SBT Earns Another Modern Work Accolade

When Microsoft recognizes a partner at the Solutions Partner level, it signals real capability and trust. For clients, it means the partner has demonstrated a measurable commitment to Modern Work excellence — through skills, outcomes, and a consistent ability to support productive, secure, and well‑governed Microsoft 365 environments.

Earning the Modern Work designation confirms that Microsoft has reviewed our approach, our team’s certifications, and the results we deliver for clients across the SMB space. It assures you that our work aligns with Microsoft’s best practices and reflects a high level of capability in the Modern Work ecosystem.

Modern Work is far more than Teams or email. It is the combination of secure identity, device management, collaboration, governance, productivity, and long‑term adoption. When these elements operate as one system, businesses become more secure, more streamlined, and more predictable.

What “Solutions Partner for Modern Work” Really Means

Microsoft created this recognition to highlight partners who help clients increase productivity, improve hybrid work experiences, and adopt Microsoft 365 successfully. The evaluation is based on Microsoft’s Partner Capability Score, which looks at three major pillars:

Performance
Skilling
Client success

Partners must demonstrate capability across all three areas. This balanced scoring model ensures the designation reflects meaningful client outcomes, not simply volume, sales activity, or marketing muscle.
For SMB leaders, that means this credential is tied to real usage, real adoption, and real Modern Work expertise.

The Real Requirements, Broken Down Clearly

Microsoft tracks three core areas when evaluating a Solutions Partner for Modern Work. Below is a simplified, more accessible version of what’s required.

Performance: Ongoing Client Growth & Modern Work Adoption

Microsoft evaluates how consistently a partner is adding new Modern Work clients and implementing core workloads such as Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, Intune, Microsoft 365 Apps, and Entra ID.

How we consistently exceed expectations:
We’ve built a repeatable, structured onboarding approach that sets every client up on a secure and standardized foundation. This eliminates unnecessary tools, reduces complexity, and creates more predictable long‑term environments, which naturally leads to steady growth through referrals and positive results.

Validated Certifications & Real Expertise

Microsoft also assesses the certifications held by a partner’s team. In general, both intermediate and advanced certifications must be represented to earn credit. Relevant Microsoft credentials include:

Microsoft 365 Fundamentals
Teams Administrator Associate
Endpoint Administrator Associate
Identity & Access Administrator Associate
Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator Expert

Turning skill into real customer value:
Certifications are a baseline, but our clients experience the benefits through our decisions. Skilled engineers design better identity structures, governance, device configurations, and security policies. This connects directly to our approach outlined in our IT Strategy Committee article, where we emphasize ongoing strategy as the engine behind Modern Work stability.

Client Success: Real‑World Usage & Effective Deployments

Microsoft also tracks whether a partner is driving strong adoption of the Modern Work tools clients rely on every day. This includes:

Increased active usage across Microsoft 365
Successful deployments that reach healthy usage thresholds
Demonstrated ability to help clients get value long after the initial setup

How we help customers succeed long after setup:
Modern Work only delivers ROI when clients actually use the tools effectively. Our focus is on continual improvement across identity, devices, security, and collaboration, not one‑time projects. This is why our environments remain stable, predictable, and secure long after onboarding. This is the same philosophy outlined in our Formula for IT Management blog, where we explain how continuous improvement drives measurable business outcomes.

How We Exceed the Bar in All Three Categories

Exceeding Performance: Repeatable Onboarding and Standardization
- We move every new client through a secure and standardized Modern Work foundation. This reduces tool sprawl, eliminates special‑case settings, and stabilizes the environment so it grows cleanly.
Exceeding Skilling: Turning Expertise into Better Decisions
- Our certifications inform every decision we make about identity, devices, collaboration, and governance. This shows up in the quality of our policies, not just the number of badges.
- This approach is reinforced by the philosophy in our blog on How Microsoft 365 Business Premium Features Boost Cybersecurity, which explains how we operationalize Microsoft 365 every day.
Exceeding Client Success: Adoption, Security, and Strategy Working Together
- Real adoption happens when an environment is actively managed, improved, and supported with strategy, not just setup. Productivity and security rise together when identity, devices, governance, and user habits are managed as one system.
- IBM reports that companies using security AI and automation extensively had breach costs 2.2 million dollars lower than those with no automation.

What This Means for SMB Decision‑Makers

For small and midsize businesses, this designation gives you confidence that we can deliver the outcomes that matter most: better hybrid productivity across Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, identity, and devices, fewer preventable issues through consistent standardization, and clearer accountability because Microsoft measures us on customer success, not just project delivery. The result is a Modern Work environment that feels simpler, more secure, and easier for your team to use every day.