In the Vision keynote, Gavriella Schuster, general manager of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, outlined new efforts around training and marketing for partners.†
First, Microsoft is streamlining and improving its training, certification, exam delivery, and performance tracking. All partner training is being consolidated into the Microsoft Virtual Academy and students will utilize Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for hands on, experiential learning at scale.†
In the certification area, Microsoft is adding “skills badging,” described as “a lightweight and low-friction way to encourage continuous learning through earlier, more reachable milestones.” It will be piloted in the first half of the year, followed by a staged rollout in the second half of the year.††
Microsoft is also expanding availability of Online Proctored Exams. And the company is eliminating the need to track unique MCPs by competency. With the new dashboards at the MPN portal, partners can now track their progress and their customers’ consumption.†
Further, to encourage the use of Microsoft products within partner organization, Microsoft is investing to help partners more easily migrate to O365 through the continued partnership with SkyKick. Microsoft is also increasing the Azure Service credits and giving partners access to Visual Studio Enterprise edition as part of the cloud competency IURs.
New Marketing Efforts†
Schuster said Microsoft is helping partners with digital marketing. She said the company will package and share best practices in digital marketing from some successful cloud partners. In addition, Microsoft will offer a packaged set of digital marketing services through a program called Digital Stride, which helps you improve your online presence through search engine optimization, optimize your online presence and Pinpoint profile. Partner can also receive BING search credits to expand search engine marketing.†
To help customers more easily participate in Microsoft’s own digital marketing campaigns, Microsoft has selected a single, broad based customer campaign to go to market with partners this year: “Modern Biz.” Schuster added that in a new initiative, Partner Stories, Microsoft is highlighting how partners are helping their customers achieve success.††
And in the area of helping partners grow their market influence, she detailed some tools to “make it easier … to leverage the benefits of partnership.”†
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The dynamic sourcing solution from Dynasource will help partners share talent.†
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Microsoft has partnered with DevDraft to help partners find developers.
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Pinpoint will help partners find others to partner with.
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