Cognizant Caliber 2024: A Success Story of Associate Skilling and Certification

We are thrilled to share the highlights of our annual Caliber 2024 event, a series of initiatives aimed at empowering our associates at Cognizant with the latest Microsoft cloud technologies and certifications. The event ran through June 2024 and used various skilling engines Microsoft made available to us (such as Microsoft's Enterprise Skills Initiative (ESI), Microsoft Learn, etc.), as well as the hard work and dedication of our Cognizant Learning & Devlopment team.

What was unique about this year? In a word: Copilot.

We were excited to celebrate all the participants in the first-ever Copilot Caliber Promptathon. This event was designed to help associates generate useful prompts in all sorts of Microsoft products that use Copilot - from Copilot for Microsoft 365, to GitHub Copilot, to Copilot with Data Protection, to Copilot for Sales, and Copilot for Service. Even specific Microsoft 365 applications were called out with prompts saving time in Copilot for Word, Copilot for Excel and Copilot for PowerPoint.

As usual, we also ran our regular Caliber Hackathon - designed to help individuals building solutions on Azure, the Power Platform and Microsoft 365 that target common client business challenges. We had hundreds of entries for both competitions - the winners' solutions we can now both solve client challenges with and empower our internal efforts around driving up Copilot usage.

At the end of the day, of course, we measure progress through certifications and this year stood out. Our associates showed great enthusiasm and dedication in learning and achieving their skilling goals. Here are some of the impressive numbers from the year:

• Over 13,000 total certifications, made up of over 5,000 advanced role-based certifications and 7,000 fundamentals certifications attained, exceeding our annual targets by 151%, 101% and 229% (!) respectively
• More than 112,000 trainings across all solution areas, with a focus on Azure, Data and AI, and Security
• Almost 19,000 participants in the Cloud Skills Challenge, a gamified learning experience that rewards learners for completing modules on Microsoft Learn
• 500 sales trained learners who attended sessions from the Sales Enablement Catalogue, covering topics such as AI design wins, Copilot adoption, and Cybersecurity solutions
• More than 7,000 depth trained learners who attended technical sessions from the Depth Catalog, covering topics such as Sentinel Migration, Data Security, and Fabric
• Almost every learner participated in the Enterprise Skills Initiative, a Microsoft skilling investment designed to develop employees' technical expertise within our most impactful associates
• Over 70% of our staff who earned an advanced certification in last years record setting Caliber 2023 renewed that certification to remain aware of changes in the underlying technology stack this year

Caliber 2024 is a testament to the ingenuity and willingness of Cognizant associates to keep their learning journey going every single day. It is why we have been able to be so successful at our client: they know to demand the highest levels of quality, delivered by certified experts and only we possess the size, scale and aptitude to be able to support them in their efforts.

Even more relevant - for clients looking to speed up their own journey with Copilot - we can run promptathons, adoption efforts and training activities for associates of all levels. How can we confidently say this? Because we did it here first, ourselves. (We drink our own champagne, remember?) If you are looking to get an edge over your competitors - and you need help - reach out to us today!