From Migration to Marketplace: Where AWS Wants Partners to Play in APJ

Speaker A: Welcome to Investable Partnerships where we talk to industry leaders about growing revenue generating partnerships. I'm your host, Des Russell and co founder of Partner Elevate. And the daily battle for partner success is forcing channel leaders to rethink how to maximize their relevance and value so they can be a driver of partner impact. So, so let's jump in and find out how.

Speaker B: Hey Chris, welcome back to the Investable Partnerships podcast. It's so good to have you back. Um, a second, second time guest and a longtime listener obviously. Um, uh, a lot's happened. Uh, the last time we were um, talking, uh, on the podcast, you were still in uh, the usa. You've now got a new role, um, in apj. I'd love to just get a quick sense of how are you doing being back home in Australia and what are some of the things that you're seeing in your current role that um, partners should know about in, uh, understanding a bit more about the APJ strategy.

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks Des. Thanks for having me back too. Uh, it's great to see you. Uh, it's great to be here in Melbourne recording this together in our new studio in our Melbourne office. But uh, it was fantastic to talk to you. Guess I think that was like at least 12 months ago. I was in New York at that stage. We were talking about uh, sort of AWS's industry technology partners and some of the things we're doing to help customers pretty deep in some of the industry use cases. Uh, so it's great to be back to chat to you on the podcast again about what we're doing and um, some of the changes that have happened for me personally, but importantly about some of the things we're doing in apj. Uh, to answer your question, yeah, the new role is uh, managing the AWS partners, uh, across Asia Pacific and Japan. Um, so that's cutting across all of our different fantastic partner types. Um, we've got large systems integrators, we've got born in the cloud systems integrators, our uh, distributor partners as well as our ISV partners, uh, our technology partners and our startups, uh, in terms of every one of our partnerships from uh, New Zealand to India. So it's 17 different countries we're operating in. Um, we've got builders in many, many cities across those countries and importantly some really important partnerships that are helping our customers in all of the different communities across apj. Uh, it's been a lot of fun, certainly, uh, a lot of time on a plane, uh, for sure, uh, around apj, apj. Is much more vast than um, I think some of the folk in North America appreciate, even just geographically. Uh, but it's been really great to just you know, AWS in, in Asia Pacific and Japan just has such a fantastic opportunity for growth. Um, you know, we've got some countries where we've had a presence for quite some time and there's a very large uh, partner and customer base. And there's other countries where we're, you know, just really getting started in terms of launching new regions. You know, we launched a region in Malaysia, um, and last year and then we launched a region in Thailand earlier this year. And uh, we've got other regions coming online um, very, very soon, like the one in New Zealand. Um, and so just that dynamic of um, working with customers and partners in really large established countries for us like Japan, Australia and New Zealand and Singapore, and then the dynamic of uh, you know, the, the, the really fast moving ecosystem for some of these, uh, other emerging countries across Asia Pacific and Japan has uh, been the thing that's not surprised me the most. But certainly it's really, really energizing.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it's the uh, it's the playbook that you've got, but it's the playbook that continues to evolve. Right. Because uh, as you bring on these new regions, you start to establish your new uh, partner relationships and more customer relationships. The pace of change around technology is lightning speed as well. So what are you seeing across the APJ region when it comes to uh, working with partners? What are some of the key areas where you're seeing partners, uh, having success? Um, and what are some of the areas where you see you'd like partners to be more focused on in uh, working with aws, um, to get closer to those customers.

Speaker C: Yeah. As I think you know about the, how we, we viewing partners in Asia Pacific and Japan, um, you know, it's really important to us that we're bringing solutions and outcomes to our end customers. And when I think about the value partners play in that space, it's really them being able to put together um, the solutions based on the customer need and the outcome that that customer is trying to solve. Whether that's a business challenge in terms of improving productivity or whether it's a growth opportunity for that customer, um, and the partners being the ones, whether it's a single partner or multiple partners involved in helping that customer deliver that outcome. That's really what we uh, pride ourselves on in terms of working backwards from at Amazon, uh, and for us to do that at The SC that we need to be able to do that, uh, across Asia Pacific and Japan, our partners play a critical role in that. Um, and I think, you know, hopefully, uh, those that have been involved in the channel for some time have seen an evolution of AWS's, you know, mindset. But not only in terms of the mindset and the messaging that we're putting out there, but in terms of the action and the output and how deeply ingrained partners are in terms of our plans and our execution motions through our field teams. And I think some good examples of that even most recently in some of our region launches that I just mentioned in Malaysia and Thailand in the past we were launching new regions, um, and we probably didn't even, our partners weren't even aware that we were planning on launching a new AWS region.

Speaker B: AWS is now available.

Speaker C: Right. Whereas ah, Malaysia and Thailand, we had examples of customers running new workloads in those regions. The day that we launched the region supported by our AWS partners, um, same day, um, that we turned on the region and we officially announced it live. And that is just a small snippet of for our teams, the AWS teams that are working closely with partners. That obviously brings a lot of pride and appreciation for our partners, for our teams, but importantly for our customers. Their ability to get started that quickly in terms of using AWS technology, um, is a real differentiator and something we don't take lightly in terms of the appreciation that we have for our partners.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would say that there's definitely a different feeling um, about AWS in the region. Um, uh, particularly about. And it's a positive feeling. And the positive feeling is that there is this focus on ah, partner led customer growth in everything that you're starting to do or everything that you're improving across the region. Um, you've got Marketplace and Co Sell, a real key pillar, um, of this partner led customer growth. You've had ISVs like CrowdStrike and Okta publicly announced that um, they've just reached the billion dollars sales through Marketplace, which is absolutely astounding. You've got channel private, uh, offers now rolling through, um, some prioritized distributors like NextGen, et cetera. So there's this immense, there's this immense wave of this partner led, uh, customer growth. Where do you think partners today in APJ region? Where do you think they're playing? Uh, are they playing in the right places to be part of that or do you see that there's opportunity for partners to rethink? Um, and um, Just make sure that they ah, align in, in the direction that you are taking. Uh, the APJ region on.

Speaker C: There's certainly some fantastic examples of partners, um, executing in all of our different um, go to market motions. But equally uh, there's a lot of opportunity to extend beyond that. And I think you're right. AWS Marketplace is certainly a strategic priority for us, uh, in the region as it is globally. Because our mission as an organization is to deliver the best experience for our customers to find, procure and use partner solutions to unlock the value of aws, uh, and the ability for them to do that through that digital storefront and procurement engine that Marketplace provides, um, just provides them so much more efficiency in terms of their ability to find, procure and then use those partner solutions. So that's why it's so critical to uh, sort of our strategies. It's really to help partners and uh, also importantly help customers speed up that time to value for them in terms of finding partner solutions. Um, I will say, like the more that our partners continue to ask us probing questions about where there is um, demand signals that we're seeing from customers and then importantly, there's an opportunity for them in terms of uh, pivoting to or adjusting their plans for their business. Those are the conversations that I really enjoy and really um, light me up when I'm talking to partners because yeah, we don't take it lightly that these partners are investing a lot of resources and a lot of money in terms of aligning their business priorities to where they see customer demand. Um, and we don't, we don't take that lightly in that like they're taking the guidance that they're getting from aws, um, really seriously to help inform those plans. Uh, and so it's certainly from our team's perspective, uh, across the AWS teams in apj, we're doing as much as we can, as fast as we possibly can to really understand where those customer demand signals are, whether that's for a small and medium business or a very large enterprise in each of the countries, uh, and identifying where the next step, stage of evolution for that customer is on their enterprise transformation or their digital transformation. So in some countries that's getting into just disaster recovery and backup. Still, that's where they're at in terms of what the customers are looking for in terms of their cloud journey. Likewise in certain other customer segments, it's all the way into how are they integrating, uh, generative AI into the applications they're using on a daily basis or figuring out how they're using the power of some of these advanced things, technologies, um, to make internal uh, efficiencies in terms of the ability for their employees to find information faster and then use that information. Um, so we need to be prescriptive with partners wherever they're going to market with us, in terms of each country and area, but also in terms of the customer segments as to where we see demand today and where we believe demand will be in the future to help them guide their business. And I think that's the true value of what, what a real partnership means. Right. Like that two way communication, uh, and being able to be very like frank with each other where we certainly see opportunity or where we see market changes and market dynamics shifting. Uh, and you know, we together as partners need to pivot to uh, really help our customers as those things change.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think uh, any partner would absolutely love to have the more, the, the more strategic view of, not just the tactical view, that strategic view of where are you taking this particular opportunity and um, the strategy, um, partners struggle to translate the strategy and then create that alignment. And I think they struggle to translate it because um, um, there's almost a flip between how we talk about it in the vendor world, in AWS world to how that actually uh, relates to partners. So um, for partners that are listening to this uh, podcast, I would definitely say there's two things that partners should be focused on to help. That it's not just about waiting for AWS to tell you where things are going. It's actually working on more, being a bit more strategic, uh, having more, what I call strategic autonomy in their own business. That you can be closely aligned to aws, but you can't be that closely aligned that you have to wait for AWS to point you in the right direction. And I think that comes from having a bit more market agility in your own business. Uh, and that uh, AWS can pivot pretty quickly and the big vendors can pivot pretty quickly. Uh, systems integrator, SMB partner finds it hard to pivot from selling backup recovery to selling um, generative AI solutions. So let's talk about the technology space and your priorities around the technology space. Because I think um, ultimately this entire channel, um, is very technology focused, driving the adoption of the AWS platform. What are your priorities in the APJ region that you want partners, um, to firstly know about, but also um, to be paying attention to in terms of where your investments and where your focus focuses going in? Uh, aws?

Speaker C: Sure. Uh, I think there's a Few ones that I'll point out. But it was really interesting what you were just saying there about the partners ability to pivot and be dynamic. Some of the priorities for us this year are still very much fundamentals of things that uh, we've been talking about with partners for some time. To give you an example, um, migrations and modernization is something that folk have probably heard AWS talk about for quite some time. Hopefully this is not the first time you've heard someone from AWS talk about it on a podcast. Um, but it's still really, really critical. And there's two very, very uh, interesting, compelling market events that are happening right now that have even put that further into the spotlight. You know, if you're looking at VMware, um, and the opportunity there. You know, I was reading a stat from Gartner that there's more than 80 million virtual machines still out there and I think roughly 90% of them are still on prem. So when we're talking about migrations and modernizations, that is a situation that many customers are thinking through right now as to what's their long term strategy with regard to that technology footprint. Uh, and certainly on our side it's under the umbrella of migrations and modernization. But there's a very specific um, customer demand signal there that a lot of our partners have maybe not 180 pivoted to, but they've adjusted their practices in terms of migrations and modernization to really focus on that as a current um, pain point and opportunity for customers to address. The other one is generative AI. Uh, and there are a lot of investments that we continue to make on the technology front there. Like since we last talked, there's a lot of announcements that we made at Re Invent in Las Vegas last year. Uh, certainly the suite of Nova models is something that we are really excited about and our uh, customers um, are really excited about. But there's also continued innovations we're doing with Amazon Q and Amazon Q for Developer, which again is not only helping our customers be more efficient, but helping our partners deliver new value for customers. And you know, there's a customer in Australia right now where we're talking, where we're recording this podcast from National Australia bank who's been using Q for Developer and has had some really fantastic results in terms of the code recommendations that Q for Developer is positioning to them with over a 50% acceptance rate. That's an example of a brand new piece of technology that they've been able to swiftly adopt. Um, that's really moving the needle for them in terms of the productivity of their engineering teams. Um, so as we're thinking about our priorities, in the case of generative AI, yes, there are brand new tooling and there's brand new frontier models, in the case of Amazon Nova, but it still comes back to the data and analytics stack that a customer has on the cloud. And if a customer still has much of that data in silos and on premises, it's materially harder, albeit potentially impossible for them to realize the value of some of these newer uh, emerging technologies in terms of generative AI applications or their ability to build applications using foundational models and frontier models, uh, if they're pointing to data that's happening to be sitting on prem, or heaven forbid on a server under someone's desk. So as much as the marketing, the positioning, the way in which the story and the customer engagement might be initiating, in terms of the customers looking at some of these new and emerging technologies and figuring out what that means for their business, a lot of the times it does come back to some of those foundational pieces of execution that many, many of our partners have been fantastic supporters of AWS for many, many years and our customers that we need to continue to push on.

Speaker B: And in between all of this, there's a massive uh, startup ecosystem. Uh, uh, there's apparently a lot of funding around at the moment. Uh, again somehow there's always funding. I wonder might be because uh, if you put AI on the back of your domain name, there's a lot of funding there. But talking, uh, talk to the audience about what's the relationship with Amazon, uh, AWS and uh, startups and how critical are startups to this entire ecosystem that you're trying to build to grow customer.

Speaker C: I could give you a really short answer, absolutely critical, but uh, I'll expand on it a little bit for you in the interest of making the podcast, uh, a little bit interesting for the listeners. Listen aws. When AWS first started, you know, a lot of our initial customers were startups and some of those startups people probably no longer identify as startups. But it's really true that it's that deeply rooted in the origins of AWS as a company. And that continues to be true today. Um, you know we've announced at uh Re Invent last year a billion dollars of AWS activate credits to help support our startups. And I think that's getting a lot of headlines. But it's just one of many, many things that we are ah, doing. Whether that's on dedicated programs, resources to help startups go to market uh, in the countries where they're headquartered but then importantly around the rest of APJ is what I'm thinking about and then outside to around the world. But for us startups they can be and in most cases are ah, the next enterprise customers for us, um, and the next material partners for us if you're thinking about it, the software landscape but then also the consulting landscape um and I think it's a really interesting time uh for us to be part of the sort of channel landscape as professionals watching these companies grow uh, from what in the past might have been a shop that needed to hire 50 people to just get off the ground and now there might be five people um, with a really nimble development team uh, that's really able to iterate on a product super fast. Uh and so that dynamic of speed of innovation in terms of the startups that we are uh talking to as startup customers of AWS and emerging partners of AWS is, is probably as fast paced as it's ever been and uh, it's only going to speed up uh, even more. So for us it's really, really critical that startups see AWS as the best uh cloud for them to build on. Technically you know, most secure, has the most scalability, um and global footprint for when they're successful. But also importantly from a go to market sense that they really feel like they've got the support they need to differentiate their product with the customers that they believe where they have a unique value proposition um, and that we can help them not only grow as they grow but accelerate that growth and I

Speaker B: think importantly uh, the reach that you can give them through uh your go to market motions, particularly uh AWS Marketplace. I think it uh, was that re invent where Ruba mentioned and over 4000 ISVs actually on the AWS Marketplace and growing um, that's in December, December timeframe. So I think there's a massive opportunity for them particularly uh, uh in this region as well. We speak about the different regions and the pockets of innovation and the different um, I suppose the different speeds that all these markets in APJ is running at and you think about Marketplace and uh, the opportunity that provides partners particularly in the channel you mentioned channel and we can't not talk about the channel because um. Is AWS a channel focused company? Is aws uh a uh direct company? Does AWS just want to work with partners uh that sell through the marketplace to their prioritized motions? Let's maybe try to provide some clarity for our Audience because there's a lot of people asking that question. AWS and the channel, is it a key way in which you're going to market and you see how you can address this market?

Speaker C: Absolutely. Um, and I think just one example uh, of another launch that we announced at re invent was the buy with AWS capability on Marketplace. So just so everyone um, can calibrate what that means. That means that there are large partners of ours that can expose through uh, APIs now the marketplace experience on their websites. Right. And so customers uh, who are using their websites and they may be a channel partner of ours, ah, where customers uh, have typically gone to their experience to find different solutions that they might um, want to use, can now actually see AWS Marketplace products within that experience and then go and procure it. That is a signal hopefully to the market that we continue to invest in the channel being a super critical part of the AWS value proposition and story. Because from our perspective we want to make sure customers are successful and we're meeting our customers where they are or where they're going to be. Um, and the reality is that there are a lot of fantastic channel partners out there of ours and potentially some new ones in the future, um, where if we aren't able to efficiently and effectively work with and through those channel partners, unfortunately there are customers out there that are not going to be able to benefit from the AWS technology. Um, and maybe we can put it in the show notes, but I think there was a great uh, article from uh, Matt, our CEO on crn, which even was talking about like his perspective on the importance of partners to aws. Um, and he's been public in that article. He's saying, you know, we want partners involved in every single one of our accounts and every single one of our use cases across all of the industries. Um, that is very real in terms of our plans and how we want to operate. Um, and certainly for us it's just making sure that we're clear to our partners in each of the different areas and countries what that means based on the landscape of the customers in that country.

Speaker B: Yeah, and there's so much you're doing around the space, uh, around the mid market to enterprise, um, in terms of uh, these customer buying signals. And that's what's happening further down in the SMB space. What sort of initiatives are there from an AWS perspective that are actually going to start helping partners? Um, uh, one of the things that comes to mind is the Small Business Acceleration Initiative which was uh, announced uh, at Re invent what does that mean for partners in terms of AWS really looking to now switch on this customer led growth in this small medium business sector Because APJ is a tremendously large SMB sector.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's probably two major components to that. One is, you know there's certainly areas within the AWS uh, solutions suite like Amazon Connect as an example where we do think there is a very clear value proposition that we can bring through partners to uh, small and medium business uh, customers. And you know I think with uh, the SMB definition, you know there's various ones out there but we're not necessarily talking about Des and Chris's Milk Bar in the corner here. There are some quite sophisticated businesses that have some real, real technology needs especially as we're thinking about some of the emerging technologies which for them whether they've got you know, 50 to 500 employees could really move the needle for them on you know, their margins today and then certainly their revenue growth opportunities. So certainly Connect, um, as one of the solution areas from the AWS sort of first party portfolio I think is a really interesting value proposition for small and medium business customers. Um, where we're really excited about that in APJ this year but that's going to be with and through our partners because they're the ones that actually help make those customers successful. Uh, and then the other part is through our partners that are really supporting those small and medium business customers. Um, the reality is a lot of those customers, the way they're going to onboard to leverage cloud technology is less likely to be them using all of the native AWS services, um, in isolation. Whether that's EKs, S3EC2, they're probably not going to be the ones that are picking the best EC2 instance type for the workload. Right. Maybe there's some but as a generalization that that's more than likely not going to be the case. But they are using applications that need for accounting and bookkeeping and they need a CRM system, uh, and they need a general ledger system, uh, and they need a system to power their HR and their operations. Uh, they need a system to help them with marketing and digital content. Like that's sort of ubiquitous across the industries. So the more that we're helping provide those customers with a really seamless experience to find those packages of solutions that might be relevant for their business and a really easy way for them to not only procure those solutions but have someone that can support the um, implementation and the business value realization of that. The Reality is that the best folk that are placed to deliver that for those customers are our channel partners. And whether that's our uh, distribution partners or the partners of, of the distis around APJ or um, AWS or companies that are directly of partner of aws, the common thread there is that our partners are best placed to do that. And that's certainly for us why we're so excited about the small, uh, business acceleration initiative as just one vehicle to help grow that. But it's certainly a key pillar in our strategy to help that customer segment.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's great to hear and see that there's, there is this recognition. Ah, I, um, mean you uh, look at the small business competency that was launched in 2004, uh, 2024, not that long ago. Um, that's another step towards AWS understanding that there is a segment, um, in their go to market that needs some prioritization in terms of funding, in terms of capability building, in terms of differentiat as well. So, um, I'm excited to see this and be part of how uh, how this can be, uh, how this can grow in the, in the AP APJ region. So we kind of, we've kind of done a little bit of. Looking back your new role. I can't believe you. It's, it's a year only because it feels like so much longer. Uh, you're. What are you excited about in the next, uh, 12 to 24 months for, uh, the APJ region? What's. What the one thing or what are a couple of things that you're excited about in terms of what you want to achieve as the leader of APJ for partners.

Speaker C: Uh, listen, I think for me, one of the things that um, differentiates aws, I believe, and one of the things I love about working here is our culture. Um, and the way we're thinking about our culture is not just the builders that work for aws, but how are we making sure that the partners of ours, you know, they're their own companies and they have their own identities and cultures. But where there's shared values in terms of what we're trying to deliver for customers, um, is really, really important to us and making sure that we're extending that culture out with and through our partners. Um, is what has excited me in this role and what continues to excite me in 2025. Uh, yeah, and like, one of the things that I've been talking about is you can't mandate invention and innovation, like as a leader, like, that's not just something you can stand there and say like, please go innovate. Yeah, right. It is an output of your people, your partners and your culture. Uh, and so for us, like making sure we're as prescriptive as we can be in terms of the strategy and direction and priorities and being as transparent as to what's informing those because we do think there is an important opportunity, um, to service the customers and the communities that we're operating in APJ and importantly it is an opportunity for our partners to build sustainable and profitable businesses is a solid, solid foundation. But then um, really making sure we're working with builders at our partners that share that innovation focused mindset. Because a lot of the best ideas are not going to come from me. They're not going to come from leadership. They're going to come from the people on the ground at the edge who are working with our customers who might be doing a proof of concept or they've started a migration and a modernization activity and they found an opportunity to do something bigger. That's what keeps me up at night as the person who's leading the partner organization in apj. Like how do we make sure we keep unblocking that, accelerating that and helping grow that in as many of the countries and the communities that we're operating in today. Um, and so it's, it's that innovation and that spark that honestly keeps uh, me here and keeps me so motivated in this role. Because as I look across Asia Pacific and Japan, all the way from New Zealand to India, and I'm only using those two examples because they're the geographic bookends. But there's so many different, um, partners and customers that are working on some of the most innovative solutions that honestly you didn't even think of until you've met with them and you've started to talk about what they're delivering for these customers. Customers. That's something that will never get old for me. Uh, and it's one of the reasons why working in this space that we do, in my opinion is the most exciting space to be in tech.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I love it. Uh, I definitely love being on having been on both sides of it. So uh, well that's good. Look, um, we usually do the partnerships fast five and I don't have your answers from last time. I should have probably got those answers and given you, have you evolved your partnership thinking? So I'm going to ask you, ah, going to shoot a couple of statements at you and what I want to hear is just your first answer, first word that comes to mind, and I'll try to remember what all of the questions are. So, um, partnerships mean

Speaker C: everything to aws.

Speaker B: Partnerships thrive on

Speaker C: mutual trust and accountability.

Speaker B: With partnerships, you can.

Speaker C: Anything's possible.

Speaker B: Love it. Chris, thank you so much. It's been so good to, uh, have you back on the podcast, sharing with our audience of Channel Leaders, Channel Partners, about what AWS is doing in the APJ region. I'm excited about, uh, everything that, uh, is being announced, the focus around partners, uh, and, um, yeah, I wish, uh, you all the best for the year ahead and appreciate, uh, your career coming to spend the time.

Speaker C: Thanks for having me, Des. We'll do it again soon. And thank you very much for you and the team for everything you're doing to, uh, elevate the partner, uh, profession, uh, and landscape across the world.

Speaker B: Appreciate it. Thanks. Cheers. Chris.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to Investable Partnerships. Subscribe wherever you listen and visit investablepartnerships.com for the transcripts of today's show.

Speaker B: Sam.