Announcing Microsoft Inspire 2023 dates and Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards nominations - Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program

Announcing Microsoft Inspire 2023 dates and Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards nominations

One male and one female factory workers standing on manufacturing floor and looking at large piece of factory equipment.

I’m pleased to announce details for the upcoming Microsoft Inspire — this year’s event will take place digitally, giving us the incredible opportunity to include partners from all over the world. The event is of no cost to attendees and will be held on July 18-19, 2023. Please save these dates and look for registration opening in the coming months.

As part of Microsoft Inspire, we recognize finalists and winners of our annual Partner of the Year Awards, which are open for nominations starting today. Receiving these nominations is a highlight of our year, as it gives us the opportunity to see the incredible impact our partners are delivering to customers around the world.

Partners can submit for a variety of awards across solution areas and industries — including two new awards for this year (detailed below). We also recognize partners from over 100 countries/regions as part of our Country/Region Partner of the Year Awards. Each set of awards recognizes an impressive group of partners, showcasing the digital transformation they’ve enabled by building on Microsoft technologies. For the 2023 awards, given the launch timing of the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, this will be a transition year and we have made some adjustments to eligibility criteria. Please see the guidelines introduction section for additional details (linked below).

Our partner ecosystem has the great privilege and responsibility of delivering innovative solutions and services to businesses and local economies around the world. As such, we are looking for solutions that are built to deliver meaningful, accessible, inclusive, and sustainable outcomes for customers. We believe technology should be a force for good and we’re intentional about recognizing partners that enable a more sustainable and equitable future, empowering every person and organization to achieve more.

This year, we have added two new awards:

  • The FastTrack Ready Award recognizes partner excellence in assisting customers to realize value through delivery of the FastTrack Benefit for Microsoft 365. As a member of the FastTrack Ready Partner Community, the winner will exemplify the traits of a FastTrack Ready program partner, from how they engage with Microsoft, to how they execute service delivery with customers and integrate the FastTrack Benefit into their customer go-to-market approach.
  • The GSI Growth Champion Award for Microsoft GSI or advisory partners who have demonstrated significant growth across multiple solution areas, solution plays, industries and/or regions. With a strong focus on cloud migration and modernization, the Growth Champion is a recognized leader in identifying the right Microsoft Cloud solutions and successfully driving digital transformation, at scale, for our joint customers.

Read more about these two new awards and download the official guidelines here: https://aka.ms/POTYA_Guidelines

You can access the full list of awards on the Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards website and submit your nomination in advance of the deadline of 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time (PT), on April 5, 2023. To ensure you and your organization are aware of important program updates, please review the introduction section of the guidelines document. Explore the additional resources on the site for further information on how to prepare your nomination, review advice from the judges, and more.

We look forward to receiving your nominations and are excited to celebrate this year’s incredible partner innovations!

Author

  • Deanna Meyer
    Senior Director, Communications and Events, Industry & Partner Sales

    Deanna has worked in various communications, marketing, product management and sales roles at Microsoft for the past 28 years. Under her leadership, the Global Partner Solutions Communications & Events team drives the partner ecosystem storytelling for the company, focusing on intelligent cloud to edge opportunity for partners, thought leadership and transformational growth, and a digital event strategy that brings together the more traditional as well as growth areas of the commercial partner business. Deanna previously worked as Chief of Staff to the Corporate Vice President, Communications, Frank X. Shaw, where she saw end-to-end storytelling across the company and was his thought partner on the communications business and in developing his communications. In addition to storytelling, Deanna is also passionate about coaching and dedicates time to helping develop people and their communications impact as a certified ICF coach.