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Jay McBain is an accomplished speaker, author and innovator in the IT industry. Named…
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Jay McBain shared thisAmazing energy today at CrowdStrike Fal.con 2026 in Las Vegas. Over 10,000 attendees and thousands of partners in standing room only keynotes. CRWD stock is up 118% in past year (almost 1/4 trillion dollars in value) and has separated from the pack through its 100% commitment to partnering. —> The broad ecosystem is affectionately referred to as the “crowd” in CrowdStrike. Watching AI leaders such as Anthropic, OpenAIOpenAI, and NVIDIA along with cloud leaders Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google Cloud and 150+ more hardware and software sponsors coming together to secure the new agentic enterprise. For partners, differentiation lies in the ability to build, integrate, and deploy value-add solutions directly into the platform console. This model eliminates data silos, accelerates time-to-market, and allows ISVs and service providers to deliver scalable, AI-driven security outcomes. The team at Omdia has been able to quantify this partner “multiplier” effect and the numbers continue to grow in 2026. Huge credit to Daniel Bernard, Amanda Adams, Shannon Bodnar, and the entire partner team.
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Jay McBain shared thisEver have one of those flying days? Arrive at Miami airport this morning (going to Vegas for CrowdStrike) and see that my flight is 30 minutes delayed. Look at the board and see another flight leaving immediately. Jump onto that flight (into a middle seat no less) and sit for 90 minutes at the gate. Pilot was caught in traffic and then maintenance issues. Watch original flight board and take off 🛫 as you still sit. Just when you think you can outsmart life it has a way of keeping you humble!
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Jay McBain shared thisI am following a lot of online chatter about how channel partners are succeeding at winning AI-related services in 2026. It has taken a few years since the public release of ChatGPT (late 2022) for businesses to find good use cases and for partners to figure out what services are in demand. Remember the 95% failure rate published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology last summer? We have found our groove and could have that number cut in half by the end of this year. My colleague (Lisa L.) and I have spent the past few months surveying 25,000 partners from around the world on the details inside the $85 billion AI-services opportunity. While 82% of partners are reporting "not fully ready" to take advantage of the fast growing opportunity, we are learning exactly what services are selling and starting to project what the next 5 years will look like. It isn't shocking to know that most of the money customers are spending in 2026 comes before the sale: --> Advisory and consulting is $20 billion and represents 24% of the overall AI services pie. --> Design and architecture of PoCs is $15 billion and is 18% of customer spend. --> Building, coding of agents, and co-development is the largest category at $22 billion and is 26% of spend. --> Resell and procurement, as expected, is the lowest opportunity at $1.7 billion and 2% of opportunity. --> Implementation and integration (adoption) of production-level AI projects is $6.8 billion and 8% of spend. --> Managed services and optimization is $8.5 billion and only 10% of spend. --> Cybersecurity, compliance, and governance, is $10.2 billion and 12% of spend. As the market matures, you can see below the shift into operationalizing and more "post-sale" opportunity by 2031. For managed services providers, earning those contracts in the next few years will mean jumping into advisory, design, and build services today to have a seat at the table. ** Almost 80% of 2026 AI-services opportunity is NOT in recurring revenue.
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Jay McBain shared thisAmazing couple of days in New York City at Partnership Leaders Catalyst 2026. Honored they handed me the main stage for the closing keynote. I have watched with excitement as this community and event continues to grow (now well over 1,000 attendees and standing room only). Credit to Asher Mathew, Chris Samila, Tai Rattigan, and the entire PL team and community (who they always refer to as the “heroes�� of the story). The Partnership Leaders community is a premier professional network for B2B partnership, alliance, and ecosystem professionals. By bringing together top practitioners from leading technology and SaaS companies, it serves as an engine for professional growth, peer collaboration, and the sharing of best practices. The community’s impact on modern business ecosystems is profound. As traditional, siloed go-to-market strategies give way to interconnected networks, PL helps redefine how organizations scale. Members leverage the community to champion ecosystem-led growth (ELG), moving beyond basic transactional channel sales into deep, multi-company co-sell and co-innovation. By establishing standards, fostering trust, and educating executives on the value of collaborative networks, the community empowers professionals to unlock new revenue streams, accelerate market expansion, and build seamless technology integrations. The community tirelessly elevates the strategic importance of ecosystems, transforming them from auxiliary distribution channels into core drivers of enterprise value and long-term market leadership - now powering the $7 trillion AI-era forward.
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Jay McBain shared thisI posted the other day about "winnable moments" in the customer journey. With 96% of technology deals surrounded by partners and now 81% of customers having made their decision before a salesperson gets involved, winning looks much different in 2026. It get's better... According to 6sense, 94% of B2B buying teams have ranked their preferred vendors before they talk to sales. 77% of the time, the vendor ranked #1 during this pre-sales (digital or partner) activity ultimately won the deal. Almost every B2B buyer is now using consumer-facing LLMs for this task - OpenAI ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, and Google Gemini alongside traditional search. It isn't your marketing content buyers are consuming (99% of the time). They are looking for experts, trusted peers, and yes, deeply skilled partners in the outcomes they are looking to achieve. ** They are asking the LLMs to source their output. ** If 63% of your TAM is deciding to shortlist you on only 12 pieces of content - and that content is generated by others, how do you win? Vendors, it is time to rethink your use of channel technology... --> Through channel marketing automation (TCMA) for you smaller and mid-size partners. (If the content can be generated via email, social, and syndicated from your system it is automatically first-party data and a locked-in MQL) --> Integrations with your partners marketing stack including Adobe Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, HubSpot, and 15,505 MarTech ISVs. --> Co-sell and co-marketing platforms via marketplaces --> Ecosystem influence and attribution platforms --> Ecosystem data and mapping platforms --> Agencies connected to your partners marketing, both in traditional agency and distribution. Our role as partner leaders is to win customer moments... Pre-sale: The first 12 partner-led marketing/content moments. The next 10 partner-led advisory/consulting/design/architecture moments. The next 6 partner-led demo, proof of concept, sandbox, configure, price, quote moments. Sale: The partner-led transaction/procurement moment. Post-sale: The next few provisioning/deployment/implementation/integration moments. The next managed services moments - every 30-days forever. Partnerships are the place to be right now in this ecosystem economy. We drive marketing, sales, customer success, and product moments at the customer like never before.
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Jay McBain shared thisPartnership Leaders Catalyst turns five next week in New York, and it is an event I clear my calendar for every year. Asher Mathew, Chris Samila, and Tai Rattigan have done an unbelievable job of building this community and the events. This year I am honored to have the closing keynote as well as hosting a session I have wanted to run for a long time. "Ecosystem Gravity: Turn Ecosystem Data Into Partner Sourced Pipeline in 30 Days." August 26, Day 2, 11:00 a.m. EST. Link: https://lnkd.in/e4vKaSxe The premise is simple. In a crowded ecosystem, the ISVs that win are not the ones with the most partners. They are the ones who get inside their partner's biggest deals. --> This has been one of the fastest-growing motions in the channel, and co-sell is where the next decade of it gets decided according to Omdia research. So instead of another vendor pitch, we are doing the real thing. Chris Nolting from Varicent walks through an actual Workday co-sell story. What the partnership looked like before, the moment it turned, and the multiple seven-figure opportunities his team sourced in about a month once they could see the joint account. One of the smartest people in partner-led GTM that I know, Scott Smyth, moderates. GTM Fabric brings the data underneath it. The room is capped at 50 partnership leaders, and we are keeping it invite-only. If you are in NYC next week, comment "Catalyst" below and the GTM Fabric team will save you a seat. This is the conversation I would not miss. 🚀
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Jay McBain shared thisWhen I published the report "Are distributors the future of distribution?" five years ago, the overall conclusion was that winning distributors were going to build (digital) platforms for distribution as well as come out of hiding. ScanSource’s $220.5 million acquisition of MicroAge today is strategically significant because it pushes the distributor further upstream into higher-margin services, managed services, and solution integration. Value is increasingly moving from product fulfillment toward recurring services, cloud, cybersecurity, data, and AI. Being physically in front of the customer can significantly change the value (and economics) for distributors...Are distributors going to start seriously acquiring (or growing) partner services capabilities?Are distributors going to start seriously acquiring (or growing) partner services capabilities?
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Jay McBain shared thisScanSource’s $220.5 million acquisition of MicroAge is strategically significant because it pushes the distributor further upstream into higher-margin services, managed services, and solution integration. ScanSource ranks 23rd on Omdia's Global Distribution 250 list while MicroAge ranks 674th on our Global Partner 1000 list. Intelisys (a part of ScanSource), the technology solutions distributor, ranks 2nd on our list of largest TSDs in the telecom distribution space. The deal reflects a broader structural shift in technology distribution. Value is increasingly moving from product fulfillment toward recurring services, cloud, cybersecurity, data, and AI. When I published the report "Are distributors the future of distribution?" five years ago, the overall conclusion was that winning distributors were going to build a (digital) platform for distribution as well as come out of hiding. --> This is an example of coming out of hiding. Investing in customer intimacy while maintaining significant "white label" capabilities helping other partners succeed. There are an average of 6.3 partners in every technology customer opportunity today and playing both roles can happen without the "channel conflict" of the past. There are several other distribution/partner combinations that work well around the world. For example: 1. Datatec operates Westcon-Comstor (#14 distributor on our list) and Logicalis (#104 partner on our list) 2. Digital China operates the world's 6th largest distributor as well as the 125th largest partner in consulting and systems integration 3. Redington Limited has expanded its distribution business in 60 markets in Asia, Middle East, and Africa with moves in managed services, cloud, security, and AI in the Middle East. 4. SoftwareOne and Crayon merged last summer representing one of the most significant consolidation moves in the global software, cloud licensing, and indirect distribution channel. 5. Bridgepointe Technologies operates as a (partial) competitor to Intelisys by operating a hybrid TSD and direct tech advisory enablement platform model. Several others including Kanematsu Corporation, Net One Partners, and Macnica in Japan, MetaAge 邁達特 in Taiwan, Info Quest Technologies in Greece, Lanit-Tercom in Russia, and Iron Bow Technologies in the US federal space. Back to today's news... MicroAge brings approximately 2,400 customers, more than 200 employees, specialized solution architects, and established relationships with Microsoft, Dell Technologies, CrowdStrike, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Sophos. This is more than a revenue tuck-in. It is the combination of end-customer visibility, technical talent, prof. services, and managed services capabilities that can expand the distributor’s TAM while creating new opportunities for its broader channel ecosystem. It is also the next chapter for MicroAge. Founded 50 years ago, it is one of the most storied brands in the history of the tech channel.
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Jay McBain shared thisI don't think anyone needs to be reminded how fast the AI-era is growing... But this caught my interest: Anthropic has grown from less than a billion in revenue in 2025 to joining the elite "Top 10" of channel partner-friendly vendors in the world at $65 billion. OpenAI, while growing slightly slower, has moved from $1 billion in 2023 to joining the "Top 20". When Anthropic finishes 3Q, it will be larger than giants IBM, Lenovo, Oracle, Cisco, HP, Intel, and SAP. It took these companies 115, 42, 49, 42, 86, 58, and 54 years respectively to get to these large revenue numbers. Anthropic did it in 20 months.
Jay McBain replied to a comment
4h
Kevin Nejad more charts you ask? Haha.
I presented at Partnership Leaders last week in NYC - here were the slides:
https://app.box.com/s/e0x45y4yv0y7mk1mjcxsidt9p4mfy4rg
Jay McBain replied to a comment
7h
Shannon Bodnar thanks for sitting beside me watching as I typed this out with my thumbs!
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Jay McBain liked thisJay McBain liked thisLooking forward to heading to Raleigh-Durham to speak at the Channel Leader Insider Forum! I’m excited to join a great group of channel, sales and partner leaders for conversations about what’s working, what’s changing and where partner engagement is headed next. The best part of events like this is having real conversations with people who are navigating many of the same opportunities and challenges. Looking forward to sharing ideas, learning from others and connecting with some great people along the way. https://lnkd.in/eepUxJFn Channel Marketing Association, Kathryn Rose ⭐ Amy Bailey
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Jay McBain liked thisJay McBain liked thisAnother Partnership Leaders Catalyst for the books! We've been coming here for 3+ years now, and this one in New York might've been the best. Major thank you to Lisa J. Johnson - she and I got to riff on future of channel and partnerships on stage. Having the 1:30 slot straight after lunch isn't the easiest but Lisa lit up the room with insightful takes and jokes. Infoblox does 90%+ of their revenue through the channel... It's a machine that I thought others might benefit learning how they are organized. Juston Salcido and I also hosted a few roundtables, co-hosted a customer dinner with PeerSpot, and met countless customers, friends. Here is what I did not understand about this community until I had been around it for a while. Partnerships is the only function where every person you need is someone who does not report to you and can stop returning your emails at any time. You cannot "escalate" your way to a partner caring. The entire job is being a person other people want to help. Naturally, the conference (and the community) is like this. It is several hundred people whose core professional skill is reciprocity. The hallway track at Catalyst is better than most conferences manage on their mainstage. Finally, thank you to the PL team - Asher Mathew, Chris Samila, Sairyl S., Darren Bibby - for throwing a great event. Partnership Leaders took Suger seriously when we had nothing to show anyone and continue to be a great partner.
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Jay McBain reacted on this100% Jay 🎯 Thank you for continuing to be this drum and enhance the data. ✔️Simplification. ✔️Win customer moments. ✔️Top down bottoms up Cheers to to you for always understanding the assignment and being a voice of truth! I don’t know if I like this chart or your family world adventure photos more. Here for it all. 🙌
Experience & Education
Volunteer Experience
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Board Member
Digitunity
- Present 12 years 9 months
Science and Technology
Founded in 1984, the National Cristina Foundation promotes the reuse of technology to enable people with disabilities, students at risk and economically disadvantaged persons to be given the opportunity, through training, to lead more independent and productive lives.
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Board Member
Junior Achievement USA
- 3 years
Education
Volunteer-delivered, kindergarten-12th grade programs foster work-readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy skills, and use experiential learning to inspire students to dream big and reach their potential. With the help of more than 218,000 volunteers, JA students develop the skills they need to experience the realities and opportunities of work and entrepreneurship in the 21st century global marketplace.
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Board Member
CompTIA
- 9 years
Science and Technology
Chaired several communities including Managed Services and Emerging Tech as well as councils including Vendor Advisory Council and SaaS Council for the world’s largest nonprofit IT association.
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Board Member
Channel Futures
Science and Technology
Sit on the editorial board for Channel Futures, Channel Partners, and the largest channel event CPEXPO.
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🕊 ARKGPT™ STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE HPE bets on partners with new channel-only offerings Direct Portal Access:🌬https://lnkd.in/ex6fQJ-s 🌀 #TheKingsArk #shipper #carrier #buyers #sellers #governments #funder #tech #news #globalnews #Trending #market #ai #intelligence #opportunties #alerts #loans #StrategicIntelligence #Innovation
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