Feliz Montpellier: How ISVs Win in a Vertical-First Ecosystem

Chip Rodgers  0:00  
So Hey everyone, welcome back. We're here at ultimate partner live. And man, what an amazing event, huh? It's been, it's been fantastic. So many you know, 270 people here, all partners, Microsoft partners, here in Dallas, you know,

Feliz Montpellier  0:14  
to see everyone back in real live again in real person,

Chip Rodgers  0:18  
in person. It's, it's really great to to, you know, get to meet people live. It's, you know, just all the side conversations and everything is really, really fantastic. So thank you for joining, and I am really excited to be joined by Felice Montpellier. Felice is general manager of ISV partner solutions for for Microsoft. And welcome. That's great to be here with you. Chip so you had a session earlier this morning, and really fascinating. I love hearing, you know, 24 industries that Microsoft focuses on, and I think it's so important because, you know, you, you it's, it's, you can think of sort of horizontal solutions. But it's not until you get into the industries that you have very specific use cases. And there's such great opportunity with partners around that,

Feliz Montpellier  1:09  
yeah, there's a great opportunity. Actually, we have nine prioritized Industries at Microsoft across both commercial and pubsec, so there's a great opportunity. And I work really closely with the ecosystem across those nine priority industries. So we can everything from retail to manufacturing, financial services and our pubsuck industries as well. Really robust ecosystem, a lot built on the Microsoft Cloud, and just a great opportunity to work together.

Chip Rodgers  1:32  
That's amazing. So what are some of the nine priority industries? Tell me a little bit about what are those industries and what? Why are they a priority at this moment in time?

Feliz Montpellier  1:43  
Yeah, I mean, we really look at the customer opportunity that we have with each within each one of those industries. So probably one of our largest customer industries is, if we look at the opportunity, is really looking at our customer base. And so, you know, I named a few of the large ones within that nine. But financial services, health, retail, manufacturing, government, probably our five largest customer industries, and so we have a pretty robust ecosystem within each one of those where we have the opportunity to like, build and develop great solutions built on our platform, but really addressing a specific customer scenario within that industry. So think of like in retail, you know, like personalization or intelligent supply chain, or in manufacturing, you know, smart factories and so just a really great opportunity for us to work with our ISV partners build those solutions go to market through our go to market opportunities, whether that's marketing or our sales teams that are verticalized. And then also, you know, in the future, it's really going to market through the marketplace as well, and that's really going to help

Chip Rodgers  2:49  
us scale long term. So I just love industry solutions because it's, it is. So, I mean, think of how different something in retail is from something in manufacturing or financial services, just, you know, but, but still critical to be able to run the business, right? So you need not only Microsoft and Microsoft solutions, but the partner solutions, to create a whole solution for each for your for customers,

Feliz Montpellier  3:09  
yeah. And what we've done is, in each industry, we've taken our horizontal solution area plays, so think of like frontline worker, right? That's a very horizontal play, where we're looking at like teams as that platform, and then we're verticalizing and driving an industry narrative. So if you think about in retail, it's like a retail store associate and how we're enabling them. Or in healthcare, it might be, you know, enabling the doctors and nurses on the front lines to work with their with their patients. And that's a way of like taking those horizontal plays and then layering on an industry narrative on

Chip Rodgers  3:41  
top. So as a as an ISV in the Microsoft ecosystem, how should I sort of take advantage of these kinds of opportunities? Maybe I have something that's a little bit more horizontal, but starting to see some interest or some capabilities within a specific industry. How should they think about working with Microsoft and working with your team? Yeah,

Feliz Montpellier  4:04  
it's a little different, but aligned if you're a pure horizontal player versus if you're just a pure industry, like in one industry player. So if we look at the horizontals, you know, first and foremost, I'd understand like, are there some specific industries where you have strength? And so if you let's just pick financial services, right, and so really understanding what our narrative is there. So we typically will have four pillars around kind of a high level narrative, understanding how your solutions might play into that narrative, and then going one click deeper into the aligned customer scenarios under there. So if you can figure out how your your solution plugs into that industry narrative and customer scenarios, then you can figure out how to plug into the go to market at Microsoft, right? That's going to be how our sellers are trained in that industry. That's going to be how our marketing campaigns go to market. And so it really gives an opportunity to speak the same language as all of our kind of industry go to market teams and industry assets. And so that way we can better. Plug you into the kind of industry sockets that we have.

Chip Rodgers  5:03  
And so are there industry verticalized sales teams, marketing and all those, you know, within different regions?

Feliz Montpellier  5:12  
Yeah. So we have kind of two flavors of that. Like, we think of the operating unit, right? So that is, we have many, like, we just think of the Americas for a second. So they have seven operating units across those industries. So we talked about financial services, but if we just use that as an example, so they'll have an atu, an account team unit where the account exec sits. They'll have a st, you the specialist team unit where the specialists sit, and then they'll have the CSU, the customer success unit, where our CSAs sit, and all of those are in an operating unit just focused on our financial services customer. So that's a great way to think about, like, how do I drive relationships and engagement? Because maybe you're focused on banking or insurance or capital markets, specifically that industry, and then we would have aligned marketing teams as well that are focused on, you know, the financial services industry. So that's a great way to think about, how to plug in. And then as we build on our marketplace, too, we're starting to merchandise and better market the solutions in the marketplace, and pivoting by those industries also. We also recently announced at Inspire. Well, inspire was a few months ago, but announced our industry designations, and so we're rolling those out through this year. And so you'll start to see some ability to kind of show your specialty and that Mike, you're working with Microsoft, say, in financial services or retail or some of the prioritized industries,

Chip Rodgers  6:29  
that's amazing. So much opportunity for partners.

Feliz Montpellier  6:32  
Very exciting opportunity now.

Chip Rodgers  6:35  
So what are you hoping to get from this event here? You know 270 partner folks, Microsoft partners that are all here in Dallas, what's what are you hoping to get out of

Feliz Montpellier  6:47  
the event today? Well, I'm always trying to help our partners be successful, right? Working with us in industry, that is my specialty. That is what my team focuses on. And there is great opportunity for differentiation. Microsoft has invested very heavily in our industry, go to market. So thinking about not just those horizontal plays, but actually the vertical plays. So if I can help any you know, partner be successful, you know, driving and accelerating their business and industry like, that's what I want to get out that's what I talked about at my session earlier. It's just an exciting opportunity. Yeah,

Chip Rodgers  7:17  
that's great. Okay. Well, fantastic. I hope I'm able to or we're able to get some of the message out as well. And Felice, thank you for taking some time to chat about this. Thanks a lot. Great to see you. Chip. Thanks everyone for joining, and we'll see you. See you next time. Thanks everybody, and thanks, felice, bye.

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