Independent by Design

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Why deep Microsoft expertise and genuine independence struggle to sit in the same place, and why that gap is shaping the way that Enable Great is evolving…

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This is a more personal post than you’d otherwise see on here. When I started Enable Great last year, the positioning was deliberately broad: independent technology advisory. My ambition was to help leaders make better decisions, cut through vendor noise, and above all else show up as an independent, trusted voice.

That independence hasn't changed (nor will it), but as of now the focus is sharpening and I wanted to take a moment to explain why. This is part market observation, part personal reflection, and part admission that sometimes you need to let go of "safe and broad" in favour of "honest and specific"…

Over recent months, almost every advisory conversation I've had has circled back to Microsoft. Sometimes it’s Copilot or Foundry, sometimes Azure architecture, sometimes M365 governance, identity, or security. The platform itself isn’t always the headline issue, but widespread Microsoft Cloud adoption is an inescapable fact that it sits beneath a lot of the strategic technology decisions I’m involved in supporting.

Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise. On a personal level I’ve spent a lot of years working in the Microsoft ecosystem and have a deep understanding of the way it works, and the technology itself. In parallel, the UK is one of Microsoft’s largest markets, with over 53,000 companies running Microsoft 365 (around 14% of global enterprise deployments, for context) or Azure.

For the organisations I work with - mostly mid-sized, UK-based, growing - Microsoft isn't ‘just’ a vendor, it's the operating layer. Collaboration, identity, security, compliance, data governance, AI enablement... all are increasingly interwoven and consequential.

When a platform is that embedded in your business operations, the quality of advice you receive about it carries real weight. Which raises a question I keep coming back to: who is there to explicitly provide that advice, and how independent is it?

How the Partner Ecosystem Works

I've spent years working in and alongside Microsoft, and its Partners. I understand the capability and professionalism that exists within it, and the outstanding work that many Partners deliver. But… the Microsoft partner model is commercially structured and incentivised around licensing, consumption, and implementation.

Microsoft's partner incentive model rewards licensing revenue, new customer acquisition, and strategic product adoption. The economics are significant - last year the Maven Collective documented incentives reaching up to $120,000 per customer for strategic solution deployments, and for FY2026 direct-bill partners need $1 million in trailing twelve-month revenue to maintain their status - a significant jump that pushes the channel further toward volume and transaction.

At the same time, Microsoft is reclaiming more enterprise renewals directly, and traditional licensing commission structures are eroding. The commercial pressure on partners to drive revenue through the platform is increasing, not decreasing.

I've sat in meetings reviewing Microsoft proposals and experienced first-hand how this plays out. The partner presenting the recommendation is often the same partner who benefits commercially from the path being recommended. That doesn’t mean the advice is wrong, but it is structurally incomplete - shaped by a commercial relationship that rewards certain outcomes over others in a not-always-transparent way.

There’s no question of competence or integrity – but there is one over the place that these incentives have in scenarios where independence matters, which is becoming harder to ignore.

Some of the best Microsoft partners know that this tension exists. They're often the ones who'd welcome an independent voice in the room - not as competition, but as something that strengthens the client relationship by removing the conflict from the conversation. Independent advisory and strong delivery aren't opposites. They're complementary - and the clients who benefit from both tend to make better decisions as a result.

The Typical Options

When organisations look for perspective on Microsoft-centric decisions, they tend to have three routes:

• Their Microsoft partner who brings platform depth and delivery capability (but also commercial alignment to licensing and implementation as we’ve seen).
• A large consultancy, which may introduce some independence, but often holds its own strategic alliances and referral structures. Depth of operational Microsoft experience within these organisations also varies significantly.
• Their internal team who know the business context better than anyone, but often lack external perspective, understanding, or bandwidth to challenge proposals thoroughly.

What's comparatively rare is deep Microsoft ecosystem expertise, combined with structural independence from licensing, implementation, and vendor incentives.

That's the gap I keep encountering; and the one that I now want Enable Great to be focused around.

Why Focus Here?

I'll be honest: narrowing your positioning as a founder is nerve-wracking. The instinct is to keep things broad - more options, more market, more safety. Focusing feels like closing doors and there's a voice in your head that says "what if you're wrong?"

With that said, the more I've reflected on where Enable Great's experience creates the most value - not where we could work, but where we're genuinely most useful - the clearer the answer has become. The foundation is built on years of leading technology organisations on Microsoft platforms: navigating hybrid estates, complex governance challenges, Azure architecture decisions, and Microsoft-centric M&A. That depth of commercial and technical understanding from the inside is what shapes the practice - and it's the standard I want to maintain as we grow.

That experience is also most valuable precisely because it's not commercially tied to the ecosystem. If that depth of understanding sits inside the partner, it's always influenced - however subtly - by economics. If it sits outside, it can challenge without agenda.

That's the simple realisation behind this shift. Enable Great is sharpening its focus around Microsoft-dependent organisations. Not to become a Microsoft consultancy. Not to narrow capability. But to apply independent, strategic leadership and advice where the market most needs it - and where our experience is most relevant.

In practice, that means Fractional CTO support for organisations whose estates are heavily Microsoft-based, Focused Advisory on areas like AI readiness, Azure strategy, M365 governance, and security posture, and Due Diligence that can interrogate a Microsoft-centric estate without being tied to its future licensing value.

In short? Independence leads. Microsoft depth supports.

The Question That Matters

The Microsoft ecosystem will continue to grow. AI integration, security complexity, platform decision, and licensing evolution will make the decisions organisations face more consequential, not less. The partner channel will continue to operate as it's designed to - rewarding growth, adoption, and consumption. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.

But. The more consequential those decisions become, the more the quality and independence of the advice surrounding them matters. Right now - for most organisations running Microsoft at their core - that independent perspective simply isn't accessible.

The question for leadership teams is whether the advice shaping your most important Microsoft decisions is structurally aligned with your interests... or with someone else's.

That's the gap Enable Great exists to fill - independent by design, not by accident. Not louder advice. Not adversarial advice. Independent advice, grounded in experience, for organisations who depend on Microsoft technology and want to make better decisions about it.

If that resonates, why not start a conversation?