Expertise Validation

The Microsoft Ecosystem is so big - it can be difficult for many customers to answer a simple question: who is the best at a particular technology?

Every single provider will attempt to claim that they are, of course, and decades ago, when Microsoft built what was formerly known as the "Partner Network" they enabled partners to become badged as "Silver" or "Gold" partners. The marketing and years of email blasts have now, for better or worse, trained many customers to ask if a partner has a "gold designation" as an indication of their competence.

Of course, even then, the requirements to become Gold certified were relatively modest: a small team of four needed to become certified (aka pass a few exams) in a particular technology and enough customers need to have recorded that you were working with them. I remember many times customers (and Microsoft) would insist "but that partner is Gold certified!" when we clearly outclassed them in both the depth and breadth of our expertise.

Fortunately, times have changed: Microsoft has not only renamed their partner program (more of a mouthful now - the "Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program") - but they've gotten rid of the gold and silver competencies and instituted an easy system of "solution partners" (to help you quickly designate your field of expertise) and then in addition begun a much more onerous system of "specializations" for system integrators. These specializations require a 3rd party audit, a large amount of customer evidence or attribution as well as maintaining the relevant solution partner designations.

At the top, far more challenging than the specializations, is the "Azure Expert Managed Service Provider" designation. Microsoft has (conservatively) estimated at least 300 hours of work, dedicated by each partner, merely to maintaining this designation. Each year! And I can say, from personal experience, that the 300 hours (roughly 1.5 man months) is grossly unrepresentative - mostly because in order to achieve the Azure Expert MSP designation, one must pass a multi-day, independently audited process that spans security and risk controls, succession planning, and operational controls, as well as validating the technical side of the house, often requiring partners to be well-versed in Microsoft technologies that may have only been released within the past twelve months.

It's a huge lift.

And that's good news for enterprises.

Why? Because any partner who is able to achieve the Azure Expert MSP designation is great at helping customers get on, and stay on, the cloud, the right way.

That's why there are only a handful of Azure Expert MSPs in any country. It's actually a useful exercise - head over to AppSource, and select partners who have the Azure Expert MSP designation.

Then try filtering by a specific Specialization to get even more granular, such as "AI and Machine Learning" or "Intelligent Automation". As you can see, it is quite quick to go from being overwhelmed with partners to seeing only the best of the best. Even some obscure combinations - if you wanted a partner who was able to support your phone system replacement need - but also to generally help ensure you weren't up to your ears in technical debt due to older applications - you could select "Teams Calling" as well as "Low Code Application Development" and voila - again just a few Azure Expert MSP partners you should reach out to.

The best part of this exercise is that although you may not always want the absolute best provider for every scenario, in certain circumstances, your executive team may be in a crunch - and you need the best of the best.

The system, as it stands today, is a great testament to the top Microsoft partners in the world, including Cognizant. We just completed the latest validation of our Azure Expert MSP status - and although the hard work is complete (until nine months when we will re-certify again!) it is worth it to help prove our expertise. The more Microsoft raises the bar for truly innovative partners, the better it is for the entire ecosystem.