During 2019 nTrust achieved Microsoft Gold Partner status, which is the highest standard of Microsoft’s partnership programme.
What is Microsoft Gold Partner?
Microsoft Gold Partner demonstrates that we are committed to adding value to our customers and their businesses by offering innovative and effective business solutions.
Microsoft don’t actually say how many partners they have – we’ve seen estimates of 600,000 partners worldwide, with something like 10,000 new partners every month. Anecdotally, about 5% of partners qualify for Silver status and 1% are Gold Partners.
There are several competency areas, ours being ‘Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions’.
To attain Gold status, we’ve trained our staff on Office 365 to MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate) level, which has involved residential courses and on-line exams. We’ve also sold Office 365 to more than 100 new customer companies in the last 12 months. There’s also a reasonably significant annual fee.
Benefits for our clients
Our clients benefit in two main ways:
- Our staff have a recognised high level of technical knowledge on Microsoft’s solutions
- As Gold partners we have on-demand access to Microsoft’s own staff to help us meet complex customer requirements and design bespoke solutions.
The first and most obvious benefit that our customers derive is the level of support they receive whenever they call (or email) with a query and chat with our highly qualified technicians. Problems can be identified and resolved more quickly.
As an MS Gold Partner, we have exclusive access to Microsoft tools, utilities and toolkits, as well as ongoing training programmes and regular tutorials.
Our technicians are continually updating their knowledge on the latest features in the Microsoft products. At client reviews and internal meetings, we proactively seek ways in which our clients can adopt the latest technology, where it is appropriate, that will create efficiencies in their businesses.
Benefits for our employees
Finding and retaining great talent is an important part of any business’s growth strategy and nTrust is no different.
Providing our staff with a comfortable and stimulating environment in which to work is very important to us.
Every member of staff has a learning and development plan so that they can evolve their skills. The Microsoft Gold Partner programme has played a significant role in this.
Benefits for nTrust
Our ambitious growth plan over the next three years is no secret. To achieve this, we must ensure that we continue to provide an excellent service to our existing customers and safeguard our 97% client retention rate. This accreditation allows us to continue to add value to these relationships.
Developing a strong IT support team is also vital to our growth plans. Growing our team through an apprenticeship scheme and then being able to offer further educational advancement through the Microsoft training programmes, will help us to find, nurture and retain a strong team.
Being in the top 1% of Microsoft Partners in the world makes nTrust a very interesting and trustworthy partner for medium sized companies that we seek to work with.
