Microsoft Partnership Masterclass - Episode 1: Understanding Microsoft Partnerships
In this episode, discover what it really takes to enrol in the CSP programmes, find out the new minimum spend thresholds every partner must meet, and understand the key requirements for earning and maintaining a coveted Solution Designation.
In this miniseries, we are going to talk about the Microsoft partnership, what it means to be a partner with Microsoft, how to achieve a solutions designation, how to utilize your incentives and rebates, and where you can optimize your co-op dollars when it comes to spending those at the end of the day once you've earned a solution designation. To introduce myself, my name is Cole Capros. I am a Microsoft 365 solutions architect at inforcer. In my experience working with Microsoft, I've spent six years working within the modern work solution area. I do come from a licensing distributor, so day in and day out my conversations were around optimizing the Microsoft Partner Center, utilizing their programs, and making sure that my partners were able to capture as much spend or incentives that they were entitled to on a daily basis from Microsoft. For the agenda today, this one is going to be pretty high level. We are going to talk about what it means to enroll into the Microsoft partnership, what NCE looks like, the requirements, the rules, the different paid tiers, the different routes for CSP such as CSP1, CSP2 versus bill direct, and some different requirements you might not be aware of when it comes to minimum spend within each area you could start utilizing to purchase from. Finally, we will take a look at distribution and the Partner Center itself, where you'd want to enroll, and some gotchas that might stick out that you might not notice when you are enrolling for a CSP. To kick off, what is a Microsoft partnership? That would be your CSP program that you're enrolling into. We will jump into the Partner Center shortly and I’ll show you how to enroll, but CSP stands for Cloud Solution Provider. This is your agreement with Microsoft and where they go through the vetting process to register you as an LLC within the country you are trying to resell Microsoft in. One important thing to point out is the country you register your CSP in is the only country you are allowed to sell Microsoft through. If you have operations in multiple countries, you would need to register separate Partner Centers. For example, if you operate in the United States and Canada, you would need two separate Partner Centers to resell in each country. This agreement allows you as an MSP to resell Microsoft and earn revenue, incentives, and rebates. In addition to the CSP agreement, Microsoft has also introduced the Microsoft Customer Agreement, or MCA. Customers sign this to acknowledge NCE terms, including the seven-day cancellation window. Depending on your distributor, you may consent on the customer’s behalf, but the MCA must be signed the first time you purchase Microsoft licensing for a customer. This agreement remains valid as you continue to purchase licenses for them. Typically, the MCA is presented during the final step of the purchasing process where consent is required. Now, what is NCE? NCE stands for New Commerce Experience. It is extremely important to understand this model. You have a seven-day or 168-hour window to return licenses for a refund. If you over-order licenses and miss that window, you are locked into paying for those licenses for the full commitment term. When it comes to renewal and billing options, month-to-month billing is the most flexible but comes with a 20% premium. Monthly billing with an annual commitment carries a 5% premium. Annual billing with an annual commitment has no premium and is the lowest cost option. Microsoft is pushing annual commitments, and additional licenses added mid-term will prorate and co-term to the original agreement. Microsoft has also introduced three-year commitments for certain enterprise SKUs, though these are typically used in enterprise agreements. The key takeaway with NCE is to plan carefully. It is always easier to add or upgrade licenses than it is to cancel or reduce them. When purchasing Microsoft licensing, there are three channels: CSP1, CSP2, and bill direct. CSP1 involves purchasing directly from Microsoft and requires a $1 million trailing 12-month spend, along with paid support fees. This model is typically used by large enterprise MSPs. CSP2 is where approximately 95% of MSPs operate. This involves purchasing through an indirect provider or distributor such as Pax8, Ingram Micro, TD Synnex, or Sherweb. CSP2 provides access to account teams, licensing support, and program guidance without the $1 million spend requirement. The minimum spend for CSP2 is $1,000 over a trailing 12 months, which is generally easy to achieve. Bill direct means the customer purchases licenses directly from Microsoft using their own payment method. While this avoids billing management, bill direct customers do not count toward solution designation points. For solution designations, you must be CSP1 or CSP2. Distributors play a critical role by offering account management, technical support, and access to a broader marketplace of products beyond Microsoft, such as security and backup solutions. This support helps MSPs navigate Microsoft’s complex programs more effectively. To enroll in the Microsoft CSP program, go to partner.microsoft.com and select enroll. Register using your work email and provide your company details, including business registration, billing information, and address. Select the AI Cloud Partner Program and Cloud Solution Provider options, then submit your enrollment for Microsoft’s approval. Once approved, go to Account Settings in Partner Center, review your agreements, and electronically sign both the CSP agreement and the MCA. Once completed and approved, you are officially able to resell Microsoft. From there, you can connect with a distributor or Microsoft directly to begin selling, growing your footprint, and working toward incentives and rebates, which we will cover in the next episode. Thank you.
Microsoft Partnership Masterclass: Episode 2 - Achieving Microsoft Solution Designation for SMBs
In this session, unpack how rebates and Co-Op programmes work when you earn a Solutions Designation, and learn the key differences between achieving 25 points versus securing a full designation. Find out the latest Microsoft updates on licensing and promotions - so you’re fully equipped to maximise benefits and stay ahead of changes.
On this episode of what is a Microsoft partnership, today we're going to talk about how to earn your internal licenses, where to earn your incentives and rebates, how to make the most of those programs, and what you need to be aware about when you're trying to earn a solution designation. So January 2022nd of 2025, Microsoft has gone end of life with the gold and silver program as well as the action pack. They're also starting to crack down on the fact that if you're purchasing your Microsoft license for your internal tenant from a distributor, they will audit your CSP and have the option to revoke it. So you're kind of at a crossroads of where do you stand? What do you do to earn your internal licensing? They have released a few new programs and today we're going to talk about what you'll need to know about each one to make sure you're covered when it comes to licensing your team correctly as well as making sure you're earning money for your solution designation or your incentives. So, the first step would be taking a look at what licensing you need. If you know that you only need a couple licenses, you're not going after a solution designation, the partner benefits program is going to be great for you. And the reason for this is these are discounted licensing, but you do get quite a bit of value when it comes to each one of them. Now, most partners that I've worked with do sit in the partner success core benefits one. The reason for that is you get 25 business premium licenses, you'll get some bulk credit for Azure spend, you will get technical support as well as two escalated incident support tickets. So that's Microsoft's way of saying if you're going to utilize this program, we will be here to support you for any internal problems that do come up. But then again, you do have the option to purchase any of these if you do choose to fit your company that way. But the requirements to purchase these is you just need to be a partner admin within your tenant and putting your credit card on file, purchasing those licenses. You'll get the product key and you're off and running to deploy those to your internal users. This program is specifically built to just give you internal licensing. You will not get your incentives or rebates through this program. So this is a great way to replace the action pack is what Microsoft was looking to utilize this for. I do believe in the most recent update they have added Copilot to the partner success core benefits and the expanded benefits, which I think is super helpful if you're trying to utilize AI and grow your business and becoming more of the managed intelligence provider. But again, these are just internal licenses and this will be one of the new ways you'll be able to purchase it. Now, speaking of ways to purchase your licenses, the next route would be going through Microsoft Direct, and that is going to your purchases tab within the partner center and then going to the store or their web store and purchasing whatever licenses you would need there. That is also an option that you will have. They're not limiting you from doing that. That will come at full retail cost. So, the benefit to using one of these programs is it is going to be discounted. You can see the highlighted retail value there at the bottom. It is going to be a lot cheaper if you go this route to be able to purchase those licenses. But when you go to your Microsoft partner page, this will pop up for you if you're looking to utilize one of these programs. Just make sure you're picking out which one fits best for your company. Now the second option would be to purchase through a solution designation. So the solution designation is actually going to replace your gold or silver legacy programs. Now what these solution designations give you is your internal licensing, it's a status symbol, you're able to put your badge on your website, kind of flex the muscle that you are a Microsoft partner and you have earned the right to be able to say I'm part of their partner program, as well as you'll get to your incentives and rebates which is where you're going to be able to get paid from Microsoft for purely managing the licenses and working around their solution. So there's a couple things that we'll talk about getting into a solution designation here in a little bit when we dive into what you'll need to actually do to enroll into it. But one thing I always suggest is check out the solution partner designation benefits that I have linked here. What that allows you to see is the full breakdown of what licenses you will get per solution designation you unlock. Opening up the modern work solution designation does not give you access to all the Azure licensing that you would get with the Azure solution designation, but you will still be able to earn your incentives and rebates for the CSP licensing you buy. Just know when you're looking at that breakdown, all the modern work licenses will come with the modern work solution designation. You will need to unlock the specific one for those licenses if you did need some from the other ones specifically. The last thing that you also will earn with the solution designation is the ability to earn money towards a co-op. So, your Microsoft co-op is going to be where they're going to be able to help you fund to reinvest into your company. Meaning, if you want to do knowledge enablement by test taking, you want to go to Microsoft events, you want to put on a Microsoft hosted event, they will actually refund you for your spend as long as you have enough money in your co-op bucket to be able to put on those events. So that's that way it's not coming completely out of pocket. On the next episode I will show you a little bit more of a deep dive into the designation benefits and what you get per designation as well as some different areas to utilize your co-op with. But just know this is all linked on Microsoft's website. Super easy to find by just going to partner.microsoft.com and they'll have that all listed there for you as well. So before I dive into a solution designation, especially the one we're going to talk about today which is going to be your modern work, I do want to talk about a new avenue that Microsoft has opened up to earn incentives purely. So that's going to be your 25 PCS or your partner capability score. This is a new program and it seems like they're releasing new ones every day, so this is something that you want to keep in mind. To earn a solution designation you will need to earn 70 out of 100 total PCS points. For earning the 25 PCS you need to earn 25 total points within one of the three areas that you'd be eligible for: modern work, security, or Azure. To be able to do that there's three different pools of points you can hit: net new customer adds, scaling, and consumption-based usage of the products you're deploying. For this to work, you need to maintain that 25 points month over month. The moment you drop below 25 points, you'll become ineligible for that month to earn incentives for that one area. But the moment you jump back over, your incentives will kick back in. Achieving the 25 points might seem like a lot, but there's actually some ways you can work around this. For modern work, the skilling portion alone can get you to 25 points. Think reinvesting in your internal technicians, having them take exams like MS700 or Teams Room and Teams Meeting technical assessments. That helps their day-to-day work and, in the background, anytime you sell Microsoft licensing you earn incentives and payouts. For the 25 PCS all you need to do is make sure you're earning it towards modern work, Azure, or security, and that you are part of the CSP2 program. Direct CSPs are not eligible, and CSP1 partners would only be eligible for a solution designation. For CSP2, this will be your bread and butter if the 70-point threshold feels too high initially. It allows you to continue earning incentives and rebates while working towards the full solution designation. Ultimately, the goal is to get to 70 points so you can earn the badge, co-op funds, incentives, and internal licenses. This 25-point path just gives you the ability to earn incentives along the way. So let's talk about the solution designations themselves. There are six core solution designations, and Microsoft is adding a Copilot-specific one as well. These designations are where you'll earn incentives, rebates, internal licensing, and the status badge for your website and events. They're not easy to achieve, but that credibility helps position you as a trusted Microsoft partner. Today we're focusing on the modern work SMB designation. Modern work has two paths: SMB and enterprise, differentiated by customer size in your partner center. For SMB, customers must be between 11 and 300 users. They don't need to be new to Microsoft, just new to you as a partner. By creating a new relationship in Partner Center, you'll start earning credit. Net customer adds are worth two points per customer, maxing at 20 points, and operate on a rolling 12-month basis. After a year, those points fall off, reinforcing year-over-year growth. You don't need to max every category, but you must score at least one point in each and reach 70 overall. Skilling is the easiest to control: two intermediate certifications from two different people, and one advanced certification. Existing certifications can be linked in Partner Center. For advanced, check prerequisites and align them with your intermediate exams. The Teams Meeting and Meeting Room technical assessment is often the easiest advanced option. Deployments and usage growth are typically the hardest. You won't earn deployment points for workloads already deployed by a previous MSP. New deployments must reach 40% active usage in the tenant to count. Usage growth compares current usage against the prior year to determine growth, encouraging stickiness and adoption of Microsoft services rather than reverting to legacy tools. In Partner Center, you can track all of this under Membership. Partner benefits and solution designations are listed there, along with your progress toward points. Incentives and payouts are tracked under the incentives tab, which requires incentives admin permissions. From there you can monitor your monthly payouts. If you have any questions, reach out to us here at inforcer. We're happy to help. Distributors also have teams dedicated to helping partners navigate these programs. Thanks again for coming to episode two, and tune back into episode three where we'll cover real use cases and how to optimize these programs to ensure you're fully paid out.
Episode 1: Understanding Microsoft Partnerships
