Bre and Kim, thank you so much for being here at this year's Dreamforce.
The first question is for you, Bre.
How do you see partnerships evolving in Lumen?
That's a very good question, Lisa.
Lumen has traditionally been a very well known telco company
and right now we're going through a massive transformation
stage and we're trying to expand into different areas of the
technology space in our journey to be a techco instead of a telco.
So what that means is we're expanding into different partner
types and throughout the technology space, there's a lot
more partner types than just a regular telco channel.
There's global system integrators, there's ISVs,
there's hyperscalers, there's OEMs, there's value added resellers.
Lumen has traditionally not played in any of these spaces
very well.
And so right now, we're really focused on expanding into these
different areas, one, to add value to any customer
opportunity and two, for scale.
Kim, this next question is for you.
What is BCG seeing more broadly in the market when it comes to
these partnerships with tech and telco companies?
Well, there are four major trends in partnerships right now.
I'm only going to highlight one that aligns with what Bre is
talking about.
And this is the cross industry partnership where you see, for
example, a big telco like Lumen partnering with Microsoft, a
major hyperscaler to really and truly drive the AI economy.
And what are the two of you most excited for in 2025 and beyond
in the partnership ecosystem?
Well, for me and for Lumen specifically, this is a really
interesting time for us it's a brand new partner organization
and we are excited about actually putting together a
very world-class partner program.
When you think about AI and you think about everything that's
surrounding AI and the AI fabric, we really need partners
that understand how to solution and sell the solution versus
selling the connectivity piece of that.
So it's a lot more of a strategic discussion, and so you
need some of that
framework and that foundation to support those discussions.
And I'm excited for the outcomes that Bre is talking about right now.
As AI comes together with all these various partnerships,
think of how it's going to revolutionize industries with
smart cities, smart homes, smart agriculture, smart healthcare.
It's truly going to drive a new economy as we're talking about
the AI economy.
Thank you so much.