The Trust Between Microsoft and PROS

Christina Z: Hi. My name is Christina Zigliotto, Microsoft Alliances here at PROS.

 

Renee Knee: And I'm Renee Knee. I'm VP of the Americas for Microsoft Dynamics.

 

Christina Z: Wonderful. Thank you for joining us today at Outperform, Renee. So excited to have you.

 

Renee Knee: It is a pleasure. I have enjoyed my day filled with several customer meetings and then getting to see the keynote this morning with Andreas and the customers he talked about and the innovation you guys are driving. It's been fabulous.

 

Christina Z: It's been a busy day.

 

Renee Knee: It's been a busy day. Christina, you have run me ragged.

 

Christina Z: Oh, wonderful. My job here is done, almost.

 

Renee Knee: Yeah, there we go.

 

Christina Z: All right. Well, let's jump into some questions since we have some time together.

 

Renee Knee: Great.

 

Christina Z: How has PROS helped your field team have line of business conversations on the true story of digital transformation? We've talked a lot about that today.

Renee Knee: We've talked a lot about it with several different customers, and one of the things the value of working with PROS and Microsoft is just the deep integration that we have with each other.

 

Christina Z: Yes.

 

Renee Knee: We have integration points throughout Dynamics, but not just there, across the Microsoft platform. So while I love it when customers use Dynamics and I love to have happy Dynamics customers, they're able to get a value out of PROS because PROS is seamlessly integrated inside Dynamics-

 

Christina Z: That's right.

 

Renee Knee: And can pull that out into their environment and then give insights and business value to a customer. But even for those customers like the one we spoke with this morning that isn't a Dynamics customer yet,-

 

Christina Z: Yet.

 

Renee Knee: She can still get value out of that same relationship because you guys are on the Azure platform, and you get to leverage the entire Microsoft platform suite.

 

Christina Z: Yep, I love that, too. What's the benefit of working with PROS? You've already outlined a lot of them, which is wonderful.

 

Renee Knee: It is. I think the additional benefit, though, is there's trust and there's reliability and there's innovation. You heard Andreas this morning talk about the innovations that you're making across several markets, like travel. The innovation that he talked about that you're making in experiences with your customer. I know that when I'm talking to any of our customers that I want to be able to have that trust with a partner.

 

Christina Z: Absolutely.

 

Renee Knee: And I have it with PROS.

 

Christina Z: That's wonderful. We saw that a lot today. We had some of our sellers working with your sellers on accounts. Also, talking face to face with customers there's that running theme of trust.

 

Renee Knee: Mm-hmm (affirmative), mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.

 

Christina Z: Yep, you're right. That's a good point.

 

Renee Knee: They want to know. They want to know that-

 

Christina Z: And who doesn't?

 

Renee Knee: We have a great relationship and that we're there to support them.

 

Christina Z: That's right. What are some challenges that we solve together? More specifically, how does PROS position Microsoft to compete in the CRM space?

 

Renee Knee: Oh, I think it deepens the ability for our customers to feel like they can really solve very critical elements of their business. I've described to a couple of customers today how we all laid down great CRM systems and they became these massive repositories of customer information.

 

Christina Z: That's right.

 

Renee Knee: Because we did never really take it to the next level where we could exploit the information in there and the transactions underneath that are in a system like Dynamics. And then get deep customer insights from it so that you could actually amplify what's running through your systems and what's running through that platform. PROS helps us do that, and it takes something that sits in a Dynamics transaction layer and amplifies it to the business to be able to allow them to make better business decisions.

 

Christina Z: Absolutely, yep. That has been another running theme. I love that.

 

Renee Knee: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It really does. It creates the modern selling environment, right?

 

Christina Z: That's what it is.

 

Renee Knee: That's exactly what we want.

 

Christina Z: Yes, yes, and I think our customers got really excited hearing Andreas talk a bit about that this morning.

 

Renee Knee: Right.

 

Christina Z: So then just followed by our customer meetings where we reiterate that with our partnership and what that means, and what does that story look like. That's what I keep seeing customers' eyes light up over.

 

Renee Knee: Yeah, agreed.

 

Christina Z: All right, well, let's keep moving. What are some outcomes and benefits of PROS and Microsoft working together?

 

Renee Knee: Oh, a couple of them that just kind of rise to the top are just the ability for any customer to be able to use the entire value set of the platform for Microsoft. So AI, machine learning, all of those data insights. Being able to organize and manage their data to a better value set, and then to be able to reflect it up into PROS and have PROS present it to them in a manner in which it's easy to make decisions.

 

Renee Knee: We were just meeting with a customer who talked about no longer needing paper reports because the way that PROS presents that information based on the transactions that flow through Dynamics and the Microsoft platform. It's more efficient. It drives a quicker time to value. You heard Andreas talk about speed and trust today. It's driving all of those things.

 

Christina Z: It's a beautiful story.

 

Renee Knee: Well, I-

 

Christina Z: It's been a great day.

 

Renee Knee: It has been a terrific day. I have to thank you because I've enjoyed myself thoroughly.

 

Christina Z: Of course.

 

Renee Knee: I know that our partnership is really strong, and it's something that I'm proud to take in to a customer.

 

Christina Z: We're so happy to have you here. Our customers have been really pleased in these meetings, hearing about the outcomes and really the art of the possible in digital transformation. That's a story we tell together.

 

Renee Knee: Yes.

 

Christina Z: So thank you in return.

 

Renee Knee: Absolutely.

 

Christina Z: Thank you all for tuning in.

 

Renee Knee: Thank you so much.

 

Christina Z: If you'd like additional information, you can reach out to us at Microsoft Partner at PROS.com.