Thailand Inspire 2018 event emboldens customer successes through collaborations with partners as foundations for Microsoft’s own success
Bangkok, 17 December 2018 – Microsoft Thailand, led by Mr. Dhanawat Suthumpun, Managing Director of Microsoft Thailand, recently celebrated the success of the company’s partners in the Microsoft Thailand Inspire 2018 event, where top partners were recognized with “Partner of The Year” awards in 12 categories as well as this year’s special Partner Recognition awards in 4 categories. These awards honor their achievements in presenting high performance technologies and solutions that encourage digital transformation and outstandingly respond to customers’ needs.
IDC estimates the global value of digital transformation at USD20 trillion — more than 20 percent of global gross domestic product. By the end of 2019, IDC expects enterprises worldwide will have spent USD1.7 trillion[1] on tech and digital initiatives, and partners will play a dominant role in helping businesses transform, which is in line with Microsoft’s long-standing commitment – consistently making its partners a priority.
This represents not just the opportunity for the Microsoft partner ecosystem to be agents that help our customers and Thailand accelerate their digital transformation ambition, but also a reminder that each of us has the responsibility to ensure that this race to digital transformation is responsible, ethical and inclusive.
Celebrating our partners’ achievements
Microsoft Thailand Inspire 2018 marked the first year with Partner of The Year 2018 awards presented in 12 categories along with special Partner Recognition awards in 4 categories. The awards were given to the partners to recognize their potential in applying Microsoft’s innovations and solutions to best satisfy the varied needs of their customers, helping them handle business challenges, and giving them opportunities to transform their businesses with digital innovations. Most importantly, Microsoft believes that differentiated solutions delivered by its partners are the key to help the customers stay ahead of their business rivals.
The criteria for these awards included number of new customer wins, product sales, practical solution utilization, expertise in Microsoft’s products and services, transforming prior technologies and solutions to the cloud, integrating cloud technologies into services for customers, cloud services that meet the needs of customers, and high and consistent level of satisfaction from customers and Microsoft’s employees.
Companies honored with Partner of The Year 2018 awards in 12 categories are:
- Modern Workplace – G-ABLE | Mverge
- Applications and infrastructure- G-ABLE | Mverge
- Data and AI – MFEC Public Co., Ltd.
- Business Applications – Bhatara Progress Co.,Ltd.
- Solutions Innovation – Data & AI – Digital Dialogue Co., Ltd.
- Solutions innovation – Business Applications – Innoviz Solutions Co., Ltd.
- ISV Partner of the Year – Digital Dialogue Co., Ltd.
- Microsoft distribution – Ingram Micro (Thailand) Limited
- Microsoft Licensing Solution – G-ABLE | Mverge
- Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider – VST ECS (Thailand) Co., Ltd.
- Best SMB Reseller – Bhatara Progress Co., Ltd.
- Surface Partner of the Year – CipherMED Co., Ltd.
Companies honored with Partner Recognition 2018 awards in 4 categories are:
- Engage Customers – Accenture Solutions Co., Ltd.
- Empower Employees – Frontis Co., Ltd.
- Transform Products – BuzzeBees Co., Ltd.
- Optimize Operations – Terabyte Net Solution Public Co., Ltd.
Microsoft’s mission is to empower all individuals and organizations worldwide to achieve more, and partners play a significant role in supporting the company to achieve that goal. Mr. Dhanawat Suthumpun, Managing Director of Microsoft Thailand, said, “In the past year, Microsoft stepped forward by putting customers at the center. We put the right resource in front of the right customer at the right time, and it led to tremendous results for all of us. We’d like to thank all of our partners who have support and created success together with us. This year, the innovations that will shape the future of businesses in Thailand and Asia-Pacific are AI and IoT. Our customers’ performance can be enhanced to the maximum capacity through a stronger partner network that fully embraces AI. We believe that Microsoft’s technologies will help our partners grow their businesses as well as respond to the needs of their customers excellently”.
In order to help its partners bring new solutions to the market more quickly and reach their target customers at the right time, Microsoft is committed to build partnerships that benefit both the customers and its partners. This year, Microsoft has launched a variety of new programs and tools to help their partners create, grow and differentiate their businesses from the competition, which will drive engagement and collaboration. In addition, the company also has a work culture that embraces the concept of partner centricity.
Delivering innovation through apps and services
Whether building apps or services, we know partners need access to the latest technology from Microsoft and guidance on how to extend that technology to build tailor-made solutions.
Microsoft recently announced exciting new innovations in Microsoft 365, including a free version of Teams, new intelligent events capabilities, the Workplace Analytics teamwork solution and more. We also announced new cloud, apps and data technologies including Azure Data Box Disk, Azure Virtual WAN, Azure Firewall and more. We’re so excited to see how our partners will leverage these new offerings to help customers embrace and innovate in modern workplace and continue to help customers in their journey to the cloud.
Reach more customers to sell your solutions
In our third quarter, we noted that Azure revenue grew by 93 percent, with partners driving a considerable portion of that growth. To build on this great momentum, we’re doing two new things to fuel partner growth – leaning in on our Marketplaces and enhancing AppSource as the entry point for selling with Microsoft, and enhancing our go-to-market benefits for partners to help them grow their businesses.
The new marketplace capabilities, available today, include integrated partner-to-partner solutions, private offers, and expanded consulting services. Each of these new capabilities provides partners new ways to get solutions in front of a bigger base of customers and to provide them with a better buying experience. There is no greater priority for us than connecting partners with customers.
We’re also providing greater flexibility and more opportunities to unlock new benefits that help partners go to market. Starting later this year, partners with competencies will have a choice of benefits packages based on their business focus. We’re expanding core benefits to include access to services that support generating leads, improving lead velocity, and increasing close rates for app or service offerings.
Focus on differentiation to attract customers
We hear from partners that specialization is key to growth. This concept has been a cornerstone of our profitability guidance to partners and many have taken that message to heart. The ask to Microsoft, from partners and customers, is to do more to help find the right partners with the right solutions. Today, we’re announcing new ways for partners to demonstrate their proven expertise to customers with the introduction of new advanced specializations and the new Microsoft Azure Expert MSP initiative. Partners can now demonstrate that they have the right capabilities to help with specific customer business challenges.
[1] https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn/digital-transformation-ebook-series/