The Microsoft Partner Centre, which provides a place for partners to connect within the company’s global ecosystem, has been enhanced with new extensions and capabilities to bolster how partners accept and share referrals for solutions with third-party providers.

In an April blog post, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Group, Gavriella Schuster, assured partners of the company’s commitment to safeguarding business continuity and ramping up business potential.

“We look forward to continuing to evolve our relationship with all of our commercial partners in the months and years to come,” she said. “I think now more than ever, given the impact and magnitude of the COVID-19 situation, it’s important to continue to focus on our path forward. I’m proud of the work Microsoft is doing and the investments the company has made to support our customers and partners during these challenging times.”

This follows on from Schuster’s first major post related to Covid-19 covering new resources for partners and their customers related to remote work.

Microsoft has taken leadership in countering the many business disruptions resulting from Covid-19 with constant evolution to partner incentives across its technology stack, especially in the digital experience. Microsoft has bolstered incentives, programmes, training and issuing competency across its Azure and Teams portfolios, as well as increased its online training and certifications with improved access to digital marketing resources. Microsoft Partner Agreement implementation plans are also currently postponed.

In addition to this Microsoft recently announced a new specialisation on Adoption and Change Management that focuses on partner expertise in driving usage of Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and Yammer.

As Microsoft’s intensifies its initiatives to help partners navigate the current climate of halted or transformed business, other vendors including Umbrellar are boosting their managed cloud services. Many cloud-service providers are in hot demand to keep healthcare on the frontline, help governments understand and track Covid-19, and improve education from home initiatives. Others are needing to quickly re-evaluate their strategic focus.