Our guest contributor for today’s blog is Amy Boyle, Director of Commercial and Advisory Partner Enablement.
Some of the best insights we gather come directly from working with our partner organizations. As we guide them in transforming their business and driving business growth, we learn about new ways we can help other organizations tackle similar challenges and find success.
When organizations look for digital transformation partners, they look for a track record of successful, real-world technology solutions. Having a team of Microsoft-certified specialists demonstrates that a partner has the skill and knowledge to deliver. Microsoft partners such as Capgemini use their deep bench of certified technical professionals as a powerful differentiator in winning new business.
Capgemini has worked with Microsoft for more than 20 years. The company has delivered cloud solutions for more than 85% of the 200 largest public companies on the Forbes Global 2000, and their client portfolio is a “who’s who” of business and technical innovations. Capgemini was the 2022 Partner of the Year in Power Apps and a finalist for both the Partner of the Year Global System Integrator (GSI) and Partner of the Year SAP on Azure.
The organization has thousands of Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs), Microsoft Azure-certified architects, and Microsoft Cloud Solution architects. It works with Microsoft-enabled enterprises across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific and its certified professionals are critical to business growth.
Amy Boyle, the Director of Global Partner Enablement, and Sally Armstrong of the Capgemini Global Partner team discussed the impact that COVID had on their global workforce at Inspire 2022. Like most corporations, the Great Reshuffle impacted their highly skilled workforce. Armstrong likes to reframe the phenomena as a “migration of talent” and how it surfaced opportunities for skilling up a shifting talent pool.
The talent migration redefined Capgemini’s skilling strategy
Capgemini prides itself on providing access to the expertise, training, and opportunities needed to become an expert in a chosen field—whether that field is engineering, architecture, sales, project management, or any of the other 16 domain-specific professional communities. Professional development is part of the company’s DNA.
During COVID, technical experts migrated to Capgemini, bringing expertise, experience, and certifications. The rapid evolution of technology means these experts need easy access to learning opportunities that will keep their skill set fresh.
In addition to expanding its seasoned technical expert team, Capgemini wanted a talent acquisition pipeline to bring new faces to the organization. It already had onboarding programs in place for traditional new hires like college graduates and others new to a career in tech. But the organization wanted a deeper pool of diverse candidates, so it looked to people who were just returning to the workforce—new parents, veterans, or older workers looking to switch gears. These employees needed a different approach to learning the necessary skills. Regardless of skill level, training and billable hours need to go hand in hand.
Flexible skilling for all levels of learning
Capgemini was preparing to launch an internal skilling campaign just as COVID was shutting everything down. Seeing the opportunity for individuals to spend their time investing in training and developing for their future, Armstrong and her counterpart, Melinda Crohn, Microsoft Global Enablement Lead, came together to offer them virtual learning paths and self-paced training from Microsoft Learn.
Partners can access on-demand, hybrid, and interactive learning opportunities to build learning journeys that fit individual schedules, learning styles, skill level, and goals. Training events and resources deliver training for different knowledge and experience levels. Relying on the self-paced training, Capgemini saw the certification numbers start to grow—despite everything that was happening in the world.
Certification delivers a significant ROI
One key aspect of the Microsoft Learn program is the Microsoft cloud technology certification pathways for Azure, Modern Work, Security, and Business Applications. Certifications are popular for a reason. A 2021 survey by Pearson | VUE reported that certifications generate a significant ROI for an organization. People earning a certificate received pay raises (28%) and job promotions (21%). Other benefits included greater job satisfaction (76%) and a greater determination to succeed professionally (84%). Not surprisingly, 36% reported getting a new job. However, research also showed that when employers covered the costs for certification, employees were far less likely to seek new opportunities outside of the company.
Organizations had more to offer clients when their workforce earned certifications. The quality and value of work contributions from those with certifications went up (81%) and the ability to innovate and enhance work processes and outcomes rose (77%). People were more efficient (72%) and more productive (71%) in their work.
Building a learning path for your organization
Keeping workforce skills current and developing new experts is not a challenge unique to Capgemini. Partners across the globe tell similar stories. To learn more about how your organization can skill up your talent, explore a wide variety of technical and sales training opportunities here.