When you join the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, you become part of a global community that connects you to the relationships, insights, tools, resources, and programs you need to deliver amazing customer solutions and drive business growth. As you achieve your business goals, you’ll have the opportunity to access benefits to meet your business needs.

Take these steps to start—and grow—your partner journey

1. Join the Microsoft Partner Cloud Program

Microsoft Cloud Partner Program membership unlocks our best resources to help you differentiate your business, take your product to market, and sell your solutions. Join the program today.

2. Activate resources to grow your business
Every partner who has signed the Cloud Partner Program agreement is allocated a single Partner Global ID and is eligible to join the Microsoft Action Pack program. The Microsoft Action Pack includes software, support, and benefits for businesses that want to start, build, and grow their Microsoft practice in a cloud-first, mobile-first world. Learn more about how to buy a Microsoft Action Pack.

When you join the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, you receive a set of benefits designed to save you time and money. Membership will help you strengthen your capabilities, better serve customers, and build connections to reach your full business potential. Learn more about the benefits.

3. Differentiate and develop your business
Differentiating your business sends a powerful signal to customers about your unique expertise and helps you stand out in the marketplace.

Attaining a Solutions Partner designation is the first step toward differentiating and demonstrating your organization’s technical capability in the following six solution areas: Data & AI (Azure), Infrastructure (Azure), Digital & App Innovation (Azure), Business Applications, Modern Work, and Security. To attain a Solutions Partner designation, partners must demonstrate their organization’s capability in Performance, Skilling, and Customer Success.

A Solutions Partner designation is a prerequisite to attaining a specialization, which is where the tangible technical depth differentiation starts. Specializations and expert programs give solutions partners a way to differentiate their organizations by demonstrating deep technical expertise along with experience in specific technical scenarios under each solution area.

4. Leverage Microsoft Partner Center
A new element of the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program is the partner capability score. This is a composite score that quantifies the performance of a partner in three categories: Performance, Skilling, and Customer Success. Solutions partners can go to Microsoft Partner Center to get an overview of their partner capability score for each designation and see where they need to gain points. You can also access extensive customer insights, allowing you to review tenants and subscriptions that are relevant to the specific solution area.

The Solutions Partner score simulator in Partner Center is useful for planning the best course of action based on how the simulated effects can impact your partner capability score. Explore the partner associations playbook to understand how to maximize points.

5. Access partner investments and incentives
As a Microsoft partner you could be eligible for incentives and investments for your Microsoft selling activities and impact. To learn more about the requirements, join our Partner Investments Forum and Office Hours every second Wednesday at 10:00 AM PT.

6. Leverage support resources and build on collective knowledge
As a Microsoft partner, you have access to different types of support options to help with various aspects of your business and the wealth of collective knowledge in the Microsoft Partner Community, where partners go to get updates and stay informed. To connect with the Partner Community:

• • Visit the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program site.
  • Explore the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program training gallery.
  • Bookmark the US Partner Insider Hub, where you can subscribe to our monthly Insider newsletter, register for our monthly Insider call, connect on LinkedIn, and more.

Get started today!

We hope you find this guidance helpful and take the steps to grow your partnership with Microsoft. Bookmark this page and keep an eye out for more US Partner Community Blogs with the latest updates and information.

Have questions? Find answers in our Microsoft Cloud Partner Program FAQ.

Use the new Microsoft Cloud Partner Playbook to learn, assess, and grow your business as a Microsoft partner!

Related posts

The Microsoft Cloud Partner Program is your foundation for growth and profitability – US Partner Community Blog

Evolving Microsoft Partner Network programs for partner growth and customer success – The Official Microsoft Blog

Join the conversation

Want to explore this and other topics you care about with Microsoft and other US partners? Head over to the Microsoft US Partner Community on LinkedIn.