Strategies to Leverage your SPD Benefits Portfolio
Achieving a Microsoft Solutions Partner designation (SPD) opens doors to an array of valuable benefits that can significantly enhance your business. However, simply having access to these benefits isn’t enough—you need a clear strategy to make the most of them. Read on for a well curated compilation of practical guidance from our in-house SPD experts, Ksenia Turner and Michelle Harold.
1. Product Benefits
Microsoft offers a variety of product benefits, including Azure credits, development environments, and on-premises licenses for key solutions like Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365. These benefits can serve as critical enablers for both innovation and cost management within your organisation.
Accelerate Proof of Concept (PoC) and Pilot Programs
Use Azure credits to develop and test PoCs for prospective clients. This lowers the financial barrier for customers, allowing them to experience the value of Microsoft solutions first-hand.
Optimise Cost Efficiency in Development
Azure credits and development environments allow you to scale resources without incurring full production costs. Maximize these credits by building out internal tools or running multiple customer environments simultaneously, all while keeping costs in check.
Expand Service Offerings
Use product benefits like Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 licenses to extend your service portfolio. For example, you can offer consulting and customization services around these products, driving both revenue and customer satisfaction.
2. Support and Advisory Services
The support and advisory benefits available through your Solutions Partner designation can be a game-changer, particularly when dealing with complex deployments or scaling operations. These services are there to help you navigate challenges faster and with fewer risks.
Access to Presales and Deployment Services
Use these services to streamline client engagements. By engaging Crayon and Microsoft support teams during the presales phase, you can reduce sales cycles, gain faster alignment with customer needs, and ensure smooth deployments that meet client expectations.
Utilise Technical Support Incidents
Ensure that your internal teams know how to effectively use these support incidents. These resources can be vital when dealing with unexpected technical issues, so it’s important to track their usage and deploy them strategically.
Strategic Consulting
Work with Crayon’s Technology Advisory Group. They’ll bring their expertise to your side of the table and leverage Microsoft contacts to refine your go-to-market strategy or optimise existing deployments. For example, you might engage TAG experts to evaluate your cloud migrations for customers or enhance your solution’s architecture for improved scalability.
3. Pump the Marketing Resources
Microsoft provides an extensive suite of marketing tools and resources designed to amplify your reach and visibility. However, to truly capitalize on these tools, it’s essential to have a focused marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals.
Optimise your Partner Profile
Ensure your organisation’s Partner Center profile is up to date and fully optimised. A compelling, complete profile with relevant case studies and certifications can increase your chances of being discovered by new clients through Microsoft’s partner directories.
Utilise Co-Branded Marketing Assets
Take advantage of the ready-to-go marketing assets available through Microsoft Partner Center. Co-branded materials make it easier for you to launch campaigns quickly without starting from scratch, saving time and effort while ensuring professional, on-brand materials.
Launch Targeted Campaigns
Use the digital marketing content library to create campaigns that resonate with your audience. Whether it’s a webinar or a case study promotion, these tools allow you to build awareness and drive demand with minimal effort.
Tap Microsoft Partner Marketing as a Service
Engage with PMaaS for expert marketing support. By partnering with Microsoft’s marketing team, you can access dedicated resources to create and scale campaigns more effectively, gaining access to resources that would typically be out of reach for smaller businesses.
4. Access Incentives and Benefits
Microsoft’s CSP Incentives & Workload Accelerators, as well as Co-Op Funds, can be an excellent source of additional capital for business growth. These funds can be used to drive customer engagement and build awareness for your services
Incentivise Customers to Expand Workloads
Use CSP incentives to provide customers with discounts or added value on their Microsoft solutions when they increase their workloads. This helps both you and your customers maximise their investment.
Offer Special Deals for New Customers
Use CSP incentives to craft promotional packages that attract new customers. For example, bundle a discounted Azure service with a complimentary cloud migration consultation to attract prospects who might be hesitant to make the leap.
Leverage Co-Op Funds for Joint Marketing Campaigns
Tap into Co-Op Funds to co-invest in marketing activities alongside Microsoft. These funds are specifically designed to help partners like you expand their marketing reach without bearing the full cost. Whether you’re running digital ads, hosting events, or launching targeted customer outreach campaigns, Co-Op Funds can significantly stretch your marketing budget. By utilising these resources, you can increase your brand’s visibility, reach a larger audience, and enhance your marketing efforts with less financial strain.
5. Monitor and improve performance metrics
A key part of retaining your Solutions Partner designation is not just achieving your performance metrics but consistently maintaining them across the three core categories: Performance, Skilling, and Customer Success.
These categories are the backbone of the Partner Capability Score, and each represents a critical area of your business that needs continuous attention and improvement.
Regularly evaluate these metrics to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
This will maintain your momentum in pursuit of Microsoft’s rigorous standards and keep your business positioned for sustainable growth and success.
Use Insights to Identify Gaps
Are you struggling with customer success metrics? Do you need more certifications on the team? Leverage the Insights Workspace in Partner Center to track your progress, identify gaps in performance and prioritise corrective actions.
Automate Reporting and Analytics
Implement tools to automate the tracking of performance metrics. Dashboards that update in real-time can provide your team with up-to-date insights and allow you to make quick adjustments, keeping you on track.
Engage in Ongoing Training
Set clear goals for certification levels within your team. Aim to keep the team’s certifications up to date with Microsoft’s requirements while also expanding into new certifications that can help you meet client demands.
6. Achieve Certification Requirements
Ensuring that your team holds the necessary certifications is not just about meeting a requirement—it’s an investment in their professional development and your company’s reputation.
Microsoft’s certification programs are highly regarded in the industry, and having certified professionals strengthens your brand’s credibility.
Build a Certification Roadmap
Develop a structured plan for team certifications, with clear timelines and objectives for when each member should achieve specific certifications. This ensures alignment across your organization and keeps your certification pipeline active.
Incentivise Certification Success
Offer incentives for team members who achieve certifications. Whether it’s a bonus or professional development opportunities, rewarding certifications can help motivate employees to further their knowledge and skillset.
Offer Certifications to Clients
Consider offering training and certification pathways to your clients, particularly if they’re managing Microsoft products in-house. Not only does this add value to your relationship, but it also reinforces your role as a trusted advisor.
7. Engage with Microsoft Programs
Microsoft’s specialised programs—like FastTrack and co-sell opportunities—provide avenues for growth and collaboration. Engaging with these programs allows you to enhance your solutions and gain new business opportunities.
Leverage FastTrack for Customer Onboarding
FastTrack is an invaluable resource for helping customers quickly deploy and realize the value of Microsoft cloud solutions. Engaging with FastTrack ensures faster implementations and smoother transitions for your customers.
Stay Active in Industry Events
Microsoft often organises events like webinars, conferences, and technical deep dives. Stay engaged with these events to network with other partners, share best practices, and identify new opportunities to collaborate.
Participate in Co-Sell Opportunities
Microsoft’s co-sell program gain exposure to new markets and potential clients that may not have been previously accessible. Co-selling aligns your solutions tightly to Microsoft’s own offerings, creating a combined value proposition for customers. Gaining proficiency and confidence in co-selling motions can strengthen your sales pipeline, accelerate deal-flow and enhance your visibility in the market.
How Crayon can help
We’re on our partners’ side. Always.
Crayon is committed to supporting partners to fully exploit every advantage to be gained from attaining a Solutions Partner designation.
Tap into TAG
Our Technical Advisory Group (TAG) is a dedicated unit that assists partners with new designations to navigate what is available to them. They are deeply embedded within Microsoft and play a vital role in helping to faciliate introductions and connections to enhance program engagements.
Marketing Collaboration
Crayon runs a comprehensive schedule of events, webinars, tech-meet ups, and unique programs designed to connect partners together and identify shared opportunities in the market.
We also provide quantitative research into the end-customer market, with our bi-annual study of SMB operations across the region. Ask your Crayon rep about how to receive the 2025 Future of Operations data, which details specifics on solution adoption intent, budget allocations and service engagement requirements over the next two years.
By maintaining open communication with Crayon, we can continue to help you to action practical strategies that fully exploit the numerous benefits provided by the Microsoft Solutions Partner designation. From expanding your service offerings to gaining market visibility, each benefit is an opportunity to strengthen your business and build lasting relationships with your customers.
