Microsoft names EY its partner of the year for Australia
Microsoft has named EY its service provider of the year for Australia at its annual Partner of the Year Awards.
At its worldwide partner event, known as Microsoft Inspire, Microsoft places the spotlights on its hundreds of partners in more than 100 countries. The technology giant has partners across all kinds of service areas, including consulting, cloud, solution implementation, and technology.
More than 3,900 Microsoft partners from 126 countries submitted nominations for the 2022 edition of the Partner of the Year Awards, with prizes handed out across functional categories and countries.
With seven awards under its belt, EY was one of the biggest winners of the ceremony, bagging recognitions in advisory services, artificial intelligence, security, sales, automation, and two country partner categories.
The firm’s Australian team was one of the country winners alongside the Hong Kong member firm, lauded for its increasing uptake of Microsoft Cloud capabilities and “placing Microsoft at the centre of its data and AI efforts”.
In the past year, EY delivered a threepart Microsoft AI workshop series in Australia that skilled 70 EY attendees in Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services and Cognitive Search.
The investment in skilling and AI led to significant customer impacts including helping Westpac Bank enhance its mortgage verification system, taking its document recognition power from 300-plus documents to more than 3,000 documents.
Meanwhile, EY’s Space Tech team helped a rail network client use artificial intelligence techniques to monitor water drainage and vegetation growth across more than 1,000 kilometres of track using satellite imagery to enable virtual, on-demand, and interactive site visits.
EY also received plaudits for its efforts in growing diversity within its Microsoft community. “EY’s commitment to increasing the diversity of talent in the STEM workforce across all service lines and sectors, with a focus on women in technology, was exceptional,” said Rachel Bondi, Chief Partner Officer at Microsoft Australia & New Zealand.
Congratulating the Australian team, Jim Little, EY’s Global Microsoft Alliance Leader, said: “By collaborating with and leveraging Microsoft teams and technologies, EY teams have been able to supercharge business and data-driven transformations for clients, helping them meet today’s challenges head on. Being honoured with a country of the year award is a testament to the work being done by our Australian practice.”
Meanwhile, at a global level, EY took home the most prestigious award in the Microsoft consulting landscape: ‘Global Advisory Services Partner of the Year’ – for the third consecutive year.
