Video: XenTegra CEO On Microsoft Copilot, Salesforce, and Being a VAR 2.0 – Part 1

the idea is Integra is you can still have a great business uh while adding value along the way and kind of breaking that transaction focused model that plus the fact that you know let's be frank I can't work for anybody else I had to start my own business hey Channel insiders welcome back for another episode of Channel Insider partner POV your source for untapped opportunities and unfiltered opinions in the it Channel all to help you make Better Business decisions I'm your host Katie boso my guest today is the one and only CEO president and founder of zentra Andy Whiteside Andy started zentra 12 years ago and has loved every second of it which is palpable throughout this entire interview I caught up with Andy about everything from Salesforce to service now to how's Integra is defining itself as a VAR 2.0 as well as how zenegra is enabling its clients with the latest Solutions like Microsoft co-pilot Andy thank you so much for joining me today hey Katie thank you thank you for having us yes absolutely I know zenegra is a family and as I've mentioned to you earlier I've spent the whole morning watching your videos reading about you and learning about you tell me what zentra is how long you've been around and tell me about your clients and the verticals that they serve the idea came out of one being a customer uh two being a value added reseller partner uh three working for MSP uh and for working for a couple vars in my case Microsoft and Citrix uh and realizing all along the way there was an opportunity to um to be more of a partner and I I use that word very um very tactically and very strategically uh partner where you know you actually bring value to all the parties involved um zenegra was the uh the culmination of all those ideas coming together and starting our own partner to uh help customers and vendors uh work better together around technologies that they're going to buy uh and really it equals what I call VAR 2.0 which is value added reseller 2.0 where unfortunately um a lot of the players in the space that were very uh value add along the way uh a lot of those are gone they've mostly been bought up by larger players and the value added reseller world as it relates to um the vendors and the customers and people getting what they need has really become very transactional unfortunately uh and the idea is integr is you can still have a great business uh while adding value along the way and kind of breaking that transaction focused model so that's kind of the idea that that plus the fact that you know let's be frank I can't worked for anybody else I had to start my own business uh and and and I am I like I mentioned us a while ago it really is an us like zenegra is a is a thing right the company is a thing we are a community of uh employees and customers and partners it's a movement it's a community it's a company um you know I I'll say this all the time I say this all the time um people talk about a church a church isn't the building the church is the people people that you know are part of the the building is just part of it uh the people make up the church the company is not the building the company is the people and the people we serve uh regarding Industries it really is super simple uh we serve Industries where uh companies you use technology specific applications they use applications in general uh and we treat companies with 150 employees and 100,000 employees the same we just want to go help them solve the challenges that we know they're facing I'll add to that real quick I've got on my um uh computers for Community uh jacket right now uh that includes uh large business Enterprise Commercial that includes small business that includes government customers uh and that includes nonprofits one of the things I'm most proud of is the nonprofit thing we've got going on as Integra and I absolutely have more questions about that later on in the interview for sure I think it's so interesting what you're doing with that organization uh and I definitely want to know more but I want to back up for a moment because you talk about building those trusted partner relationships Beyond just being transactional with your customers can you give me a real world example of that is there a success story you can kind of walk me through whether or not you can name the client and just walk me through that success story about how you were able to answer those challenges for them yeah it's uh I plenty of examples one happened literally last night where we're doing some marketing events we're doing some lunches and we've got a a partner service now that we um that we think the world of their platform we're starting to run into customers by doing these uh Community lunch type things that are not using the platform anymore they had it and now they've gotten rid of it um there's nothing wrong the platform is phenomenal but we know the customer was missing a piece in that story which was the partner the value added reseller uh not helping them get the most value out of the investment they were making in the platform uh I I look at it um you know from a sports perspective like a basketball triangle offense if we know that the vendor is not being represented well within that customer and the customer is struggling to be successful we've got to be the third party in that to elevate everybody to make sure uh that that the success is there between the three of us not just the two of us you brought up service now and I'm going to skip ahead to talk more about service now you posted last week on LinkedIn all roads lead to service now and all roads lead from service now this is why we are so focused on helping our customers and vendors integrate with the service now platform the other Technologies we sell and maintain so as you said service now is integra's it service management platform and itm integration uh how does zra partner with and build build off of service now for those who don't necessarily know what it is or how it can benefit them can you kind of go into that for me and what exactly did you mean by this post well in that post I'm really talking about the fact that for most people service now is an IT service management platform born in the cloud which is you know that's a big game changer right there uh and we have all these other technologies that because we sell and service these other Technologies we want to help customers who are investing in the service now platform either through our managed service or directly by a relationship with service now we want to help get the Technologies and the apis integrated with those Technologies into service now so that you can then do stuff with service now and turn around and put that uh leverage that technology to uh talk to the talk back to the platform maybe the same platform that we're in question here uh or maybe another platform so for example use um something like itanium or something to gather your uh information around your assets your technology assets we need to get that in service now so that we can then turn around and do something with that data uh to interact with that same it system in this case uh tanium or with uh with other technologies that might need that data that's the itsm part of service now but that then that's what I meant by the post but in addition to that it's the idea that we need platforms like service now and all other parts of the business finance HR marketing uh project management and that those same Concepts exist there where we're getting stuff into the platform associated with it or HR or both simultaneously and then those other departments those other within the organization can then turn around to leverage those to benefit uh and make the company um processes better and that's before we get into the world of artificial intelligence and specifically generative Ai and what it's going to be able to do to help those cross departments talk within a platform so let's continue to talk about some of the Investments and exciting opportunities that zentra has this year how are you partnering with Salesforce it's one of the largest cloud-based CRM Platforms in the world so obviously it's a name that I'm sure everybody listening and and watching knows how are you partnering with them well that's a great question and it kind of ties back to some of the things we've talked about so far and I don't know if I've done a good job of articulating this but you take these vendors we started around Citrix no doubt I I left Citrix to do this and it was it was because Citrix customers were not getting enough value out of Citrix which we know is great technology and the partner servicing them and that's an addressable space space which is you know big enough let's say a $2 billion space take that same logic and apply it to service now and service now customers and you've got the same model just at a much larger scale uh I can say this firsthand we are a um Salesforce I don't know if I said service now Salesforce both apply uh but in this case Salesforce we are a Salesforce uh customer we have been for probably eight years now and we went through partner after partner after partner and those same Partners would do whatever we told them to do but we were looking for true advisement we were looking for them to come with ideas we were looking for them to you know something as simple as taking us to the the Salesforce dreamforce conference so that we could come up with ideas on our own to work with them on um the the the concept of being that next level value added reseller that brings additional value Beyond just the um what I would call pitching and catching of the products and the basic Services that's what I'm talking about and and uh kind of tie that all up I met with one of our partners before I made this move and I said hey I would I would like to get more out of you guys I would like for you guys to you know invest in us a little bit and advise us a little bit says oh we'd be happy to do that but you got to pay for the next level of service for that I'm like no that should just be part of being a customer that's what drove us to jump into the Salesforce Arena and how do you think that applies to when you're taking that sort of mindset working with Salesforce and bringing it back to your customers where does that sort of mindset overlap well that's one of my favorite conversations to have with a customer when I go to meet them and I you know I talk very bullish about how we can them and what we can do for them and that is because most of the technologies that we sell and service and Implement in a big way we use them so it really is the same challenges we saw for ourselves we turn around and apply that to our customers uh you know they may have different challenges which is understandable and and and very likely uh but at the same time at the core of what we're both doing we're using the technology solving those challenges uh and we have an idea of this is how we believe you should solve it but let's hear more about what your challenges are so it makes us uh very bullish on going to Market if you actually use the Technologies we sell which is a little dirty Secret in our industry a lot of people sell stuff but they don't actually use the stuff uh and uh you know it's kind of like um misrepresentation kind of from my perspective yeah you actually spoke about in a webinar that came out this week uh Microsoft co-pilot specifically being used for 365 you said it's something that you've been using because you want to be able to explain it to your customers and to the folks who are using it and trying to implement it and trying probably know way less about it from a starting point than you even did so in that interview or in that webinar you actually said if you think you're ready for Microsoft co-pilot think again nobody is what did you mean by that and how is Integra helping customers understand and integrate co-pilot and actually get Roi out of it you know I I I feel like I can make that statement one because like you said we're we're using it ourselves and it's just it's it's kind of Limitless um it's new it'll be evolving evolving evolving like there I don't I don't there is an end to the evolution of what the U generative AI world uh will be used for specifically in this case Microsoft copout as it relates to the Microsoft M365 stack um yeah you know being in the same camp as all of our um peers in this space behind for some and ahead of the others uh feel pretty certain that there's an opportunity to help everyone who's looking um to get into the co-pilot world and you know you could be in generation it's okay here's the way I would say it it's kind of like digital transformation there is no in with Microsoft co-pilot and AI as part of a digital transformation which it's it's a subset of that there is no end it's just a matter of where you at and where you trying to go next and how do we or our partners in this case we work with a company called incentra how do we get engaged to help you get to the next step so that you're prepared to get to the next step that's coming it's coming I can definitely link that webinar for those who are wondering oh man how do I go find a whole hour on Microsoft co-pilot I should ask when it comes to generative AI in general is that a technology that you're keeping a close eye on this but that feels like a silly question but why would you be keeping a close eye on it this year and do you feel like we're making as a society too big of a deal on generative AI or do you think it's the real deal in how it's going to change the technology landscape in 20124 well it kind of goes back to my conversation where I'll go around service now being a platform so Force being a platform if we're taking all the things that we're doing and getting into those platforms then we can turn around and leverage tools that will come out of generative AI Concepts to be able to get the most out of all those platforms simultaneously if we don't look at it that way we're going to come up short so is generative AI the real deal it has to be um and it has to be because it's the thing that's going to bring all this together and do what no no human or no team of people could do on their own and that is start to produce things that um just humans just don't have time or the capacity to do for ourselves we're ideally in control of it we're telling it this is what we're looking for uh and that results not what I'm looking for try again with a little more detail um but as far as getting the most out of the platforms plural uh that we're all investing in which we are uh it's going to take Ai and generative AI to be part of that you're very invested or I should say zenra is very invested in its customers being digitally driven what is one thing that customer can do with you today to get them on that path to being a digitally driven business and why is that so important to invest in this year for their business's future um well part of it goes back to the previous comment around generative AI if we don't get things into a digital platform and I keep using the word platform I'm sorry for doing that but that's where it's all going into platforms like service now Salesforce tying together other platforms then we won't be able to take advantage of the uh the revolution around generative AI in addition to that um there's so many you know things that are existing forget about generative AI for a minute that allow us to be more efficient more functional in organizations by moving from analog processes which believe it or not there's still a hand there's a lot there's actually a lot of people out there that still have analog processes within their business somewhere um you know moving from analog to digital and then evolving from that digital to the next phase again going back to digital transformation everybody's in some phase it um is going to allow our organizations to be um uh more efficient uh more profitable and in some cases just simply survive I actually want to turn around and back up to generative AI real quick the way you did it it's important to consider Security in this day and age uh we're seeing a huge influx of ransomware malware Bad actors being able to prey on those who are using Ai and not implementing tools that they might think already are built into to Microsoft Co co-pilot but actually aren't what can your customers do how can they work with you to make sure that they're using this technology securely well step one that really came out of the webinar the other day is we've got to get our house in order we've got to clean up data we shouldn't have old stuff laying around we need permissions and access levels because it was one thing for the human being to go stumble upon something or even go looking for something or some things uh generative AI malicious tools and in some cases non-malicious tools are just going to go looking and then bring back that information to the human being to do something with potentially or potentially do something with on S it's important that we get ahead of uh you know cleaning up um it's important that we think about how we are going to um leverage the AI and the generative AI pieces to protect us against the malicious use of the Technologies um we need to be one step ahead and um you know be that mindset is it's it's imperative we don't have a choice we've got to get in front of G AI uh as a protection Tool uh as we know it will be exploited so is it important to get in and get ahead of the security uh perspectives that's coming with it yes uh policy and procedure yes most important going back and finally cleaning up that data and some of those uh things that should no longer be uh accessible can I ask you to expand on that a little bit as somebody who wants to consider that there are people listening and and watching who may not be technologists what's an example of something that they should clean up so to speak in your own words well I'll give you one that I don't know why but it keeps coming back to me all the time when I was a systems administrator for a company that I worked at probably job number two or three I had this I was on this bent to take all these file shares and all this data that had been living out there for 10 years or so and force the executives of these different divisions or departments within the company both uh to at least be aware that it was out there and that various people still had access to it for whatever reason and I I bet I'm not wrong if I'm wrong I'm not wrong by much if I went back to that organization look today I feel like those same file shares and that same data is probably still sitting there and there's still a very big lack of knowledge at the business level I mean forget about it who has access to your business stuff is a business conversation um I have a I have a sneaky suspicion that data is still out there still accessible by people that um you know aren't in those departments haven't been for 5 to 10 years I've heard several times over in the last honestly going back to before the pandemic that businesses today have to consider that they are a technology organization whether or not they believe it if you're using a SAS product if you're using software if you're relying on the cloud in any sort of way you're an IT technology organization congratulations it's important to consider how you go about functioning that way and protecting yourself so some really good points there thank you for expanding on it as you might have guessed this is going to be a two-part episode so tune in again on Thursday for part two thanks again to Andy for joining me and thank you for watching or listening check out all of our episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on Channel insider.com or on YouTube at Channel inssider newws and Trends you could also listen to the podcast of this episode on your preferred podcast platform and don't forget to like And subscribe and follow to never miss an episode and if you've got a question for me or you want to be on the show email me at partner POV Channel insider.com once again I'm Katie boso and I'll see you next time

This transcript was generated automatically from the video's captions and may contain errors.