Tony Safoian Talks Google Cloud, First-Ever SADA Impact
"We have to become indispensable to our customers," says the longtime CEO of the Google Cloud-only MSP.
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Channel Futures: Talk about the most significant themes coming out SADA Impact that your fellow channel partners can take to heart.
SADA’s Tony Safoian: The ecosystem is moving very quickly toward solutions. Many of us have been very product-focused — we’ve been guilty of this, too. And I think that especially because of everything our customers are going through right now with the macro environment, they’re looking for outcomes as a service. We’re doubling and tripling down on all of us understanding our customers much better. That will require changes about how we go to market. … Start with desired outcomes and work backwards. …That’s definitely going to resonate at a different level. … We are very clear on the fact that it’s going to require a multisolutions strategy that is not just Google Cloud. … Our future is going to look much more packaged and much more comprehensive than just selling the technology.
CF: It’s interesting because this “outcomes as a service” conversation is not new within the channel. In fact, it goes back now at least a decade. Why is it only now that what we’ve all been discussing is finally turning into reality?
TS: There’s more maturity and evolution in the SaaS ecosystem itself. And from a go-to-market and architecture standpoint, the solution-oriented SaaS vendors are now so integral to the hyperscalers’ own strategy. Marketplaces are driving this magnetic coming together of all these conversations for the first time. … All of the SaaS is now not only being built on, but also delivered through, the hyperscalers. … Companies in general will be building less and buying more. … [As that happens,] the overall addressable market can still grow.
CF: Talk about some of the trends your fellow partners need to be aware of right now.
TS: There’s a tremendous amount of pressure on cost in the market. … All companies are trying to figure out how to reduce spend, and make sure their cloud spend is very optimized … People want to remove waste from the system but, interestingly enough, we see more professional services opportunity than ever before. … Customers are realizing they bought a bunch of things they’re not getting full value from. … We’re seeing a complete acceleration of our services business, which is fantastic. … There doesn’t seem to be any slowdown in the amount of services the SI comm is being asked to do right now.
There’s a lot of pressure to save money on software but also a bigger appetite for services. … That’s also maybe because internal teams are strung for the first time in maybe a decade and customers are going to rely more on external partners to do that work.
There’s this weird combination of macro factors that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. It’s kind of a strange place where there’s still very low unemployment, lots of open jobs in general, and at the same time, the biggest tech companies in the world … are still trying to gain efficiency. … I think the name of the game is efficiency now. … Everything was about growth at all costs, every company was hiring anybody they could hire. … But now we’re having a sort of a hangover now from years of being maybe not drunk but definitely buzzed. … It’s really an exciting time to challenge yourself to rise to the occasion … and make the tough decisions to not only get through this time but to thrive in this time. That includes the need to maybe cut back in some areas but prepare yourself to outperform others who are maybe not as agile or creative or bold or confident right now, so that when things to improve you’ve just made great strides in market share.
It’s a weird mix of fear and optimism at the same time.
CF: What are some of the biggest challenges in front of cloud MSPs right now?
TS: Value. We’re all being challenged to provide more value than ever before, and that’s fair. I think every customer wants a relationship that’s way beyond transactional. “All I want for Christmas is a new reseller” — nobody’s saying that. From our standpoint, we believe not only our alliances and marketplace are differentiators but … customers are looking for much more in our services, solution capability. … What they want from us and what we’re delivering is like co-development of their next set of solutions … so they don’t have to continue to grow their own professional services capabilities or their own sales force. They want us to be a part of their sales and delivery organization. … All customers are going to want much more from channel partners. … Not all of us will be able to question our own ability to be more than we’ve ever been. … We have to become indispensable to our customers.
CF: How will the Mandiant acquisition help SADA?
TS: I think Mandiant as a platform is one of the most well respected threat analytics, threat prevention platforms in the world. … It just completely is additive to what we believe is already the strongest story in public cloud, which is Google Cloud. … The innate capabilities around threat security, prevention, detection — these are going to add another layer of services and analytics capabilities. … We believe our customers are all more secure because they run on Google Cloud. … Mandiant … is a very big statement about what they believe is important for the ecosystem. … Security is non-negotiable.
CF: Anything you’d like to add?
TS: The value created here [at SADA Impact] over the last couple days has been immense — the quality of conversations, the community building, partners and customers talking to each other. … It’s time to tear down the anonymity … and have real empathy building and relationship building, especially in these tough times.
“If these last two years have taught us anything at all, it’s that the biggest impact we make is the impact we make together.” —Tony Safoian
“Data’s so important and there’s no company better, in my mind, at turning data into insight than Google … to create revenue streams maybe you haven’t thought about before.” —Jim Anderson, vice president, North America partner ecosystem and channels, Google Cloud
“We’re just at the beginning of what’s possible together. … Customers who go on this journey with Google are deliberately trying to disrupt themselves.” —Safoian
“Our goal is to make our partner ecosystem a multiplier.” —Anderson
“What we want is to deliver outcomes as a service.” —Miles Ward, SADA CTO
“Outcomes have never mattered more than now. … If we don’t accomplish an outcome…then we’ve all failed, no matter the industry, no matter the customer.” —Darren Mowry, managing director, North America, Google Cloud
“Customers … don’t want a reseller … they want someone to help coach them.” —Robert Harper, director – North America channel sales, partner development and activation
“The average enterprise has just over three clouds … but customers are expecting depth and expertise, which is hard to do when you go far and broad.” —Sandy Hogan, chief revenue officer, SADA
“Multicloud is a real thing and there’s great power in the right constructed multicloud environment. … We can find creative ways to coexist with other cloud providers.” — Mowry
“We need to get 135,000 people certified in technical and sales in our partner community. … It’s super important that they understand Google Cloud. Otherwise they’ll stay doing what they’ve been doing forever.” — Harper
“What we want is to deliver outcomes as a service.” —Miles Ward, SADA CTO
“Outcomes have never mattered more than now. … If we don’t accomplish an outcome…then we’ve all failed, no matter the industry, no matter the customer.” —Darren Mowry, managing director, North America, Google Cloud
“Customers … don’t want a reseller … they want someone to help coach them.” —Robert Harper, director – North America channel sales, partner development and activation
“The average enterprise has just over three clouds … but customers are expecting depth and expertise, which is hard to do when you go far and broad.” —Sandy Hogan, chief revenue officer, SADA
“Multicloud is a real thing and there’s great power in the right constructed multicloud environment. … We can find creative ways to coexist with other cloud providers.” — Mowry
“We need to get 135,000 people certified in technical and sales in our partner community. … It’s super important that they understand Google Cloud. Otherwise they’ll stay doing what they’ve been doing forever.” — Harper
For the first time ever, 22-year-old managed service provider SADA this week held its own industry event, SADA Impact. The conference, which took place in southern California, drew enterprise attendees and a range of names in tech.
As most channel partners know, SADA only teams with Google Cloud. The company made the switch in 2019 from acting as a multicloud MSP (it used to also work with Microsoft Azure) to specializing with Google Cloud. Thus, SADA Impact aimed to show customers and prospects how it supports them through a variety of Google Cloud capabilities. The event also highlighted SADA’s own internal capabilities — think business strategy guidance, cloud optimization, and professional services and more, to help attendees understand that the MSP does far more than one-and-done platform implementations. SADA achieved this through keynotes, general and technical sessions, fireside chats and, of course, more casual get-togethers.
SADA’s Tony Safoian
SADA CEO Tony Safoian took some time out to chat with Channel Futures about themes, trends and challenges his fellow cloud partners need to take to heart as the channel, like everyone else, faces a tough economy and changing customer expectations. We also highlight some “soundbyte” takeaways from SADA Impact. Those feature SADA executives Safoian, Miles Ward and Sandy Hogan, and Google Cloud executives Jim Anderson, Darren Mowry and Robert Harper.
Check out the slideshow above to hear from Safoian and get insight into SADA Impact.
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