Gavriella Schuster (Microsoft)
Microsoft has honoured the leading ASEAN partners on a global stage, recognising customer innovation and excellence through the channel.
Unveiled ahead of Microsoft Inspire - running as a digital-only event on 21-22 July - the technology giant recognised in-country achievements across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, with more than 3,300 submissions received globally across over 100 countries.
AvePoint was recognised as the standout Partner of the Year in Singapore, with Enfrasys Consulting and Mitra Integrasi Informatika taking home honours in Malaysia and Indonesia respectively.
In the Philippines, Infosys was acknowledged, in addition to VST ECS, Tech Data and BIM Advanced Technology Services in Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar respectively. Meanwhile in Brunei, Tech One Solutions claimed in-country recognition, alongside HKBN Enterprise Solutions in Hong Kong.
“Congratulations to this year’s winners and finalists and to all of the partners who have demonstrated such skill, commitment, and compassion in a truly unusual year,” said Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president of One Commercial Partner at Microsoft.
“These partners go above and beyond, delivering timely solutions that solve the complex challenges that businesses around the world face - from communicating and collaborating virtually to helping customers realise their full potential with Azure cloud services, and beyond.”
Winners were selected based on commitment to customers, solution impact in relation to the market and "exemplary use" of Microsoft technologies, in addition to 49 specific categories spanning technology, products and verticals.
“Our partners have been working and innovating, building technologies across the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge that allow organisations of all types to connect, operate, and carry on,” added Schuster, in reference to the economic challenges created by Covid-19.
“We’ve seen amazing displays of agility and creativity as partners navigate a new world for their businesses, while still supporting customers and building new products and services.”
Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards:
Singapore - AvePoint
A Microsoft partner since 2001, AvePoint has spearheaded some of the largest and most complex SharePoint, Microsoft 365 and modern workplace implementations, driven by the demand for workplace transformation.
Today, more than 16,000 companies and six million SharePoint and Microsoft 365 users worldwide leverage AvePoint software and services for data migration, management and protection needs, spanning cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments. This includes more than 150 Singapore organisations across critical sectors such as finance, retail, education and government.
Malaysia - Enfrasys Consulting
As one of the leading system integrators in Malaysia, Enfrasys Consulting demonstrated strong performance in FY20 with 170 per cent year-over-year growth in Azure consumed revenue business.
The provider continues to transform by expanding across three cloud pillars - Microsoft 365, Azure and Dynamics 365 - in addition to enhancing skilled resources to achieve 13 gold status competencies.
During the Covid-19 outbreak, Enfrasys stepped up to help customers in various segments through the delivery of a strategic business continuity plan, utilising Teams and Windows Virtual Desktop.
Indonesia - Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII)
MII operates as one of the largest system integrators in Indonesia, driving digital transformation solutions through Microsoft. The business built bigger capacity and capabilities with Microsoft by doubling resources across technical, solution practice and service divisions, contributing 30 per cent of the vendor's Indonesia cloud revenue in FY20.
Philippines - Infosys
Infosys partnered with Microsoft to drive transformation in one of the largest conglomerates in the Philippines. Despite the complexity of the requirement—from an SAP on Azure opportunities to a larger scope that included non-SAP workloads— Infosys operated as a "consistent system integrator" for the duration of the sales cycle.
With deep workshop and technical sessions, Infosys offered specialised expertise across infrastructure, apps, and operations.
Thailand - VST ECS
VST ECS has undergone significant digital transformation to become a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) with strong achievements in terms of revenue contribution and market reach. And as a tier-2 CSP, VST ECS has "proactively recruited and enabled" resellers during the digital transformation process.
The distributor recorded the highest number of cloud partner and customer reach in FY20, alongside investing in dedicated resources, such as subject matter experts for Microsoft Cloud solutions. The business has also recruited ISVs through helping providers migrate from on-premises to the cloud through a tailored framework.
Vietnam - Tech Data
Tech Data operates as a Microsoft Cloud Service Producer (Indirect) in Vietnam, conducting enablement activities to train resellers on both the sales and technical aspects of cloud, backed by consultancy and support services.
Solutions ranged from Office 365 to EMS, server migration and SAP on Azure, resulting in cloud growth of 102 per cent year-on-year.
Tech Data also assisted resellers with managing Microsoft licence purchases, including quotes and billing, as well as oversees customer subscriptions through its StreamOne Cloud Marketplace.
Myanmar - BIM Advanced Technology Services (BIM ATS)
BIM ATS' customer - a major banking institution - was close to suffering from a major cyber security breach resulting from the lack of visibility and understanding of different activities performed by nearly 300 branches, 6,000 banking staffs and over 100 on-premises staff.
The provider was selected to analyse and assess the risk situation, deploying Office 365 in Hybrid Configuration in addition to migrating the business to Azure Active Directory and all remaining users to Office 365.
This was alongside deploying integrated enterprise security solutions including Microsoft Sentinel and Azure Security Center, Microsoft Azure Monitor, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft ATP, and Office 365 DLP and E-Discovery, as well as providing a "high availability" email and communication platform and "scalable cloud resources".
Brunei - Tech One Solutions
Tech One's partnership with Microsoft has spanned more than a decade across various countries and organisations, operating as a regional end-to-end ECM solutions provider and Microsoft specialist across Southeast Asia.
Hong Kong - HKBN Enterprise Solutions
The partnership of Microsoft and HKBN Enterprise Solutions actively promotes modern workplace solutions with various products instead of just one single offering. The provider's "quick response" to Covid-19 helped address challenges for 60 per cent of the 10-staff SME market.
