The top Microsoft partners in Australia and New Zealand
Microsoft has named its top consulting and digital transformation partners worldwide, lauding three firms in Australia and New Zealand for their track record in successfully delivering Microsoft products and solutions.
At its global Partner of the Year Awards, held digitally this year amid the coronavirus outbreak, Microsoft handed out prizes to its top partners globally. Firms were recognised across a range of categories, including regional/domestic partner of the year, best partner in a specific area of expertise (e.g. cloud, modern workplace, etc) and best partners per industry.
Accenture and Avanade were named the leading partner for Australia in the past year, mainly for a project it delivered in the public sector. Accenture and Avanade were tasked with migrating approximately 50 government agencies across Australia to Azure, and not only did they succeed in six months, they also created the world’s first multitenanted SAP migration to Azure.
The team managed some 40 terabyte of data, more than 400 interfaces, 34 access methods, 49 nonproduction systems, and 42 production systems. In terms of results, the project delivered improved security and accelerated fulfilment times from eight to 12 weeks down to just one to two days.
In another commended project, Accenture and Avanade’s helped a major Brisbane hospital to save lives during the Covid-19 pandemic. Using Power Apps, Power Automate, and Azure API Management, the team produced an app in 10 days that helped doctors monitor the health and recovery of patients presenting with Covid-19 symptoms.
Across the board, Accenture and Avanade have collaborated with Microsoft on 150+ joint projects in Australia.
In New Zealand, Enlighten Designs was named partner of year for its success in helping its customers (small businesses and enterprise clients) with digital transformation. Microsoft lauded the firm’s work for small businesses, family businesses, a number of larger corporates, and services to non-profit, including helping an institution protect the oceans and sea life.
The jury report stated, “Using the Microsoft Cloud Platforms, Enlighten Designs have spent the past year continuing to build their Sitecore on Azure expertise and solutions and consolidating its position as industry leaders in Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Automate. They are also building a reputation as experts in the latest Microsoft services including artificial intelligence.”
Meanwhile, Sydney-based Barhead Solutions scooped the Partner for Social Impact award, for its work with a non-profit organisation committed to empowering and inspiring young people through recreation activities and community building. With Covid19, the non-profit had to close 90 percent of its operations and stand down thousands of critical workers.
When the Australian Government launched the ‘Job Keeper’ program to help Covid-affected organisations continue paying for staff wages, the organisation needed to process more than 5,000 employee records in a short timeframe to obtain the much-needed funding securely and compliantly. Within two days, Barhead Solutions built a PowerApp leveraging Microsoft Power Platform to process the employee records, thereby ensuring 5,000+ employees were paid.
