3 Major Benefits of Working with a Microsoft Gold Partner in 2021
[Sassy_Social_Share]
Microsoft is huge, and its role in the life of millions of professionals is only getting bigger in 2021, making the benefits of working with a Gold partner even more apparent.
But what is a Microsoft Gold partner?
- A firm that has proven they don’t operate on a whim, meaning that they have at least 3-6 MS certified professionals at hand, with >95% client retention rates, and 5+ referrals.
- An organization that is committed to implementing Microsoft business solutions at the highest degree of operational excellence, maximizing their value for customers.
- Finally, a team of trusted advisors that know the ins-and-outs of a client’s IT needs, and can give close-to-immediate feedback on solutions to various business problems.
While Microsoft’s Partner Network is huge (100K+ providers since 1994!), less than 2% of partners receive Gold certification, and that’s because of Microsoft’s strict requirements.
How The Microsoft Partner Network Works
Microsoft partnerships work on a competency basis… For each competency (Cloud, Datacenter, App Development, etc.), you can achieve either one of 2 ranks of certification:
- Silver, or;
- Gold.
The setup is simple yet the requirements are strict, and that’s for good reason. Microsoft wants to attribute partners with a Gold rank only if they can prove they are consistent in their role.
It’s common to hear about the “perks” of being a Microsoft partner (private tools, ongoing training, and more) but there’s a lot of work done behind the scenes to get there.
The Difference Between Silver & Gold Partner Certification
Microsoft’s Partner Network works so well because of its structured approval process, where auditors from Microsoft themselves establish whether a firm is ready to “go Gold.”
To achieve Silver status, Microsoft partners must:
- Pass exams for specific Silver-level competencies and validate their skills with the presence of an auditor who’s going to assess their performance.
- Meet less-rigorous performance requirements compared to Gold standards, with a focus specifically on understanding specific business solutions and their implementation.
- Pay an annual fee of ~$1670 to prove their commitment to employing Microsoft solutions in their daily operations and show customers they care about their success.
By no means is Silver status a lesser version of MS partnership, but Gold partners achieve the higher status by demonstrating their capabilities rather than just understanding them.
The Value of Working with a Microsoft Partner
When you choose to work with a Microsoft partner, you’re getting closer than ever to the level of excellence that Microsoft themselves want to achieve for their customers.
It’s one thing to just purchase a few licenses from Microsoft and call it a day, it’s another to commit and ensure that the system is being utilized to a full extent.
Gold partners in specific can:
- Advise and guide prospects towards the best solutions for their needs within the areas of Gold competency and implement them to the highest standards.
- Provide customers directly with the licenses they need to get a specific business problem solved without them having to interact with a Microsoft salesperson
- Have multiple certified professionals interact with a representative on the customer side to ensure that all of their requests are handled in a timely manner.
At both the Silver and Gold level, you’re choosing to implement a Microsoft solution with a great degree of confidence that it will lead to business results and, ultimately, success.
With a Gold partner, this commitment is further cemented by advanced specializations, a track record of high customer satisfaction, and an even closer link to Microsoft’s high standards.
The 3 Benefits of Choosing a Gold Microsoft Partner
With so much value laid on the table, customers can feel confident that working with a Microsoft Gold Partner will lead to major benefits and a sound business infrastructure.
Here are three major ones:
Benefit #1: Receive Clear Guidance on Microsoft Products
Microsoft is the leader in enterprise software, and with that comes the burden of choosing the right product and configuration to solve your business problem for the long-term.
That’s where a Gold partner comes in:
- Get a clear picture of a specific product’s value for your business needs
- Quickly understand the roadmap from proof of concept to implementation
- Gain immediate access to the licenses and expertise needed to get started
By taking the first step with a Gold partner, you’re setting yourself up for years of successful guidance, implementation, and maintenance of Microsoft business solutions.
Benefit #2: Implement Your IT Solution Quickly and Effectively
Implementing an IT solution successfully is tricky in its own right, but it becomes even more specialized with a proprietary Microsoft solution compared to an open source one.
When considering migrating to Azure, using Sharepoint to work collaboratively, or implementing Dynamics 365 as your core CRM solution, technical details can get in the way of success.
That’s why Gold partners spend 100s of cumulative hours each month on training from Microsoft themselves: to ensure that your business needs are met both quickly and effectively.
Benefit #3: Maintain High Standards Across Your Business Infrastructure
Playing with new technologies is great until something bad happens. With business-critical infrastructure, tinkering with configurations requires a sound understanding of best practices:
- Setting up configurations the right way and keeping clear logs of them
- Understanding the specifics of Microsoft’s enterprise products
- Ensuring consistent delivery across your IT infrastructure
… and so much more.
It’s this attention to detail in the realm of maintenance that separates a Gold partner from a Silver, or non-certified partner. And it makes a world of difference when bad things happen.
Why? Because you get to know exactly what went wrong in that particular instance so that you can prevent it from happening again in the future, with reliability built into the service.
Achieving Microsoft Gold status isn’t just about bragging rights; there are real benefits to it, as well as a strong commitment to achieving and maintaining the highest IT standards.
Get Dedicated Microsoft Expertise with a Gold Partner
Because of Microsoft’s fantastic business solutions, LogicV is proud to have achieved Gold-level partner certification in three different areas of their specializations:
- Cloud Productivity
- Cloud Platform
- Datacenter
With Azure representing a centrepiece in digital transformation for millions of organizations across the globe, we invested heavily in delivering its benefits to our customers.
On top of that, we’ve achieved Silver-level certification on a variety of competencies that apply to SMBs ready to take the next step and move towards the enterprise space.
Check out LogicV’s partner details and learn more about how we can benefit your organization with dedicated and reliable Microsoft services for a world that’s switching to the cloud.
