EDITOR’S QUESTION
Investing in the
right training tools
Microsoft is committed to empowering its partners through
digital engines, virtual learning and in-person events that
help them achieve certification, says Tareq Hijazi, Director of
Commercial Partner Group, Microsoft Gulf.
better customer
engagement and
smarter connections.
Building our Partner
cloud capacity
has always been
an important goal
for Microsoft as it
directly co-relates
to us achieving
our goals. We
understand the
all-up cloud partner
ecosystem and
what they need to
deliver. Hence, we
aim to drive existing
partners to build
their cloud capacities
and commit to
recruiting new
Tareq Hijazi, Director of Commercial Partner Group, Microsoft Gulf.
‘Modern Partners’
with pre-established capabilities. We
or more than 40 years, Microsoft
commit to empowering our partners
has been a partner-led company,
through digital engines, virtual learning
which reflects the fact that it
and in-person events that lead them
generates more than 95 per cent of
towards the achievement of technical
business through the company’s robust
cloud certifications.
and constantly evolving partner ecosystem.
IDC research predicts digital
Today, Microsoft has more than 64,000
transformation in initiatives will reach
cloud partners. Notably, 30 per cent of
$2.2 trillion by 2019. Microsoft has
partners joined the Microsoft partner
invested in making sure that its partners
network in the past year, and Microsoft
are equipped with the right skills to have
is adding more than 6,000 partners each
critical cloud conversations with their
month. And together, Microsoft and its
customers and be best positioned to grow
partners can achieve more.
their businesses.
Microsoft has always been focused on
Microsoft strongly believes that channel
providing its partners with businesses
partners across the world need to upgrade
that lead to more opportunities,
F
48
A
s a multinational
IT corporation,
describe how you
support the channel
to stay abreast of the
latest technology by
training and certification
programmes?
their skills in order to meet the changing
needs of customers, who are increasingly
deploying digital technologies and
practices. According to research, CIOs say
that the skills gap is the most commonly
cited barrier to digitisation.
Thus, we are investing in a variety of
technical training, tools and resources
available in Microsoft’s Learning portal
where our partners are provided with
opportunities to create custom learning
plans to develop product knowledge,
attain or renew competencies, and pass
exams or accreditations. Partners can also
avail themselves of on-demand, in-person
virtual training programmes that focus
on how to sell and deploy products like
Azure, SQL, Dynamics and Office 365
around apps and infrastructure, data and
AI, business applications and modern
workplace solution workloads. We also
have other resources available, including
the Microsoft Virtual Academy, the Cloud
+ Enterprise University Boot Camps and
ignite to name but a few.
The recently launched Cloud Society
programme aims to identify and engage
passionate and influential cloud computing
focused experts from the industry. The
programme is designed to support our
partners in becoming world-class experts
in the space of cloud computing. The
Cloud Society programme aims to deepen
Microsoft Azure knowledge and build the
next generation of systems and solutions.
It also includes free online training,
certification learning paths, resources and
events roadshows.
Issue 09
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS