Microsoft empowers partners to drive innovation in Sri Lanka and Maldives

Microsoft hosted its annual Partner Connect event recently to empower and celebrate the Microsoft Partner Network in Sri Lanka and Maldives that unlocks innovation to build digital perseverance and business resilience

The two-day event dedicated to nurturing Microsoft’s diverse partner ecosystem, was held from the 25-26^th of October 2022 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo with the attendance of the Microsoft leadership team including Sook Hoon Cheah – General Manager, Southeast Asia New Markets, Matthew Hardman – Chief Technology Officer, Global Partner Solutions for APAC, Bindhu Nelson – Senior Director ISV Solutions, Kshitij Gopal – Director, APAC Corporate Accounts , Anh Pham – Chief Partner Officer, Southeast Asia New Markets and Harsha Randeny – Country Manager, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

The Partner Connect event highlighted the partner’s role in facilitating customers to ‘Do More with Less’ through five digital imperatives, the need to support and collaborate with both countries on a national scale to accelerate digital transformation initiatives and also celebrating the achievements and successes of the partner ecosystem.

Digital imperatives for Digital Perseverance

To navigate the turbulent headwinds affecting the countries, while continuing to deliver value to customers, Microsoft encourages partners to go beyond digital transformation. Instead, to deliver vital digital imperatives for every organization, across all industries, advancing digital technology into every business process and function helping them see they can do more with less.

Focusing on five areas for digital imperatives – migrate to the cloud, empower fusion teams, unify data and apply AI models, enable collaborative business processes and prioritize security – Microsoft emphasized how organizations can take advantage of the best-of-suite solutions across the entire tech stack, while partners can better support customer needs.

Driving country priorities and innovation agenda 

Microsoft is committed to developing solutions that can enable governments to capitalise and leapfrog into the digital future, empowering citizens and facilitating positive societal change. Microsoft country priorities for Sri Lanka and the Maldives, include focusing on enhancing governmental digital transformation and fostering skills development, support ramping productivity, collaboration and education transformation, and invest in partner capacity and talent building.  

“Digital transformation in government can exponentially improve the lives of citizens, fuel growth and contribute to the country’s economy. Microsoft priorities for Sri Lanka and Maldives are to support the leveraging of technology and drive innovation to maximize benefits. Collaborating with the governments and stakeholders in both countries, and together with our partner ecosystem we aim to assist the countries in every digital transformation process, empowering as many individuals and organizations as possible to participate in this journey,” commented Harsha Randeny, Country Manager for Microsoft Sri Lanka and Maldives.

Celebrating partner achievements and customer successes

Reaffirming its commitment to the partner ecosystem, the Partner Connect event recognized organizations who had successfully utilized Microsoft technologies, helping customers innovate and grow their businesses. Microsoft 2022 Partner of the Year Awards was presented to Sri Lankan and Maldivian partners

that have developed and delivered outstanding Microsoft-based applications, services, and devices during the past year in a wide variety of categories, including partner competencies, cloud-to-edge technologies,

security, etc.

“As more organizations recognize the power of technology, it is important for us to work with the right partners to help regional businesses reap the most out of their digital transformation journey. Working with outstanding partners who share the same purpose presents an exciting experience and we are confident that by strengthening our partner ecosystem, we will be able to unlock even more possibilities together in the future,” commented Anh Pham, Chief Partner Officer for the Southeast Asia New Markets at Microsoft.

Special Recognitions

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

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Microsoft SEA New Markets

Thilanka Abeywardena

Thilanka.Abeywardena@microsoft.com