Microsoft Canada celebrates Impact Award winners

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.”

photo of kevin peesker and suzanne gagliese in maple leaf themed outfits
Suzanne Gagliese and Kevin Peesker, Microsoft Canada, at the virtual awards ceremony

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.”

 

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Lynn Greiner
Lynn Greiner
Lynn Greiner has been interpreting tech for businesses for over 20 years and has worked in the industry as well as writing about it, giving her a unique perspective into the issues companies face. She has both IT credentials and a business degree

Related Tech News

Featured Tech Jobs

 

CDN in your inbox

CDN delivers a critical analysis of the competitive landscape detailing both the challenges and opportunities facing solution providers. CDN's email newsletter details the most important news and commentary from the channel.