Cannes 7 Oct
The Microsoft Executive Partner Summit EMEA 2008 in Cannes is an important opportunity for me to hook up with partners and with Microsoft leaders in EMEA. It is also of course very pleasant in the French Riviera! I have had so many great meetings yesterday and today! People from different countries and different backgrounds running different type of companies!
It is crystal clear to me that customers should not invest in doing things themselves that is generic and that not adds a competitive edge to the businesses. Still many customers run their own servers, manage their own desktops and sometimes they should really stop and think about what to focus on! Find what is really key to their business.
An obvious example is that customers are running their own Exchange solutions instead of outsourcing to a partner. As the economy outlook tends to be a little bit darker I want IT departments to focus on what is unique to them and not hold tight to what can be run both better and less expensive by a partner.
Also partners need to really think about what they should do themselves and what they should leave to Microsoft. This is the same game for the partner as for the end customer - everyone needs to try to move up in the value chain in order to stay competitive.
Microsoft's online services provides a great platform for partners to build services on and I think that many partners that run what is now 'generic vanilla offerings' should instead think about either adding services on top of Microsoft or to develop offerings in other spaces where they can be a little bit unique.
Change is a constant process! If you do not lead change then you will be overtaken! But if you lead change you will instead find it very prosperous and rewarding!
Regards, Per
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