Strong partnerships are essential to delivering comprehensive solutions in today's complex technology landscape. In this OpenStudio conversation from OpenText World 2025, we explore how OpenText's partner ecosystem—spanning GSIs, CSPs, ISVs, and VARs—drives meaningful customer outcomes and creates economic value by combining OpenText's portfolio with partners' unique capabilities and market expertise.

Watch the full interview:

Introduction

Ajit: Hello everyone. My name is Ajit Yohannan. Welcome once again to Open Studio, and as you see, we're doing different aspects of our business. We're talking to some—we spoke to some of the great sales leaders, we spoke to some IT, we spoke to HR and we also spoke about product marketing. I'm really excited about one part of the business which is so important to us, which is our partners, and I'm so glad to have with me Stephanie Waltrip. Stephanie, welcome to Open Studio.

Stephanie: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Thank you.

Experiencing OpenText World

Ajit: I think we want to start with, what's been your experience at OpenText World so far. It's a great city, and what are you getting to know about this place?

Stephanie: Well, thank you. Hi, everybody. I'm Stephanie Waltrip and I lead our partner ecosystem team here at OpenText. This is an exciting energy-filled week. I've been talking a lot with our clients, learning how they are innovating with us through our technology and with our partners, and I know the partners are really excited. They're feeling a new energy and buzz around the OpenText opportunity.

Ajit: That's great. Thank you so much for leading that.

The Evolving Partner Landscape

Ajit: I just want to also know from you the landscape, the evolving landscape of the partners. It's a new OpenText and how are they actually able to help us go to our customers?

Stephanie: I think partners—I mean, today, if we just look back at where we closed our fiscal year, the OpenText partner ecosystem impacted roughly 51% of our total business as a company. But yet there's more to do. As you think about that more, we think about it in the context of clients. Our partners, a variety of ecosystem players we work with that will help our clients in terms of advisory services, in terms of implementation, co-selling, reselling, managed services, and so there's a huge opportunity there for them. We know our partners that go across that continuum of services for clients are actually generating more income for themselves, so the economic impact for partner is already pretty significant. We know with the continued innovation on our portfolio that that economic impact that we can provide to our partners and ultimately impact a wider array of client outcomes is just going to grow as we grow.

Ajit: That's great. I think as I was starting, it's such an important business aspect of our relationship with the partners.

Building Strategic Partner Relationships

Ajit: How is this relationship evolving? You have any thoughts with the partners when you stepped into this role or talk about it?

Stephanie: I did. Thank you for the question. I spent a lot of time—I joined the company mid June and I spent a lot of time not only internally getting the pulse of partners and our various leaders, direct sales team, how are they engaging with partner, talking with clients as well, but also I've been spending time with a lot of our partners. From our GSIs to our CSPs to our ISVs and VARs and really understanding where they were and where their appetite was to grow. Our opportunity with our partners is to be very specific in the go to market intentions that we have and then work with our field selling team to monetize that opportunity with the clients.

Go-to-Market Opportunities in AI

Ajit: That's awesome. What opportunities are these? Are we go to market or helping the customers with their journey in AI? Want to talk about a little on that as well?

Stephanie: Well, I think, I mean, because the partner segments themselves, they're different and distinct in certain ways. They serve different markets, different countries, different industries with different capabilities and so we sit here with an embarrassment of riches almost because our partner ecosystem is so broad, our portfolio is so broad, but again it's going to go back to being very specific in the go to market intentions that we have with select partners so that we can clearly convey the joint value proposition to the client and drive meaningful client outcomes. But to your question in terms of client outcomes, they can realize everything from a top line growth to—because we provide them with solutions that further automate their processes or perhaps they're reducing some of the manual workloads, whatever it may be—to some bottom line benefits as well and so it's just being sure that we're clear in that value proposition as we go to talk to the client with partner so that they themselves can understand the better together story and that's really what it's about with partner is helping unify their story, their value prop with OpenText and being very clear with the clients in terms of the impact.

Partners and Technology Innovation

Ajit: Looking ahead and also at the pace of technology that we are bringing to the market, how do you see that the partners are in a position to help us with that?

Stephanie: Great question. I think, we talked a lot this week about OpenText data platform, Muhi's exciting announcement there. So trust me, after that session, the partners came out, they really want to talk about that, like how do I get into that, there was an excitement there. AI, we've talked a lot about that this week. From an AI perspective, most of our partners already have a big bet. So the opportunity for us with partners to say, do we have a common understanding of how we're going to address AI for a client and again, package that up in a thoughtful go to market, decide what clients we're going to take that to, but partner's already making the big bet on AI. We just need to understand what's the joint proposition.

Key Takeaways from OpenText World

Ajit: That's cool. What's your top takeaways from OpenText? Top 5 takeaways, if I may say?

Stephanie: Oh wow, we went from 1 to 5. I mean, it is just being open to learning more about OpenText and how we're positioning ourselves and then taking that to client. I think that would be a takeaway and a to do, if you will, and then just engaging early and often. We'll be talking tomorrow at our partner day to help our partners understand that flywheel that I talked about earlier, how can they really drive greater impact, economic impact for their own services business, and once they understand that my call to action for them is to come back, meet with our partner people, put the plan together, and then execute. And raise your hand when you need help, because that's what we're here to do is help our partners in the journey to drive greater client outcomes.

Closing

Ajit: That's awesome. I think I like we have you helping with the customers and going to the along with the partners going to the customers. It's a great story and I'm glad you could do that. Thank you so much for speaking and any final words to our audience, to the customers and partners?

Stephanie: Let's go get it done. Let's go drive some growth. Let's do it in a fantastically efficient way, but let's go drive some growth together.

Ajit: That's awesome. Thank you all. Thank you all for joining in, and it's been a great conversation. We'll continue to explore how partners can enable us in helping our customers in a better way. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you.

• Find an OpenText Partner  https://www.opentext.com/partners/find-an-opentext-partner
• OpenText Strategic Partners https://www.opentext.com/partners/strategic-partners
• Browse the OpenText Partner Directory https://www.opentext.com/partners/partner-directory
• Find SolEx Partners https://www.opentext.com/partners/solution-extension-partners
• OpenText OEM Solution Marketplace  https://www.opentext.com/products/oem-marketplace

About OpenStudio

OpenStudio is OpenText’s media hub for thought leadership and innovation. This series explores stories of progress and success from industry experts, visionaries, and trailblazers. Our goal is to inspire, inform, and connect audiences with the people and ideas shaping the future of the digital world.

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