CRN Pipeline: ONGC Systems' Steve Dawson to unpack real-world Copilot wins with SMB customer

ONGC Systems’ CEO Steve Dawson will join the CEO of 120-person company Ecosure, Phill Bracks, on stage at CRN Pipeline on August 13 to share how IT partners can get beyond initial quick wins with Microsoft Copilot.

ONGC has been working with environmental consultancy Ecosure for months to trial Copilot for multiple uses cases, including to automate work involved in bidding for tenders. The RFP process can be time consuming and Ecosure has been using Copilot to help pull together content so it can be tailored for bids. This is also leading to exploration of Copilot use in other areas of Ecosure’s business.

The deployment builds on work by ONGC to move Ecosure to the cloud and to Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Ecosure has also started to add tools such as Microsoft Power BI to get real-time data from its systems.

Dawson will be joined by Ecosure CEO Phill Bracks on stage at CRN Pipeline to share lessons about the realities of selling and deploying Copilot for small businesses and taking Copilot beyond easy wins.

ONGC has also been working with a number of organisations across the professional services and nonprofit sectors to “build out enablement strategies for successful Copilot deployments”. ONGC has developed a readiness assessment process to “break down adoption into bite sized pieces to ensure a ROI is achievable”.

“I’m looking forward to sharing insights around this, as it is clear that most integrators are struggling to identify the value of Copilot to their businesses and how they can make money from I,” Dawson said.

“It certainly isn’t a quick win but the time is to start now. It isn’t just about how you’re going to make money selling Copilot, its also about how are you going to be front of mind to your customers to retain them in the long run.”

At Pipeline, attendees will also have the opportunity to join Microsoft MVP Daniel Anderson for an in-depth, hands-on session designed to help MSP business leaders and executives increase their proficiency with Microsoft 365 Copilot. This session will focus on the essential functionalities of Copilot and how to rapidly maximise its value for their business operations and client services.

Pipeline attendees will also hear from other channel partners about the realities of making Copilot work for their businesses.

“I just think it's quite a different sales motion for a lot of our SMB partners,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CRN Australia. “They’re used to technology conversations talking to the IT department, whereas Copilot really is more of a business led conversation: what are the business challenges or what are the business processes that specific teams are going through every day that could possibly be automated?”

“A lot of the gaps we're seeing in the channel are more the change management and adoption piece. How are [partners] sitting down with their customers to help them? You have to take time out of the way you normally work to keep testing and playing with Copilot and using it.”

ONGC Systems CEO Steve Dawson and Ecosure CEO Phill Bracks will take part in the session “The Evolution of AI – Exploring The Opportunity For Partners’ Businesses” at CRN Pipeline on August 13.

Microsoft MVP Daniel Anderson will lead the session “Prepare for Liftoff with Copilot for Microsoft 365” at CRN Pipeline on August 15.