Highlights of GM, Worldwide Partner Group key note at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

A little over a week ago Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference key note included a speech by Gavriella Schuster, the GM of Worldwide Partner Group. In her vision keynote, she definitely placed a huge emphasis on the Microsoft Partner network and spoke on the key points that Microsoft plans to grow in the future.

Source- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/microsoft-worldwide-partner-conference-2015-orlando-florida-uddin

Key Highlights to Increase Market Value of Microsoft Partners

• Microsoft training is receiving a facelift as it is now being consolidated into the Microsoft Virtual Academy with the growing popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
• The exams and certification process is becoming more agile with the addition of feasible milestones, more online options, and continuous learning with the new “skills badging”. The actual exams will also be available more easily online to reduce the need to travel to a testing center
• Plans to eliminate the requirement of tracking a Microsoft Certified Professional in several instances in order to focus on overall performance outcomes
• Making the use of Office 365 easier with tools like SkyKick and Azure to help with the data Migration.

Growing and Amplifying

The above section is really all about obtaining and keeping your partnership status, which seemed to be by far the most important topic throughout the meeting. However, besides this, Microsoft stated that they seek to both amplify your market impact and grow your market influence.

Microsoft recommends that their Partners “share best practices” and “offer packaged digital marketing sets” in order to really impact the market. To grow influence Microsoft plans to help companies find talented developers, utilize “benched” employees, and find the right partners with a variety of different tools.

Most importantly though, Gavriella spoke on the Microsoft network working together in order to utilize online communities to grow their business and the empowering Worldwide Partner Group partnership with MWP’s.