The technology supply channel is changing, driven by geopolitical factors affecting supply chains, the growing adoption of AI, cyber security threats and changes in how hyperscalers resource and support geographic markets. These shifts present a business opportunity to help resellers and business partners adapt, according to Lionel Moyal and Paul Bunting, former long-serving Microsoft employees and co-founders of Growthguru.ai.
Growthguru.ai is an AI-driven partner development manager (PDM) start-up established in November 2025 that went to market in February 2026. Moyal and Bunting drew on their Microsoft experience and their understanding of the channel partner ecosystem to develop the offering, which uses AI to support partner development.
Bunting says resellers and business partners rely on centralised resources such as portals, platforms, knowledge and support. However, large hyperscalers are not necessarily resourcing markets as they did in the past, moving away from substantial local and regional operations and direct customer relationship management towards centralised hubs and self-service models. This can leave partners struggling to find the information and support they need.
“This was something we felt was a gap worth looking at,” says Bunting. “Partners miss the opportunity to maximise marketing budgets, co-operation and incentives. That is the result of not being informed.”
Governance first
Moyal and Bunting say there should be no limit to the number of channel partners they engage through the platform, and that it should be scalable enough to serve any number of partners. They also argue that organisations must establish effective AI governance before expanding their use of the technology, describing governance as the departure point for creating new business and revenue models with AI.
“If you don't address governance first, you're almost blocked," says Moyal. "You need to take it from the root, set the foundations and create guardrails, not barriers. Unblock the governance, and then you can focus on innovation.”
Growthguru.ai argues that organisations that fail to establish governance frameworks before adopting AI risk creating uncertainty around its use.
“The reality is when boards talk about AI, 90% of their conversation is focused on AI risk, and too little is happening around AI opportunities,” Moyal continues. “There's an imbalance in how they're looking at AI, which is a dangerous position to be in.”
Barriers to growth
Based on their interactions with channel partners, Moyal and Bunting say business growth is a priority for many organisations, with partners looking for ways to expand. They identify several common obstacles, starting with a lack of clarity around business strategy.
“The one we saw all the time was firstly a lack of clarity in organisations setting their strategy. It sounds simple enough to ask, ‘do you know your strategy?’ – but are you able to articulate it well enough to differentiate yourself from others?” says Moyal.
A second challenge is vendor alignment. Moyal says partner programmes can be difficult to navigate.
“Even within Microsoft, we struggled to understand them. For partners, staying up to date with constant changes, understanding payment structures and navigating incentives and rebates can feel almost impossible. This requires significant expertise that very few people possess,” he says.
Partner development managers were among the few people with a detailed understanding of these programmes, Moyal says, and even they found them difficult to navigate.
The third challenge is executing business strategy.
“Even when companies understand their business, know how to differentiate themselves and understand partner programmes, they still need to execute effectively," says Moyal. "For growth, marketing is a superpower. Many technology companies underestimate its value and the importance of communicating their differentiators effectively, leveraging social platforms, aligning with vendors and driving demand generation. They often underinvest in marketing because it can be expensive. Some lack a chief marketing officer or outsource to agencies, which can be costly, slow and challenging. The question is: how can they improve marketing execution?”
Competition in partner advisory services
Bunting says technology companies already have access to consultancy and advisory services aimed at helping channel partners grow, but these can be expensive and difficult to scale.
“Over a number of years, companies have been built and architected to provide advisory services for partners to help them grow. But that has often come at a certain cost and is obviously also limited in terms of the scale factor it can bring. I think it often relies more on people than on technology – more on experts in particular systems and tools within Microsoft. We've reached out to a number of these companies, very much in the spirit of co-opetition.”
Bunting says Growthguru.ai differentiates itself through its subscription pricing and technology-led approach.
“One, we price at an affordable, scalable subscription. Secondly, we don't lead with advisory; we lead with the technology, the functionality, the systems and tools, and the outputs that can be generated. We feel there is still a window of opportunity to make things happen as fast as we possibly can.”
Bunting says the start-up is based in Africa, while many competitors operate in markets such as the US and UK. The company also uses a team-based service model rather than relying on individual consultants.
“We're still incredibly close to Microsoft. I think that allows us to leverage that proximity, our understanding of the strategy and our understanding of the contact centre to make a difference,” says Bunting, who is referring to Microsoft's partner engagement and support function rather than a physical contact centre.
Potential benefits for distributors
Moyal says Growthguru.ai could also help distributors strengthen relationships with resellers and gain a better understanding of their businesses.
Distributors own the partner ecosystems, and vendors lean heavily on the distribution model, making distributors responsible for growing partners, Moyal says. Growthguru.ai can help distributors drive stickiness with resellers by driving consistent growth plans with them – valuable in a low-margin game where resellers switch distributors readily and show little loyalty, he adds.
Access to resellers' business strategies and growth plans could help distributors identify opportunities and develop targeted marketing campaigns, he says.
“It gives them insights into the realities facing resellers. We now know a lot more about our resellers than we used to because we can see their strategy. They've got a clear strategy, growth plans and go-to-market plans. We can start to create clusters of opportunities and market at scale. So it becomes much easier to drive growth as a distributor, as opposed to just support transactions.”
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