By Aleksi Mattlar, Director, Ecosystem Business Development, Vena Solutions

As the Microsoft ecosystem continues to evolve, so do the growth opportunities for its partners. Finance teams are becoming more engaged buyers of technology, driven by the demands of economic uncertainty, growing complexity, and outdated planning systems that no longer scale. They’re looking for solutions that help them stay strategic, agile and data-driven, with expectations for AI-powered insights right where they work—whether that's in Excel, Power BI, or Microsoft Teams.

At the same time, IT leaders are becoming increasingly critical partners to Finance. They're helping build the infrastructure and integrations that enable modern FP&A, guiding system selection, and driving AI adoption that meets security, compliance, and scalability standards.

These market shifts are creating a new opening for Microsoft Partnres: the Office of Finance.

In this article, we explore how partners can unlock this underserved revenue opportunity, without changing how they do business. With Vena’s agentic AI-powered FP&A platform, built to amplify the Microsoft stack, partners can deliver even more value across Finance and IT, while deepening their Microsoft alignment.

A New Market Moment: Where Finance, IT, and AI Converge

The finance function is changing. According to FSN, 89% of finance leaders say their organizations face higher levels of uncertainty than just five years ago. Meanwhile, a 2024 Deloitte CFO Signals report indicates that 83% of CFOs believe AI will be essential to decision-making by 2026.

This isn’t just a demand shift - it’s a transformation opportunity.

Microsoft’s push to put “a Copilot on every desk” signals a new phase of adoption across core business functions. Finance is emerging as a prime target for AI, particularly when it stays inside Microsoft-native workflows.

For Microsoft Partners, this convergence of AI, Azure, and financial transformation represents a high-value, high-relevance growth vector.

The Underserved Room in the House: Why the Office of Finance?

Most Microsoft Partners already work closely with operations, sales, and IT teams. But finance, specifically FP&A, remains unchartered territory by most Microsoft Partners.

That’s where the Office of Finance comes in.

Serving finance teams doesn’t mean selling a separate, disruptive platform. It means enabling financial professionals to plan, analyze, and collaborate natively in the Microsoft tools they already use: Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and Dynamics 365.

And it’s not just about Finance.

The IT leaders you’re already working with are becoming strategic partners to Finance. As FP&A teams face rising complexity, workload pressures, and transformation fatigue, they’re turning to IT not just for infrastructure, but for enablement. IT teams are being asked to:

• Centralize financial and operational data across systems
• Deliver controlled access to real-time insights
• Support AI adoption without compromising compliance
• Equip Finance with planning and analytics tools that don’t require new interfaces or additional admin burden

That makes your current IT relationships the bridge into Finance, and Vena the tool that makes that bridge easy to cross.

Vena’s platform is purpose-built to empower both personas: intuitive and Excel-native for Finance; secure, scalable, and Microsoft-aligned for IT.

Why Vena + Microsoft? A Complete, Integrated FP&A Platform

Vena is the only complete FP&A platform that fully harnesses Microsoft’s ecosystem, from Microsoft 365 to Azure OpenAI to Fabric. We help partners deliver value without disrupting the way teams work.

Key capabilities include:

• Vena Copilot for FP&A: A conversational, agentic AI assistant that coordinates a taskforce of AI agents to generate reports, forecasts, and analysis directly in Excel or Teams.
• Vena for Microsoft Teams: Embed FP&A insights in chat, channels, and meetings—making Teams a command center for finance-led decision-making.
• Vena Insights: Built on Power BI, this embedded analytics layer provides predictive forecasting, anomaly detection, and AI-powered visualizations.
• Vena CubeFLEX™: A multidimensional planning database that integrates real-time data from Dynamics, Fabric, NetSuite and more—amplifying Microsoft’s analytical tools with AI-ready models.

All of this is delivered in the flow of finance teams’ work, with seamless deployment, Azure security, and a user-friendly experience.

Learn why Vena and Microsoft are best together for FP&A.

Marketplace Advantage: Activate with MPO and Azure Alignment

The shift to cloud marketplaces is accelerating. Canalys projects $45B in spend will move through cloud marketplaces by 2025. Microsoft’s Multiparty Private Offer (MPO) program makes it easy for partners to bundle Vena into transactions that:

• Draw down a customer’s Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC)
• Unlock co-sell and AI Design Win incentives
• Consolidate billing and simplify procurement

As a MACC-enabled, co-sell ready, and MPO-eligible ISV, Vena is built to help Microsoft Partners grow through Azure.

Fast Start, Scalable Growth: Your Partner Path with Vena

For Microsoft Partners looking to thoughtfully extend their portfolio, the opportunity to support Finance is more accessible than ever. Whether you’re exploring new revenue streams or deepening your value within existing customer accounts, Vena offers a simple, supported path forward.

Here’s how partners can get started:

• Ramp quickly with accessible sales-readiness training that complements your marketing efforts and enables your team to engage finance and IT buyers with confidence
• Launch confidently with expanded marketing resources, incentives from our team and a 250% YoY increase in our MDF investment—built to accelerate partner-led GTM and drive measurable returns
• Earn referral revenue by introducing Vena to the finance-forward organizations you already serve

“We’re witnessing a powerful surge of Microsoft partners joining the Vena ecosystem,” says Brian Kobleur, Vice President of Microsoft Alliance & Strategic Partnerships at Vena.

“These forward-thinking organizations are aligning closely with Microsoft’s strategic direction—seeking new ways to deliver greater value to customers while unlocking fresh revenue streams. They recognize the advantage of an AI-first, Azure Marketplace-first solution that empowers both Finance and IT teams.

This is a rising tide moment for Microsoft ecosystem partners. The opportunity to deliver full-stack Microsoft solutions for FP&A has never been more compelling. Becoming a Vena referral partner is a simple, high-impact extension of the work partners are already doing across Dynamics, Power BI, Fabric, Copilot, and ERP systems.

While Vena has long been trusted for its Excel-native experience, partners and their customers now see the unmatched value of a Microsoft-centric approach to FP&A—something only Vena can offer.”

With self-serve onboarding, joint account planning, and dedicated enablement, partners can activate at their own pace—while building toward long-term value.

Final Word: It’s Time to Unlock the Office of Finance

Vena doesn’t replace Microsoft systems, we amplify them. Our AI-powered platform is designed to make financial and operational planning faster, smarter, and more collaborative inside the tools customers already trust.

For Microsoft Partners, this isn’t just an add-on solution. It’s a new way to:

• Expand your value to IT and Finance
• Align tightly with Microsoft’s roadmap and incentive structure
• Grow revenue with a light-lift, high-impact platform

Learn more about partnering with Vena