Show Notes
At the CMO Huddles SuperHuddle in Palo Alto, I sat down with Sandy Ono, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships at OpenText, to explore how her dual leadership role across marketing and partnerships is reshaping how the $5.5B software company goes to market. OpenText has been a trusted name in enterprise information management for decades. But as Sandy shares, the company has evolved far beyond its content management roots - now spanning cloud, cybersecurity, and AI-driven solutions across 10 categories. Through that growth, one thing has remained consistent: a deep commitment to partnerships. Inside Partnering is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
“About 40% of our business runs through partners,” Sandy explains. “We think about our partnerships in five big segments - strategic partners, GSIs, cloud providers, resellers, and managed service providers. Each has a distinct motion, but all are aligned to growth.” At the top of that list sits SAP, a partnership that dates back more than 20 years. “We’ve been a Pinnacle Partner for 19 of those,” Sandy says proudly. “SAP focuses on structured data - ERP, HR, finance - and OpenText complements that by managing the unstructured content behind those processes. Together, we help customers move to the cloud more efficiently while maintaining compliance and governance.” That combination - structure and context - has become even more vital in the age of AI. “AI is only as good as the data foundation beneath it,” Sandy notes. “We always say, strong data foundation leads to strong AI outcomes. We’ve spent 35 years governing the humans - now we need to govern the agents.” It’s a philosophy that ties directly into OpenText’s mission of secure information management for AI. As organizations rush to integrate generative tools into their workflows, OpenText’s platform provides the trust layer needed to ensure AI outputs are governed, auditable, and aligned with enterprise standards. Marketing and Partnerships: Two Sides of Growth Sandy’s path to leading both marketing and partnerships wasn’t a deliberate pivot - it was a natural evolution. “I’m a marketing geek,” she says with a smile. “What I love most about marketing is crafting strategy and bringing it to market. Partnerships take that one step further - when you form great alliances, the growth is tangible. The revenue comes.” That synergy between brand, go-to-market, and partnership execution has become one of OpenText’s strongest advantages. “You can have a wonderful partnership and negotiate the best deal,” Sandy explains, “but unless you bring your marketing friends along, it doesn’t come to life. Marketing and alliances are two sides of the same growth engine.” It’s also about relevance - to both customers and partners. “A lot of partnerships are sell-through models,” she says. “Your relevance is not just to the end customer but to the partner’s sales organization. You’re enabling your own sellers and your partner’s sellers - and both have to understand your joint value proposition.” Partnering Through Deep Integration OpenText’s new partnerships with Guidewire and Fiserv are prime examples of how the company is tailoring its strategy for industry-specific impact. “If you’re an insurance company using Guidewire,” Sandy says, “you want to stay in your application, not bounce around. But you still need a single source of truth, seamless workflow, and strong content management. That’s what OpenText brings to the table.” These kinds of embedded partnerships - where technology is built directly into the customer’s workflow - create “stickiness” that drives long-term value. “They take years,” Sandy admits. “You have to engineer together, go to market together, and stay relevant to the customer base. But when you get it right, it’s incredibly powerful.” Shared KPIs, Shared Accountability To make these partnerships t
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Samrah Khan on partner specialization, faster customer outcomes, and Google Cloud’s evolving ecosystem strategy The system integrator business is undergoing a fundamental transformation. For years, the traditional model was relatively straightforward. Technology vendors sold platforms, customers selected implementation partners, and SIs delivered projects that could stretch across multiple years. AI is changing that equation. Customers want more than technology implementation. They’re looking for partners who can help define their AI strategies, identify business opportunities, develop specialized solutions, and deliver measurable results in months rather than years. In my latest Inside Partnering conversation, I welcomed back Samrah Khan, Director of Google Cloud SI/GSI Ecosystem North America, to explore how these changes are reshaping the partner ecosystem. Samrah leads Google’s SI/GSI partner relationships at a particularly interesting moment. Google Cloud’s business experienced an amazing 82% year-over-year growth in Q2! But the more interesting story isn’t the growth itself. It’s how the expectations of customers, technology providers, and partners are changing. Here are six insights from our conversation. 1. Customers Want a Unified AI Strategy, Not Another Technology Implementation One of Samrah’s clearest observations is that enterprise customers are approaching AI very differently from previous technology transitions. They’re no longer simply shopping for infrastructure or selecting a systems integrator after choosing a platform. Instead, they expect technology providers and partners to work together from the beginning, bringing a comprehensive perspective on business transformation. “Customers are looking at both the partners as well as the hyperscalers or technology providers to come in and look at the whole enterprise from A to Z.” Thanks for reading Inside Partnering! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
For partner leaders, one of the hardest questions isn’t identifying your best-performing partners. Most organizations already know who they are. The harder question is: Who should you invest in next? That question sits at the center of my conversation with Kenneth Fox, CTO and founder of ChannelScaler. Kenneth has spent his career in channels and partnerships, and his perspective combines the technology side of partner management with the practical realities of running partner programs. Inside Partnering is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
At Sage FUTURE in San Francisco, I sat down with Dan Miller, EVP of Financials and ERP at Sage, to talk about how Sage is thinking about AI, ecosystem partnerships, and the future of ERP platforms. One of the clearest themes from the conversation was this: finance leaders are not resisting AI. They simply want transparency, accountability, and confidence in the outputs. For partner leaders, ISVs, and ecosystem builders, that creates a very different opportunity than the generic “AI transformation” messaging dominating the market right now. Dan framed it around trust. “What finance and operations professionals really want is confidence in the tools that they’re deploying are doing exactly what they are expected to do.” That requirement shapes how Sage is building both its AI capabilities and its broader partner ecosystem. Inside Partnering is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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At Sage FUTURES in San Francisco, Gretchen O’Hara delivered a clear message to partners: the market is shifting fast - and the opportunity is massive. But despite the noise around AI, one thing hasn’t changed. Partners are still at the center of how businesses win. “The channel is one of the most important things because our partners are the ones that have the deepest industry expertise and are closest to customers that can really solve their unique, unique business challenges.” AI may accelerate execution, but it doesn’t replace the need for domain expertise, customer proximity, and trusted advisory. In fact, it amplifies it. Inside Partnering is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.