Microsoft Canada announced the 2021 Impact Award winners this week during a virtual event as part of Microsoft’s annual partner conference, Inspire.
“This partner ecosystem, all of you in our partner community, you absolutely rocked it over the past financial year,” said Microsoft Canada president Kevin Peesker, before kicking off the announcements. “There is so much to share and celebrate.”
Nominated awards
First up were the awards self-nominated by partners, highlighting the solutions they’d created for their customers. And the winners are:
Modern Workplace Impact award: WBM Technologies
Security Impact Award: Bulletproof Security Solutions
Business Applications, Finance and Operations Impact Award: Accenture/Avanade
Business Applications Customer Engagement Impact Award: CRM Dynamics
Artificial Intelligence Impact Award: Adastra Corporation
Analytics Impact Award: Adastra Corporation
Migration to Azure Impact Award: Accenture/Avanade
Application Modernization Impact Award: Zafin
Healthcare Impact Award: Dapasoft
Public Sector Impact Award: MNP
Financial Services Impact Award: Accenture/Avanade
Industry Innovation Impact Award: EY Canada
Surface Impact Award: WBM Technologies
Community Response Impact Award: KPMG
Inclusion Changemaker Impact Award: Softlanding Solutions
COVID response marketing Impact Award: VNEXT IQ
Metrics-based awards
Enterprise Impact Award: Accenture/Avanade
Regional Cloud Solution Provider Azure Impact Award: Optimus Information
Regional Cloud Solution Provider Modern Workplace Impact Award: IT Intelligence
Regional Cloud Solution Provider Business Applications Impact Award: WebSan Solutions
National Large Solution Provider Impact Award: Insight Canada
Indirect Cloud Solution Provider Impact Award: Ingram Micro
Data Platform Modernization Impact Award: Adastra Corporation
ISV Impact Award: Symend
Modern Marketing Impact Award: Ingram Micro
Tech Intensity Impact Award: Insight Canada
Co-sell Impact Award: Insight Canada
Canadian Partner of the Year
The final award was the Canadian Partner of the Year. This winner is chosen based on its commitment to customers’ market impact, and exemplary use of Microsoft technologies, Peesker explained.
The FY21 Microsoft Canada Partner of the Year is Accenture/Avanade.
“Accenture and Microsoft formed Avanade over 20 years ago to combine the best in strategy and technology to help our clients unlock more value,” said Jeffrey Russell, president of Accenture Canada. “We aim to raise the bar in delivering world-class service and solutions, and we’re honored and grateful to be recognized for that work. I look forward to our continued work together to empower our clients across Canada. innovate lead change and accelerate the path to value.”
Added André Nadeau, corporate vice president, Avanade Canada Operating Unit, “This has been an incredibly challenging but also very rewarding year. We’ve fuelled the digital journey for our many clients across virtually every industry, assembling to have our successes recognized as Partner of the Year. Centre organizers have proven exactly what’s possible when business insight and leading-edge technology come together. We look forward to continuing to help our customers to innovate, scale, and thrive in a post-pandemic world.”
Related
Microsoft focuses partners on the cloud
The view from Microsoft corporate
Nick Parker, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for global partner solutions, then took the virtual stage to thank Canadian partners. “When I think about Canada and our partners, I really think about a diverse, resilient, optimistic, and happy country that knows how to compete in the world when it comes to tech innovation,” he said. ” For the Canadian market specifically we’re seeing great growth across all partners. In fact, we just passed one of our major competitors, AWS here in Canada, and are now in the number one cloud market share position. Thanks to you and our hard work together.”
Next year, Parker said, Microsoft is committing to reduce the complexity in partner programs as well as growing partner incentives with a focus on value added elements such as workshops and activities. The company is also investing in incremental technical sales roles.
It will expand across industry solutions with system integrations partners, and will continue to invest in industry clouds, which, he said, will generate huge partner opportunities. And, it will increase the focus on co-sell, as well as working with global system integrators (SIs) and SIs across Canada on capability and capacity to drive partner expertise initiatives.
“Together, we’ve supported our customers and ensured that they will come out of this in a strong position to continue to grow and succeed,” concluded Suzanne Gagliese, One Commercial Partner Lead at Microsoft Canada. “I know this year hasn’t been easy. But it is a year that makes me proud to work with all of you. And I am excited for what we’re going to do next.”
