ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft South Africa focuses on driving growth and improving partner profitability
Lionel Moyal , Commercial Partner Director , Microsoft South Africa , outlines how the company is modernising its partner programme and moving away from what used to be Gold and Silver competencies to a simpler Cloud Partner Designation model across six solution areas to help drive growth and improve partner profitability .
Lionel Moyal , Commercial Partner Director , Microsoft South Africa
tTalk us through your role as Commercial Partner Director at Microsoft South Africa ? In my role , I focus on South Africa but work as part of a team of peers covering the Middle East and Africa ( MEA ) and I have a colleague covering rest of Africa . Together we look after channel partners ( licensing ), systems integrators ( global and local ), independent software vendors ( Global and Local ), learning partners and start-ups . I look after South Africa as a region , but we have leaders looking after the different types of partners with specialist programmes . For example , ISVs and GSIVs are managed at a MEA level , making it easy to support such partners with geo-expansion . We also work with the Africa
Transformation Office , which has a specific focus on recruiting and growing startups , digitising SMMEs , and looking at strategic partnerships that will help drive transformation in Africa .
What do you find challenging in your role given that you are driving Microsoft ’ s channel business in Sub-Saharan Africa ?
Microsoft is a global company , creating programmes designed to scale and that tries to cater for all types of partners . While we strive to continuously evolve and simplify , there is an inherent complexity in trying to deal with so many markets at different maturity levels . We work to understand the strategy and work within the guidelines and localise the strategy as much as we can , to ensure that we support the needs of our current market . For example , in South Africa we have created the Emerging Partner Programme , designed to help accelerate 100 % black owned SMME partners . This is important to our market . At the same time , we want to make sure
One channel to watch is the Microsoft Azure Marketplace , or AppSource which is the business focused marketplace .
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