Adding Value with Microsoft Teams

These past 12 months have seen no end to technical advancement for so many organisations, the technical road map deliveries were put forward at a rate that could never have been predicted.  At the foundation of so many of these and dominating were Microsoft products and Microsoft's infrastructure.   

It has been classed the ‘year of Teams’ by many and whether it tied into strategic plans or had to be used outside of scope it certainly took the market by storm.  This has presented a modern way of working for so many and for some organisations it has introduced a new way to communicate, for the first time a presence-based product, and a completely new perspective around collaboration.  This has led to a far more educated user base and an understanding of the type of technologies that exist, thus leading to setting an entirely new standard of expectations.  

Platforms like Microsoft Teams and numerous other products in the vast portfolio have enabled a solid base layer to allow partners to expand off.  The challenge however is everyone has access to this portfolio so it's vitally important to find your unique value proposition off the back of the solid foundation provided. This does create vast opportunity with the right approach, as an organisation, we have been able to develop alongside some of the application programming interfaces made available which has uniquely defined some of the core differentiators in our direct routing product. A lot of time and effort has gone into understanding the partner community and the end-users which has allowed a truly tailored approach off the back of a truly advanced all-encompassing base.   

Microsoft has always been supportive of the partner channel and certainly have huge benefits and opportunities for partnership, great support and of course a core foundation of products that tick the boxes for any scale organisation. For my partner channel, it is a benefit in both directions, we are pushing end-users towards the platform they offer but can wrap in complementary expertise.  From a margin perspective, it opens a dual opportunity working in conjunction with one another.  

Every organisation differs and the ability to develop over these open-source API’s allows the channel to offer a truly tailored result.  My partners have seen success in power apps and developing unique value propositions that integrate into each offering. These solve problems, not just industry by industry but, company by company.  

Wavenet has demonstrated this in numerous ways but Teams telephony has proven to be a key differentiator and addition for our channel.  Our channel has been able to fill gaps missing from the business voice direct product and have truly enabled their customers to value to a core Microsoft platform.  The aforementioned API’s have allowed us to incorporate features that most industries deem necessary for an enterprise grade voice solution, our motto and approach to our solution is ‘a great product made better’.  

Innovation is always exciting but despite the fact we may not always think about it, from Microsoft, it's not only just exciting but also quick. We are seeing a new breed of technology and some very exciting ones ahead, things like natural language developments in PowerBI which will allow searching by general questions, real-time insights through hardware accelerators that integrate with azure learning and of course the hot topic of AI capabilities. A whole stream of updates coming to Azure and 365 will be necessary to the new breed of hybrid working we will now be seeing, compliance and identity, empowerment to defend to manage and protect employees, work, data, mental wellbeing and personal safety. Digital transformation is a buzz phrase within the industry and personally, to me, it's no secret Microsoft is dominating this space and truly adding value.