents. I'm gonna hookup CRM with SAP and run DMC.
That's cool. But but but theneed today is everybody's data
(37:29):
estate is in a bad place.
Anthony Carrano (37:31):
So now looking ahead then, is a lot of really
just great things that arehappening. What would you say?
What does success look like forthis partnership in the next,
you know, couple of years, bothfor AvePoint and, you know, from
your perspective for IAMCPmembers?
Dux Raymond Sy (37:46):
You know, for me, it's simple. Right? My, The
conversation I have with IAMCPleadership is, in a year from
now, if we look back andpartners truly grow their
business as a result of this,that would be cool. If partners
can say, Hey, you know what?Because of AvePoint Technologies
and AvePoint Talent, my businessgrew x percent.
(38:09):
That would be huge. Because ifif IAMCP members business grow,
that means our business willgrow too.
Anthony Carrano (38:16):
Excellent. And we're gonna have in the show
notes, we'll have all therelevant links on, you know, how
people can get connected, learnmore about this and whatnot. I'd
like to kind of shift as justkind of wrapping up, you know,
just, you know, our timetogether with a couple other
just, you know, questions aroundbrand leadership and and, and
startup growth, especially just,you know, tapping into some of
(38:39):
your experiences. You know,what's, what's interesting docs
just as preparing for this, whatI found fascinating was just how
you went from a, like a verytechnical, like leadership
roles, To, you know, leading,you know, global brand strategy
at F, you know, and so, youknow, as we're working with, you
know, a lot of, you know,partners that are, let's say in
(38:59):
the SMB space that are coming invery technical, right. But are
trying to then grow theirbusiness and they're not as
familiar with things around likebrand and marketing and whatnot.
What mindset, so specificallywhat mindset shifts or skill
like evolutions were mostcritical in making that leap
right for you from technicalleadership to brand stewardship?
Dux Raymond Sy (39:24):
Great, great question. I think there are two
things that help me. Number one,it kind of ties back to your
earlier question, right? Whatwhat I learned in dragon boat
rowing and marathon is just beopen to learn new things.
Because oftentimes, in myinitial transition, when I had
to do sales, when I had to domarketing, like, I'm technical.
(39:47):
I'm not sales. I can't do sales.I can't do marketing. But the
blocker is just in my mindset.Now, certainly I have to learn.
I have to learn about sales. Ihave to learn about marketing,
but you just have to be open. SoI think that's number one. You
have to be open. And number two,everything can be measured.
So when I shifted into marketingand branding, I think that's a
(40:09):
cool part being technical. Youwanna measure stuff, you're
logical. Because what I foundspeaking with true marketers and
true brand folks, they're like,Oh, you can't really measure
brand. Didn't agree with that.So for example, for brand, at
least here at AvePoint, we lookat brand from three lenses.
(40:33):
Brand awareness. The goal is weneed to make sure people that
don't know AvePoint should knowAvePoint and we can measure it.
For example, website views,social follows, right? And who
are these people? Our customers,our partners, our employees, our
investors.
So awareness, we measure andtrack all that. Second is brand
engagement. Specificallypositive engagement. For those
(40:55):
that already know AppPoint, wewant to make sure they love
AppPoint. How do we measurethat?
Well, we look at NPS survey fromcustomers. We look at Gartner
reviews, G2 reviews. We look atonline what people say about us.
Is it good? Is it not good?
So we strive that we havepositive brand engagement. The
last one is brand advocacy. Wewant to make sure that not only
(41:17):
people know us, they love us,but they talk about us. So think
case studies. Think partnerspromoting, Oh, AvePoint is great
because due to their technologyI made so much money.
So those are the three areas howwe track and measure a brand. So
again, are the two advice I haveis be open to learn new things
because we can learn anything weput our hearts into it. And
(41:40):
second, everything's measurable.
Anthony Carrano (41:42):
That's great. And I got one more question for
you, Dux. So I know as a mentor,right? For you being as a mentor
for Microsoft, you know, forstartups and, you know, working
with, you know, seeing, youknow, what's with SMBs, What
common marketing or growth blindspots do you see? You know, just
(42:02):
do you happen to see that, youknow, as a common mistake
amongst many, you know, smallfound you know, small company
founders?
Dux Raymond Sy (42:09):
I think that's a great question. So I think the
common mistake, number one,there's two I find. A lot of, in
our space, a lot of the foundersare technical, which is in folks
naturally gravitate to that anddiscount the value of marketing.
(42:30):
And I think that's a mistake,right? Because it doesn't mean
marketing, you have to spend alot of money.
You could be smart about it.Everybody has limited budget.
But I think that's one mistake.Like a lot of technical founders
and business owners do not valuemarketing at all. That's number
one.
(42:50):
Number two, I think the conceptof, you know, people think about
marketing, especially in ourspace, oh, it's B2B marketing.
We're not B2C. I think that'snot relevant anymore. I think
marketing today is more aroundhuman connection. So let me give
you an example.
Anthony Carrano (43:06):
Well, it's because there are Cs inside of
those Bs, right?
Dux Raymond Sy (43:09):
Exactly. It's B to H, it's business to human.
Let me give you a very simpleexample, right? I recall a few
years ago, internally, we weregonna launch a campaign and I
said, and this is maybe four orfive years ago. This was, yeah,
four or five years ago.
I said, You know what? We'realso gonna put this on Instagram
(43:31):
and TikTok. And then I had somefolks internally like, our
audience is not there. I mean,we should just do LinkedIn and
YouTube and use, why are you onTikTok? Why are we on Instagram?
I go, I guarantee you every CIOat 05:00 on a Friday when they
go home, they're doom scrollingon Instagram, or on TikTok, or
(43:54):
they're on TikTok with theirkids. Imagine if no other vendor
out there is on TikTok Instagrambut we are on a weekend as
they're scrolling throughdancing videos and then come
Monday they jump on LinkedIn,they still see us, right? So my
second point is it's about thehuman connection, You got to go
(44:16):
where people are and don't stayin the box of Oh, we have to act
and behave a certain way becausewe're a technology company.
Mean, don't do anything stupidor illegal, but you got to go
where people are.
Anthony Carrano (44:29):
Exactly. Exactly. No, that's, that's
fantastic advice. I reallyappreciate you taking some time
to share that, those insightswith our audiences. Well,
this has been great, Dux.Really, this has just been quite
a learning experience. I mean,we're gonna have links on how
folks can, you know, getconnected to AvePoint, take
(44:50):
advantage of this partnership.You know, as we wrap up, what's
like the best way to for folksto kind of reach out and connect
with you?
Dux Raymond Sy (44:57):
Hit me up on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, X,
Blue Sky. It's all in the samename, Meet Dux. In all
seriousness, thank you for thisopportunity. And, you know, to
all the partners out there, keepat it. And there's tons of
opportunities and we're here tohelp.
Anthony Carrano (45:18):
Excellent. Have a great rest of the day.
Dux Raymond Sy (45:20):
Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, Rudy.
Anthony Carrano (45:22):
That brings us to the end of today's episode of
Profiles and Partnership. A hugethank you to Dux Raymond Sy from
AvePoint for sharing his visionand for his commitment to
helping IAMCP members thrive inthe age of AI. What we've heard
today is more than just apartnership announcement. It's a
blueprint for how collaborationcan drive innovation, scale, and
(45:44):
resilience across the Microsoftecosystem. By combining
AvePoint's technology and talentsolutions with IAMCP's global
community, we're seeing a modelfor how partners can not only
adapt to change, but also leadit.
If you're an IAMCP member, Iencourage you to explore the
exclusive benefits availablethrough this partnership. And if
you're not yet a member, this isa perfect example of the kind of
(46:07):
value and opportunity that comesfrom being part of this
community. Check us out atwww.iamcp.org to connect, learn
and grow your Microsoftpractice. Thanks for listening
and as always, stay tuned formore conversations that
celebrate the partnership'spowering growth, collaboration
and transformation across theMicrosoft partner network. Until
(46:29):
next time, I'm Anthony Carrano,and this has been Profiles and
Partnership.
Welcome to Profiles and Partnership, the
podcast where we spotlight thepeople, ideas, and
collaborations shaping theMicrosoft partner ecosystem. I'm
your cohost, Anthony Carrano,and today we're diving into a
story that sits right at theintersection of innovation,
community, and growth. TheInternational Association of
Microsoft Channel Partners,better known as IAMCP, has
(00:27):
always been about one thing,helping partners succeed
together. In today's rapidlyevolving landscape, that mission
has never been more critical.From shifting IT services
demands to the ongoing talentshortage and the changes in
Microsoft's cloud solutionprovider program, partners are
navigating more complexity thanever before. That's why today's
(00:48):
conversation is so timely.
I'm joined by Dux Raymond Sy,Chief Brand Officer at AvePoint,
to explore how their partnershipwith IAMCP is designed to
empower members to expandservices revenue, scale
operations, and lead theircustomers into the age of AI.
We'll talk about AvePointelements, partner talent
services, and the exclusivebenefits available to IAMCP
(01:12):
members, and most importantly,how this collaboration is
helping partners transformchallenges into opportunities.
So whether you're a partnerlooking to grow your services
business, a leader trying toscale your team, or simply
someone passionate about thefuture of digital
transformation, this episode isfor you. Let's dive in.
Well, Dux, welcome to thepodcast. We're really excited to
(01:35):
have you on with us today.
Dux Raymond Sy (01:36):
Well, Anthony, Rudy, thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to join you inthis conversation.
Anthony Carrano (01:41):
Yes, we're looking forward to covering a
whole array of things as itpertains to with AvePoint, how
it's going to benefit IAMCPmembers. But before we dive into
a lot of that, Dux, why don'tyou tell us a little bit about
yourself?
Dux Raymond Sy (01:52):
Sure. Hey everyone, my name is Dux Raymond
Sy. I serve as the Chief BrandOfficer at AvePoint, where we
provide the most advancedplatform for data security in
this new age of AI. And we're soexcited to be working with a lot
of channel partners around theworld, helping them introduce
new services offerings,especially a lot of your
customers are beginning or maybein the middle of their AI
(02:15):
journey. For me, I'm a I'm atechie.
I started my career inassembler. Maybe some of the
listeners don't know what thatis, but I was a coder back then.
And then through my twenty plusyears career in this industry
evolved through doing sales andbusiness. And today I have the
great opportunity to serve thechief brand officer.
Anthony Carrano (02:33):
Well, in addition to that, you know, with
that extensive background, youknow, ducks, I might be getting
some of the details a littlefuzzy. So you give me a little
leeway on this one. But, youwere at some point part of like
the, with the national dragonboat team there in The
Philippines. Tell us what's thatfor those of us who are not
(02:54):
familiar with that.
Dux Raymond Sy (02:56):
So I moved to The United States in 1996. I'm
sure some of the listenersweren't born yet. But prior to
that, I was born and raised inThe Philippines. For those that
may not be familiar, Philippinesis in Southeast Asia, over 7,600
islands.
And water is everywhere. Andsince a kid, I just love rowing,
(03:19):
dragon boat rowing to bespecific. It's a big sport out
in Asia Pacific. And I thinkhere in Hawaii, DC has a team.
Anywhere there's water.
So it's a boat with like 20people and then there's what's
called the spearman in the backsteering the boat, making sure
it's straight and there's adrummer in front. So I got the
(03:39):
opportunity to be a part of thePhilippine team. And because
back then I was so skinny andsmall, I was a steersman. My job
is to make sure the boat'sstraight. And I think the
pinnacle of my career as asteersman is we ended up in like
the Olympics of dragon boatrowing.
Anthony Carrano (04:00):
Oh, wow.
Dux Raymond Sy (04:00):
We competed against different countries. And
I thought we won, but we wonsecond to China by point tenth
of a second. Because it's calledboth of us going through the
finish line and I thought wewon, but we didn't. But it was
cool. I still have the newspaperclipping from Associated Press
published in all the newspapersout there.
Anthony Carrano (04:20):
Uh-huh. No. That's that's great. Now you're
also now and I'm gonna tie thisall into partnerships here. So
you're also participating in theupcoming Marine Corps Marathon.
Dux Raymond Sy (04:29):
Yes. Yes. In fact, this weekend here in DC,
Marine Corps marathon is big,but this is special because it's
a fiftieth Marine Corpsmarathon. And I'm gonna fess up.
I'm turning 50, so it's a bigdeal for me to run the 50.
Anthony Carrano (04:44):
50 for 50. That's great.
Oh, that's cool. So let's tiethis in. So you've got one
situation, you know, abackground where you're, you're
one of team, one of 20, excuseme, on a team in this dragon
boat racing to the Marine Corpsmarathon where you're obviously,
they're just, you're pushingyourself individually. What
(05:05):
lessons about a partnership canyou, you know, have you learned,
you know, from both thoseexperiences?
Dux Raymond Sy (05:13):
That's a fantastic question, Anthony. I
think just looking back throughthese experiences, there's three
key areas around partnership, Ithink, that I've learned just
being in these environments. Sofirst, for example, in dragon
boat rowing, where oftentimesgoing in, when I first signed
(05:34):
up, I'm like, Oh, I wanna be anactual rower where I'm gonna sit
in the front and I'm gonna row,I'm gonna row, I'm gonna row. So
walking in, you have onemindset, but as you work with
different teams and people andpartners, realize, Oh, my
strength is not in that. I'mactually better off being a
(05:55):
steersman in the back because Ihave to consider what everybody
else's strength is. So that'sone. So the first lesson is you
may have an idea of what youthink you're good at, the other
person's good at, but once youstart working together, you
realize somebody else is betterthan me on this part of the
initiative and I'm better atsomething else.
(06:16):
And we should be open to that.We can't be- We should have that
growth mindset and be open tochanges and because you'll find
out unless you work with peoplethat you may be better at
something else. So that's oneimportant lesson. The second
lesson with marathon, so tospeak, I was actually peer
pressured into running. So I'mat AvePoint for thirteen years
(06:39):
now and a lot of our seniorleaders are runners and
marathoners.
And I remember when I firstjoined AvePoint, you know, my
boss, the CEO, he's like, Let'sgo running. We were traveling
for a business trip. I'm notgonna say no because my boss
wants, you know, my boss thoughtit was good to run. But then I
grew to like it, right? Sosecond lesson is we may do
(07:00):
things that we don't like, wedon't want, or we don't even
expect that we're gonna do, butwe end up doing and actually we
like it.
In some cases, we we we becomegood at it. Right? The
partnership, be open to that aswell. And last but not the
least, I think for both of thesethings, partnership takes time.
(07:24):
It's not just about the nicepress release that's posted on
social media, we have picturestogether, we're partners, that's
just step one.
But now if you want partnershipto work, we have to really work
on it and talk about what aregoals? Are the revenues we're
trying to hit? Are we there yet?We got to track. If it's working
(07:45):
great, if not, how do we pivot?Just like any relationship, we
have to be in it for the longterm.
Anthony Carrano (07:52):
That's that's excellent. That's excellent.
Just to kind of then piggybackon that kind of leading into
this relationship betweenAvePoint and IAMCP. You know?
So, you know, from yourperspective, how did the
partnership between AvePoint andIAMCP come about and what makes
it unique compared to all theother alliances
Rudy Rodriguez (08:11):
Sure.
Anthony Carrano (08:11):
In that Microsoft ecosystem?
Dux Raymond Sy (08:13):
Look, I've been involved in this ecosystem for
over twenty years and veryfamiliar with IAMCP and the
great work and impact it has ona lot of partners globally. I
think we're in a very uniquejuncture, both in the industry,
society, and partnerships ingeneral. So I think there's
three things that's unique tothis partnership. First and
(08:35):
foremost, what AvePoint andIAMCP can do together to help
our customers in the age of AIis very important. Because
partners now are on the frenzybecause historically, a lot of
organizations or customers lookat IT vendors or IT service
providers as essentially, Oh,you got to back up my servers or
(09:00):
you got to install this machineor set up this computer.
But we're in a very unique timewhere we're sitting with our
customers as a guide, a thoughtleader, so to speak, to help
them in their AI journey. So Ithink that's number one, right?
We're in the front seat helpingour customers navigate through
(09:22):
this time of AI and help themgrow their business. So that's
one big difference. And we'reboth doing that as a technology
vendor and our partners asservice providers.
The second unique thing is whatwe want to offer to IAMCP
members is not just helping growtheir revenues in terms of
(09:47):
expanding their services in AI.So for example, know, a lot of
our customers today, yourcustomers are trying to figure
out, okay, how do I get startedwith Copilot, right? It's not
just about buying Copilotlicenses or Gemini licenses.
Well, partners can help themmake sure their data foundation
is ready. Are there content ordata from twenty years ago?
(10:10):
You don't want that because youdon't want Copilot to pull up
policies from twenty years ago.So how do you make sure your
customers have good dataquality? Second, how about good
data security? If you askCopilot, show me all the files I
have access to with the wordsalary. You don't want to see
other people's salary.
That happens today becausenobody's malicious, but all the
(10:32):
permissions aren't set right onfiles and teams and SharePoint.
So partners can come in and helpsecure that. And third is data
governance. What's aninformation lifecycle,
especially for customers thatmay be highly regulated, like in
health care, government,financial services? Massive
opportunity for partners becausedata fuels AI, which begs the
(10:57):
question, that sounds great,Dux, but how do I do all that?
This is where we come in asAvePoint, because we have the
most comprehensive dataprotection and data security
platform that partners canleverage and build services
business off of it. And it's notjust projects. Yeah, of course,
there's initial consultingprojects, but we have a lot of
(11:17):
partners around the worldbuilding recurring revenue
business on top of ourtechnology. So that's the second
one, increased revenue, right?So number one, be a thought
leader.
Second, increased revenuestreams by new services, some of
them recurring. The last part,which is very special, is we're
helping our partners scale theiroperations. Know, AvePoint has
(11:39):
been around twenty three years.We're a global business. We're
in 17 countries across 25offices.
And oftentimes partners ask us,you know, apart from your
technology, how have you set upthis scalable business
infrastructure? Well, becausewe're in different parts of the
world, we're tapping into allkinds of amazing talent to help
(12:02):
grow our business. So we want tomake that available to our
partners as well. Becausepartners may be interested in
growing their servicespractices, but sometimes they
get held back or stifled becauseI don't have enough people, I
don't have the right people, Idon't have the budget to hire
every So single person I whatwe're doing here with this
(12:25):
partnership is we're gonnaprovide talented folks across
sales and marketing andtechnical, you want a developer,
you want a project manager, youwant a cybersecurity specialist,
a migration engineer, we canoffer that full time resource to
the partner at a very, veryminimal cost. So those are three
(12:48):
things, right?
Help partners become thoughtleader, grow their revenue and
scale their operations, which isvery unique in the industry.
Anthony Carrano (12:54):
So I'm gonna put you a little bit on the spot
as the Chief Brand Officer. Yousay you're a messaging guru.
What's kind of like, if you wereto give it like a sound bite,
like an overarching vision forthis partnership, because you've
done a great job reallysuccinctly, you know, breaking
down, you know, the, the threeareas, but something that, you
know, folks listening can walkaway with and say, okay, I got
(13:17):
it. Like in this sound bite, youknow, the vision, you know, for
for this partnership as I'mhelping, you know, IAMCP members
become frontier firms in thedigital transformation, what
would that be?
Dux Raymond Sy (13:28):
Essentially, you know, we're helping partners
expand revenues and scaleoperations.
Anthony Carrano (13:38):
That's great. What now as you're as you're
applying, you know, coming inand helping with that from your
perspective and just with whatyou know about, you know, IAMCP,
and its members, what do you seeare some of like the biggest
pressures IAMCP members facetoday as it pertains to this? We
(13:58):
know whether it's the shiftingIT services demand, talent
shortages, adapting to, youknow, the Microsoft changes,
etcetera.
Dux Raymond Sy (14:06):
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head, right? So
if we think about the shiftingIT service demands, look, with
AI, a lot of companies orcustomers are reconsidering
maybe there's some work that AIcan do. I don't need to hire
technology providers for, or notjust technology providers, any
(14:27):
kind of vendors for, right? Sothat's one. And a lot of the
traditional IT services model isreally under pressure. You've
seen even companies as big asAccenture talking about this.
Whereas what we can help andoffer is that's true, but then
(14:48):
let's introduce new services.Right? A lot of partners today,
other than the traditionalservices like, okay, we'll back
up your data, we'll do migrationfor you.
Well, what? Everybody and theircousins doing that too. Their
customers are so interested nowin AI, they need help on how to
begin the journey and make sureas they're continuing leveraging
(15:08):
AI, making sure their data issecure and data is good quality.
Talent shortage you brought up.Like I said, again, depending on
where you are in the world, thisis true.
And apart from the talentshortage, it comes down to cost
as well. A lot of partners havelimited budget. As much as
partners and service providerswant to grow and hire as many
(15:32):
people as they can, it's notrealistic. So what we want to
offer and help with is throughour network of global talent, we
wanna make that available toIAMCP partners. And lastly, you
know, everybody's changing, eventhe big hyperscalers.
Anthony Carrano (15:49):
Mhmm.
Dux Raymond Sy (15:49):
Microsoft's CSP changes was a huge blow,
frankly, to a lot of partners.And we need to adapt quickly and
and think about, okay, insteadof continuing on this mode of
reselling licenses or relying onon Microsoft product margins,
(16:09):
what else can we offer to notonly sustain but grow our
business?
Anthony Carrano (16:14):
Who would you how would you describe, like,
what would be an ideal I wasgonna ask, like, in a describe,
an ideal partner.
Dux Raymond Sy (16:22):
Sure.
Anthony Carrano (16:24):
Maybe we could kinda talk about that one, but
I'm like, let let's let's let'sanswer that question. But then
also the one is just, you know,I think a lot about, like, for
businesses that are, you know,you certain dealing with certain
customer situations or atcertain, like, inflection points
where, like, yeah, I mean, youknow, this is where, you know,
(16:44):
half point. Right?
So maybe kind of, you know, talkabout that a little bit.
Dux Raymond Sy (16:48):
Yeah. So let me let me paint two examples on how
AvePoint can help every IAMCPpartner. So for example, so
there are a lot of partnerstoday, which is great are still
managing their customers,Microsoft 365 tenant. And when I
say managing, it's everythingfrom a new employee, creating
(17:09):
new accounts, to making surepasswords are being reset. Then
they want to take on newcustomers as well.
So a simple example, through ourtechnology, we have what's
called baseline management. Now,what does that mean? So I don't
know, Anthony, Rudy, do you evermanage or set up a 365 tenant
(17:31):
for a customer?
Anthony Carrano (17:32):
Yeah. Rudy would be involved. I'm more
marketing.
Dux Raymond Sy (17:35):
That's okay. Rudy nodded her head. His head.
Sorry.
Yeah. So so I would imagine,right, I take on a new customer.
Okay. What do I need to set up a365 tenant? Well, I gotta go to
Azure setup Entra ID.
Well, they need Intune. Theyneed this, that. So that whole
rigmarole doesn't matter how bigor how small that organization
is. That whole process wouldtake a couple of days if I'm
(17:58):
good for the customers to getgoing. Now those days equate to
hours, man hours or woman hour,right?
So we have a technology calledbaseline management as a part of
our platform that as a partner,it's very minimal. It's like $20
a month per tenant. You canessentially apply a template.
(18:23):
You can say, Oh, this customer'shealthcare customer. Apply the
healthcare template to thiscustomer.
It will do all the configurationin no more than an hour. And you
can charge the same to thecustomer. One, you make money
because now even if you buildthe same hours, the person's not
really working that much time.But at the same time, avoid
(18:44):
mistakes because setting uptenants, you go to all these
different kinds ofconfiguration, you're on
PowerShell. And if you make amistake, may have to start over.
So that's one scenario. Not onlyyou're helping your customer,
but now your margins are morebecause you use our technology.
And I can share examples afterexamples on how our technology
(19:05):
can help you and grow yourbusiness with services. The
other scenario in terms oftalent, we have a partner where
this partner landed a majorcontract to be the MSP, managed
services provider, of a lot ofdifferent offices of a
government agency around thecountry, which is great. It's
like 200 offices.
(19:27):
But the problem is part of thecontract is they have to offer
20 Microsoft 365 support inalways email, phone calls. And
they try to look for a talenthere in The United States.
First, you know, the cost tierone support is about $70 or $80
(19:47):
grand on the average in The US.They couldn't find anybody that
can do night shift because thecontract's 24/7. So working with
a partner, we provided two nightshift support resource, 365,
(20:08):
night shift East Coast time, andyeah, and and help their
business.
And the cost for those two,again, I'm just doing a estimate
here, I think was around $7,000a month for two full time
resource working night shift. Idon't think you can get that
(20:29):
$7,000 even for one workingnight shift here. So those are
just some examples andscenarios. So in short, if you
want to scale your business interms of using technology to
grow services, we got your back.Second, you want to scale your
business in terms of operation,getting right talent to support
(20:50):
you, not just technical.
I have a partner that we providea full time marketing person. I
have another partner we providedfull time SDRs, doing outbound
calls to book meetings, right?Because that's the other
challenge. Some of our partnersare like, I have all these
leads. I just don't have time orsomebody to call and book
meetings.
So we can help with that too.
Anthony Carrano (21:11):
That's excellent. That's excellent.
Rudy, I think you've got somequestions.
Rudy Rodriguez (21:15):
Yeah. Well, Dux, you know, some of the things
that you've said, where were youwhen I needed you during the
BPOS days?
Dux Raymond Sy (21:21):
Right? BPOS.
Rudy Rodriguez (21:23):
BPOS for those people who, you know, youngsters
that are around today don'tremember what BPOS was
Dux Raymond Sy (21:29):
Back in our days, business productivity
online services. Yeah.
Rudy Rodriguez (21:32):
Yeah. Those were some tough days. Those were some
tough, tough days. But but I Ireally appreciate what you've
been saying because I really seethe benefit of of the services.
So I think you call your serviceAvePoint Elements. Is that
correct?
Dux Raymond Sy (21:46):
That's right. Our technology is called
AvePoint Elements, and the waythis technology is designed is
designed for partners. So a lotof the capabilities we have that
we built up in the last twentyplus years, we designed it
specific to partners. So youcould do things like what I
described, baseline management,multi tenant management. You
(22:07):
could do storage, datacleansing.
So on a regular basis, you cango to a tenant and say, Hey,
anything more than ten yearsold, archive it somewhere. We
could do storage optimization,which is huge for customers
today because storage is notunlimited in March. And
especially with AI, more storagewould be created. So we have a
(22:29):
technology where partners createa service and say, Hey, we'll
make sure your storage isoptimized so you don't have to
pay extra to Microsoft. I hopeMicrosoft doesn't listen.
But we can take, you know,whatever's old, move it to cold
storage or cheaper storage.Right? So we have all these
technologies through Elements.
Rudy Rodriguez (22:47):
So are you targeting very specific types of
partners? You know, MSPs inparticular, I I would guess?
Dux Raymond Sy (22:54):
MSPs. We found that MSPs take advantage of this
a lot. However, a lot of our SIpartners are are leveraging this
as well. For example, a lot ofthe initial Copilot projects, so
they use this technology to goahead and look at the data
estate, they clean the data,secure the data, and then they
(23:16):
do Copilot deployment forcustomers. So it's really SIs,
MSPs that leverages this.
And we're seeing a lot of SIsbecoming MSPs as well. Because
once they're in, they're in theproject, they gain the trust,
customers want to work withthem. So they have a recurring
business through our platform.
Rudy Rodriguez (23:37):
Well, I see the real opportunity is for partners
to be able to expand theirservices and create recurring
revenue. So I really see that.How much training does it take
for a partner to get up to speedon AvePoint Elements?
Dux Raymond Sy (23:52):
Great question. Frankly, the good news with
AvePoint is not only to providethe technology, we provide the
training. Typically, if you'redoing it full time, the whole
platform, you can learn in aweek if you're technical, right?
And not only that, in a lot ofour some of our partners for
their initial engagement, wehave a team that helps them side
(24:14):
by side in doing the engagement.So we believe that if the
partner needs help, we could beside by side with you, train the
trainer type of model.
In fact, we even go as far asproviding templates of statement
of work. So it's not just thetechnical side, the sales, the
marketing side. We want to equippartners because these are new
(24:34):
line of services. And frankly,these are the things that we've
done with our direct bigcustomers. So similar to
Microsoft, we work with a lot oflarge customers directly, but
after a certain size, we wannawork with partners and have the
partners do services.
Rudy Rodriguez (24:52):
Okay. Well, a little bit earlier, you
mentioned a staffing componentto your service. And we all know
talent is a huge pain point forall partners right now where
everybody's struggling withthat. So how does AvePoint's
partner talent services addressthat gap and then what makes it
different from traditionaloutsourcing and staffing models?
Dux Raymond Sy (25:13):
Great question. So first and foremost, our
talent services is onlyavailable to AvePoint partners.
We're not a staffing company.We're not in the business of
staffing. In the end, we're asoftware company.
And we realize that the talentinfrastructure we built for our
business can greatly benefit ourpartners. Because in the end, if
our partners' business grow inscale, it means they're gonna
(25:37):
need more of our technology. Sothat's our goal. So that's
number one. So you won't find usout there just selling talent
and the partner's not using ourtechnology.
The second piece is how are wedifferent? I've talked to a lot
of partners. They're like,actually, Dux, I've tried this.
You know, I went out, you know,I look for a staffing company
overseas in LATAM, in Asia.Well, the cost looks attractive,
(26:00):
but in the end it waschallenging.
I have to deal with labor laws,culture, all the HR related
stuff. Well, for us, we takecare of it because in all of
these regions around the world,we have 200 people, 800 people.
It's fully functioning becauseit's supporting AvPoint. It's
(26:20):
not like we're gonna create thisas a line of business. Even if
we don't do this for partners,we're doing it internally.
So it's a natural extensionwhere if we help our partners
grow in their business, ourbusiness will grow. So that's a
big difference. And also allthese individuals are Microsoft
(26:40):
trained and AvePoint trained. Sofrom an onboarding perspective,
we essentially take care ofeverything. So it's a
subscription model for ourpartners.
And if it's in this ecosystem,the same level of quality and
expectation we have internallyis the same thing that partners
(27:03):
can expect. Certainly partnersare involved in the recruitment,
in the interview, but we make itas easy and as simple for
partners. So that's the second.And the last thing is, as I've
mentioned, we're different thanother staffing agencies because
we're not a staffing agency. Andwhat's driving this is we wanna
make sure our partners aresuccessful.
(27:23):
We're already helping them withgrowing their revenues through
our products and they buildservices. But we feel that it's
valuable that we help them scaletheir operations and no other
vendor is doing this. All theother vendor out there is like,
Okay, you buy my product, builda service. How you run your
business, I can't help you. Wewant to take it to the next step
is we want to help you grow andscale your business with great
(27:46):
talent at a at a lower cost.
Rudy Rodriguez (27:50):
Well, you know, I I know AvePoint has worked
with IAMCP for many years. Andso one of the things is this
partnership that you've craftedwith IAMCP. Can you tell us is
are there exclusive benefits forIAMCP members? And just tell us
a little bit more about theservices, you know, how it's
structured and and and how thosehow the fees work and
(28:10):
incentives, you know, thingslike that.
Dux Raymond Sy (28:12):
Absolutely. So like I said, we're very grateful
to be working with IAMCPglobally. We're involved in a
lot of different chapters aroundthe world. So specific to this
global partnership, which I'mreally excited about, first and
foremost, any IAMCP member todayor a new member, you will get a
(28:34):
free license of our flytechnology for migration for one
project for up to 500 seats. Andthis is for everybody.
There's a place you can sign upso you can avail of this. So
from a technology perspective,you can take our world class
migration technology and startusing it for a project. And you
(28:55):
can make money off of it youknow, with our technology, that
one technology for free. Andcertainly we would love for you
to check out all of our othercapabilities in Element as well.
So that's one, that's exclusiveto IAMCP.
The second exclusive thing is wewaive our placement fee for
talent services. So typicallyfor every talent that we place
(29:19):
for a partner, we have aplacement fee for $2,500 so
we're gonna waive that for everymember, for IAMCP member. So if
you end up availing of ourpartner talent services
capability as a partner, Youknow, once you hire the talent,
all you're gonna pay for is theis the monthly fee for that
(29:41):
talent. That's it. No placementfee, which is $2,500 for every
talent.
Rudy Rodriguez (29:46):
Wow. That's great. Well, you know, those are
great incentives. Those aregreat incentives for partners to
adopt your services. Can thoseservices those incentives
accelerate help partnersaccelerate the adoption and
impact, you know, for theirbusiness?
Dux Raymond Sy (30:02):
Yeah. Absolutely. Because we've worked
with a bunch of partnersalready, both on our technology
side to grow their revenue andalso on the operational side to
help scale their team. And we'veseen, you know, partners getting
the ROI because it workstogether, right? As as as your
business grow as a partner, it'snatural that you need people.
(30:25):
And and what's holding back alot of partners is I I spoke
with another partner last week.He's like, boy, I wanna do more
of these advanced AI services,but I still have all these
migration projects I have to do.I'm not gonna turn it away. I
go, understood. And we ended updiscussing.
He's like, can you get me amigration engineer? I go, yeah.
(30:45):
So he's gonna hire a migrationengineer full time. They'll do
all the so this partner willcontinue to take on migration
projects and work. But now thispartner will expand into a lot
of these new AI services like AIdata readiness, data security,
AI adoption services.
So now it's an opportunity forthem to open a new line of
(31:06):
business while still continuingexisting business that they get.
Rudy Rodriguez (31:11):
Well, it is a really exciting program, I must
say. I've been around IAMCPsince before Windows '95, so
we'll go a long time. But onethe things that I see is these
benefits that you provide canhelp our existing chapters
attract and qualify new membersinto the program. Can you tell
(31:35):
us a little bit about how you'veworked with IAMCP to help with
some of those items?
Dux Raymond Sy (31:40):
Yes, so what's exciting is as, you know, we're
heading into Microsoft Ignite,for example. So this partnership
will be shared throughout,certainly online, but also in
the upcoming Ignite, and all thechapters as well to promote this
so that potential new memberscan see, Oh, wow, when I join
(32:04):
IAMCP, I get all these benefitsplus these new partnership with
AvePoint where it can help mybusiness right away. Certainly
IAMCP provides a lot of greatvalue on thought leadership
events, but this is verytangible. Again, I get a free
license for own project onmigration, I could go and do
migration today. If I'm in modeof planning for next year, which
(32:31):
a lot of partners are becauseyou're now thinking about next
year budgeting, who am I goingto hire or skill set I need.
This is a good opportunity foryou to talk to us too. And so we
can help you with that, youknow, starting January. And
again, the talent we have areacross sales, marketing and
technical. You know, happy totalk to folks about that and
(32:55):
really excited, not just forcurrent IAMCP members, but
potentially new ones that hearsabout this program.
Rudy Rodriguez (33:02):
Well, these are outstanding benefits and it's
been exciting to hear about allof these. Anthony, can I turn it
back to you?
Anthony Carrano (33:09):
Yeah. No, this has been fascinating. And so,
you know, I know it goes withoutsaying, you know, AI is shaping,
you know, reshaping, I shouldsay, the services landscape. I
like you to kind of maybe unpacka little bit more about how how
do you see IAMCP membersleveraging AvePoint's platform
to position themselves, right,as leaders, in AI driven
(33:31):
innovation.
Dux Raymond Sy (33:32):
That's a great question, Anthony. You know what
I find, and this is natural,right? For any new technology,
there's a cycle. AI, initiallypeople thought it was a hype.
Ah, you know, it'll go away,which clearly is not.
So now customers are lookinginto what's the impact. So what
do I mean by that? So whencustomers start adopting AI or
(33:55):
organizations, frankly, you andI as well, we start thinking,
okay, how can it help us savemoney? That's the original
pitch. Oh, with AI, withCopilot, reduce two hours a day
or five hours a week, what haveyou.
And that's fine. That's today,those are low hanging fruits,
you know, recording meeting,writing emails, what have you.
But then the power now isthinking about how can AI
(34:18):
dramatically shift and changebusiness. We hear stories now
from healthcare, where they saidbecause of AI in a few years,
they'll figure out the cure forcancer, which is amazing.
There's no way you can do thatwith human beings alone.
The European Parliament, forexample, now leverage GenAI and
AgenTik AI, so all theirarchives in the European
(34:41):
Parliament is made available tothe public in any language,
which is awesome. So to yourpoint, right? How should
partners think about AI? Numberone, you got to think what the
business impact is for yourcustomers. That's number one.
The second thing I want to bringup, and this is where immediate
(35:02):
opportunities for partners is nomatter how great the AI is, but
if your data estate is no good,AI is no good. Sometimes we
blame AI for hallucination,showing things they're not
supposed to. Well, guess what?Because the data is bad, right?
Imagine your customers, and Iknow this is true, when they
(35:25):
moved to 365, they didn't getrid of stuff.
Stuff is still there from twentyyears ago, fifteen years ago
from VPOS. And then you askCopilot, what's the latest
policy on this, that, the other,it pulls up something from 2012.
No good, right? This is anopportunity for you to go in.
And by the way, not thatcustomers don't wanna clean it
up.
They're like, where do I start?There's just so much it's like
(35:48):
that TV show Hoarders. Right?Like, don't know where to
Anthony Carrano (35:51):
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Dux Raymond Sy (35:52):
So we have that technology to help you. Right?
Identify what's calledredundant, obsolete, trivial
data. That alone is a project.And we have a whole template
helping partners how to do thatproject from our technology, the
process, everything.
Give you the playbook on how todo that. And then past that,
(36:13):
that's not a one time jobbecause people continue to
create data every single day andAI will create more data. So
that could be a recurringopportunity for you. And then
data security. You know, todaywe share stuff left and right.
Okay, let me share this Worddocument with Anthony, with
Rudy. And then Rudy shares itwith Lisa. Lisa shares it with
(36:34):
somebody else. I don't know whoends up having access to it. And
then that's why when you askCopilot, show me all the files
that have the word password orsalary.
I started seeing stuff I'm notsupposed to. What partners can
do, you can introduce a datasecurity service where a monthly
recurring revenue, I'm gonnamake sure all your data is
(36:56):
secure, only the right peoplesee the right information, AI is
secure, right? You can charge afew dollars, you know, per user
per month. And we have atechnology that does that.
Anthony Carrano (37:06):
Fantastic.
Dux Raymond Sy (37:06):
So these are just quick hits and quick
examples of the opportunitytoday. What I'm saying is, sure,
as technologists, wanna, Oh, Iwanna create like this super
cool AI agents. I'm gonna hookup CRM with SAP and run DMC.
That's cool. But but but theneed today is everybody's data
(37:29):
estate is in a bad place.
Anthony Carrano (37:31):
So now looking ahead then, is a lot of really
just great things that arehappening. What would you say?
What does success look like forthis partnership in the next,
you know, couple of years, bothfor AvePoint and, you know, from
your perspective for IAMCPmembers?
Dux Raymond Sy (37:46):
You know, for me, it's simple. Right? My, The
conversation I have with IAMCPleadership is, in a year from
now, if we look back andpartners truly grow their
business as a result of this,that would be cool. If partners
can say, Hey, you know what?Because of AvePoint Technologies
and AvePoint Talent, my businessgrew x percent.
(38:09):
That would be huge. Because ifif IAMCP members business grow,
that means our business willgrow too.
Anthony Carrano (38:16):
Excellent. And we're gonna have in the show
notes, we'll have all therelevant links on, you know, how
people can get connected, learnmore about this and whatnot. I'd
like to kind of shift as justkind of wrapping up, you know,
just, you know, our timetogether with a couple other
just, you know, questions aroundbrand leadership and and, and
startup growth, especially just,you know, tapping into some of
(38:39):
your experiences. You know,what's, what's interesting docs
just as preparing for this, whatI found fascinating was just how
you went from a, like a verytechnical, like leadership
roles, To, you know, leading,you know, global brand strategy
at F, you know, and so, youknow, as we're working with, you
know, a lot of, you know,partners that are, let's say in
(38:59):
the SMB space that are coming invery technical, right. But are
trying to then grow theirbusiness and they're not as
familiar with things around likebrand and marketing and whatnot.
What mindset, so specificallywhat mindset shifts or skill
like evolutions were mostcritical in making that leap
right for you from technicalleadership to brand stewardship?
Dux Raymond Sy (39:24):
Great, great question. I think there are two
things that help me. Number one,it kind of ties back to your
earlier question, right? Whatwhat I learned in dragon boat
rowing and marathon is just beopen to learn new things.
Because oftentimes, in myinitial transition, when I had
to do sales, when I had to domarketing, like, I'm technical.
(39:47):
I'm not sales. I can't do sales.I can't do marketing. But the
blocker is just in my mindset.Now, certainly I have to learn.
I have to learn about sales. Ihave to learn about marketing,
but you just have to be open. SoI think that's number one. You
have to be open. And number two,everything can be measured.
So when I shifted into marketingand branding, I think that's a
(40:09):
cool part being technical. Youwanna measure stuff, you're
logical. Because what I foundspeaking with true marketers and
true brand folks, they're like,Oh, you can't really measure
brand. Didn't agree with that.So for example, for brand, at
least here at AvePoint, we lookat brand from three lenses.
(40:33):
Brand awareness. The goal is weneed to make sure people that
don't know AvePoint should knowAvePoint and we can measure it.
For example, website views,social follows, right? And who
are these people? Our customers,our partners, our employees, our
investors.
So awareness, we measure andtrack all that. Second is brand
engagement. Specificallypositive engagement. For those
(40:55):
that already know AppPoint, wewant to make sure they love
AppPoint. How do we measurethat?
Well, we look at NPS survey fromcustomers. We look at Gartner
reviews, G2 reviews. We look atonline what people say about us.
Is it good? Is it not good?
So we strive that we havepositive brand engagement. The
last one is brand advocacy. Wewant to make sure that not only
(41:17):
people know us, they love us,but they talk about us. So think
case studies. Think partnerspromoting, Oh, AvePoint is great
because due to their technologyI made so much money.
So those are the three areas howwe track and measure a brand. So
again, are the two advice I haveis be open to learn new things
because we can learn anything weput our hearts into it. And
(41:40):
second, everything's measurable.
Anthony Carrano (41:42):
That's great. And I got one more question for
you, Dux. So I know as a mentor,right? For you being as a mentor
for Microsoft, you know, forstartups and, you know, working
with, you know, seeing, youknow, what's with SMBs, What
common marketing or growth blindspots do you see? You know, just
(42:02):
do you happen to see that, youknow, as a common mistake
amongst many, you know, smallfound you know, small company
founders?
Dux Raymond Sy (42:09):
I think that's a great question. So I think the
common mistake, number one,there's two I find. A lot of, in
our space, a lot of the foundersare technical, which is in folks
naturally gravitate to that anddiscount the value of marketing.
(42:30):
And I think that's a mistake,right? Because it doesn't mean
marketing, you have to spend alot of money.
You could be smart about it.Everybody has limited budget.
But I think that's one mistake.Like a lot of technical founders
and business owners do not valuemarketing at all. That's number
one.
(42:50):
Number two, I think the conceptof, you know, people think about
marketing, especially in ourspace, oh, it's B2B marketing.
We're not B2C. I think that'snot relevant anymore. I think
marketing today is more aroundhuman connection. So let me give
you an example.
Anthony Carrano (43:06):
Well, it's because there are Cs inside of
those Bs, right?
Dux Raymond Sy (43:09):
Exactly. It's B to H, it's business to human.
Let me give you a very simpleexample, right? I recall a few
years ago, internally, we weregonna launch a campaign and I
said, and this is maybe four orfive years ago. This was, yeah,
four or five years ago.
I said, You know what? We'realso gonna put this on Instagram
(43:31):
and TikTok. And then I had somefolks internally like, our
audience is not there. I mean,we should just do LinkedIn and
YouTube and use, why are you onTikTok? Why are we on Instagram?
I go, I guarantee you every CIOat 05:00 on a Friday when they
go home, they're doom scrollingon Instagram, or on TikTok, or
(43:54):
they're on TikTok with theirkids. Imagine if no other vendor
out there is on TikTok Instagrambut we are on a weekend as
they're scrolling throughdancing videos and then come
Monday they jump on LinkedIn,they still see us, right? So my
second point is it's about thehuman connection, You got to go
(44:16):
where people are and don't stayin the box of Oh, we have to act
and behave a certain way becausewe're a technology company.
Mean, don't do anything stupidor illegal, but you got to go
where people are.
Anthony Carrano (44:29):
Exactly. Exactly. No, that's, that's
fantastic advice. I reallyappreciate you taking some time
to share that, those insightswith our audiences. Well,
this has been great, Dux.Really, this has just been quite
a learning experience. I mean,we're gonna have links on how
folks can, you know, getconnected to AvePoint, take
(44:50):
advantage of this partnership.You know, as we wrap up, what's
like the best way to for folksto kind of reach out and connect
with you?
Dux Raymond Sy (44:57):
Hit me up on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, X,
Blue Sky. It's all in the samename, Meet Dux. In all
seriousness, thank you for thisopportunity. And, you know, to
all the partners out there, keepat it. And there's tons of
opportunities and we're here tohelp.
Anthony Carrano (45:18):
Excellent. Have a great rest of the day.
Dux Raymond Sy (45:20):
Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, Rudy.
Anthony Carrano (45:22):
That brings us to the end of today's episode of
Profiles and Partnership. A hugethank you to Dux Raymond Sy from
AvePoint for sharing his visionand for his commitment to
helping IAMCP members thrive inthe age of AI. What we've heard
today is more than just apartnership announcement. It's a
blueprint for how collaborationcan drive innovation, scale, and
(45:44):
resilience across the Microsoftecosystem. By combining
AvePoint's technology and talentsolutions with IAMCP's global
community, we're seeing a modelfor how partners can not only
adapt to change, but also leadit.
If you're an IAMCP member, Iencourage you to explore the
exclusive benefits availablethrough this partnership. And if
you're not yet a member, this isa perfect example of the kind of
(46:07):
value and opportunity that comesfrom being part of this
community. Check us out atwww.iamcp.org to connect, learn
and grow your Microsoftpractice. Thanks for listening
and as always, stay tuned formore conversations that
celebrate the partnership'spowering growth, collaboration
and transformation across theMicrosoft partner network. Until
(46:29):
next time, I'm Anthony Carrano,and this has been Profiles and
Partnership.
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