AWS Partner Summit: 5 Biggest Takeaways
It was generative AI all the way at AWS Partner Summit London – but what were the biggest talking points?
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AWS channel leader Ruba Borno kicked off the Summit by declaring that with generative AI, “we are on the precipice of the next tipping point.”
“It already has started changing businesses, industries, jobs, you name it,” she said. "This is about our customers’ next stage of cloud adoption, digital transformation. But actually it’s about reinvention. It’s not only reinvention of our business, of our customers’ businesses, but you as partners as well. We’re all on a mission to help our customers take advantage of this next tipping point to achieve more, to achieve faster.”
Tanuja Randery, EMEA managing director, AWS (pictured), also paid tribute to the societal impact and benefits of the technology.
“This is a time to lean in to really understanding how this technology can enable you, your own companies and your customers together with us," she said. “I think we will drive a tremendous amount of change across banking, media, health care and life sciences. And I’m going to say increasing conversations in manufacturing, as they try and bring together OT and IoT technologies to really drive plant process and people efficiencies.”
Borno welcomed partners supporting AWS’ shift in operations to be industry-focused, including industry-aligned sales and technical teams.
“Every day we hear from our customers that they’re increasingly asking for technical solutions to industry-specific problems, and they’re seeking your expertise to accelerate their transformation. What I’m really excited about is to see that you’re all adopting and helping customers.”
The exec noted that industry-specific cloud adoption has increased to 40% from 10% in just a few years.
“It’s incredible to see how customers are using cloud technology to transform their businesses. So that’s why we’re investing in solutions [and] building enablement. We’re helping you build expertise to technology solutions and manage services," she said.
Borno emphasized partners’ involvement at every layer of the AWS generative AI stack.
“Take a look at the application layer at the top of the stack,” she said. “We’ve got our own product, Amazon Q, which aggregates data and insights from a lot of our partner solutions. We’ve got partnerships that we launched at re:Invent with companies like Salesforce; every single layer has a partner in it.
“The middle layer, many of you are familiar with Amazon Bedrock … a managed service that allows you to allow the customer to use any model they want to use for generative AI, so there are foundation models.”
Borno revealed she used four models when writing a children’s book for her daughter.
“She’s eight months old, and I needed four models. So for a customer to rely on a single model for their complex use cases … that’s just untenable. So we’re giving you the ability to give them choice to use the right model and the right time for the right use case at the lowest cost.
“And that cost is primarily driven by this infrastructure layer, where our customers have the best price-performance infrastructure that they could use with training and inferential and with amazing partnerships we have with companies like Nvidia, Intel and AMD.”
Launched last month, the new AWS generative AI competency is the fastest growing competency the cloud giant has ever launched. Debuting with 45 partners from 10 countries, Borno forecast that it will far exceed any other AWS competency to date. And why is that?
“Because customers care,” she said.
Borno quoted figures that show that 83% of customers rank specializations as one of the top three considerations for partners.
“Seventy-four percent of customers review their partner certifications at least two times per year; [it’s a] huge decision-making criteria. In this world where customers don’t even know where to start, this is what’s valuable to them.”
Alongside generative AI, the other big talking point at AWS Partner Summit London was the AWS Marketplace.
At re:Invent, AWS announced it was introducing AWS Marketplace APIs for sellers, which means customers no longer have to leave the partner’s website to make purchases. It also launched the AWS Partner CRM Connector based on Salesforce CRM. It allows partners to manage their marketplace private offers and opportunities within a single unified Salesforce app.
So AWS commissioned a third-party audit to find out what partners think of its marketplace. The hyperscaler discovered that partners who sell through the AWS Marketplace achieve 27% higher win rates. They have a 40% faster sales cycle so they close deals 40% faster. Those deals are also 80% bigger.
“We want this to be ‘The Everything Store’ for our customers’ IT needs,” said Borno.
She also emphasized that Marketplace isn't just for technology or ISV partners.
“One systems integrator I spoke with said that 50% of their net-new logos came through the AWS Marketplace – customers that they never reached out to, customers they never put a salesperson on reached out to them proactively because of the AWS Marketplace.”
Borno said AWS would continue to invest in Marketplace and “are absolutely putting our money where our mouth is.”
Alongside generative AI, the other big talking point at AWS Partner Summit London was the AWS Marketplace.
At re:Invent, AWS announced it was introducing AWS Marketplace APIs for sellers, which means customers no longer have to leave the partner’s website to make purchases. It also launched the AWS Partner CRM Connector based on Salesforce CRM. It allows partners to manage their marketplace private offers and opportunities within a single unified Salesforce app.
So AWS commissioned a third-party audit to find out what partners think of its marketplace. The hyperscaler discovered that partners who sell through the AWS Marketplace achieve 27% higher win rates. They have a 40% faster sales cycle so they close deals 40% faster. Those deals are also 80% bigger.
“We want this to be ‘The Everything Store’ for our customers’ IT needs,” said Borno.
She also emphasized that Marketplace isn't just for technology or ISV partners.
“One systems integrator I spoke with said that 50% of their net-new logos came through the AWS Marketplace – customers that they never reached out to, customers they never put a salesperson on reached out to them proactively because of the AWS Marketplace.”
Borno said AWS would continue to invest in Marketplace and “are absolutely putting our money where our mouth is.”
AWS PARTNER SUMMIT — AWS had made it clear at re:Invent in Las Vegas in December that it was all-in on generative AI. At its Partner Summit this week in London, it doubled down on that statement.
The event was, for the most part, dedicated to generative AI: its applications and how partners can help their customers benefit from the technology. It took just 90 seconds after taking to the stage for her keynote speech for AWS’ global channel leader Ruba Borno to declare that the world is now at a tipping point thanks to generative AI.
The cloud giant also sold the benefits to partners of AWS Marketplace, revealed its fastest growing competency ever, and provided updates on its latest investments. See our slideshow above for the five biggest talking points at AWS Partner Summit.
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