Microsoft Learn helps tackle partner skills challenge, promotes lifelong learning

Mark Leigh

One Commercial Partner Lead

Microsoft Australia

The pace of change that we face nowadays means that we all need to become lifelong learners.

What we know today becomes the scaffold for what we need to learn in order to also succeed tomorrow.

ICT skills are fluid and in high demand – and that’s absolutely the case for our partners here in Australia.
The local partner network, and the 300,000 people that work in that network, play an absolutely critical role in our mission to empower Australians to achieve more. We are very well aware of how important our partners are to us and to our shared customers.

We want to work with partners to help them achieve their full potential; to help do that we want to play a more impactful role in ensuring partners have access to the right technical skills to succeed, and a learning platform that supports their employees’ lifelong learning.

That’s why we’ve developed Microsoft Learn – a comprehensive learning venue for all your team to build the skills they need to create valued solutions for your customers, and also work toward the certification that will future-proof their careers and your businesses.

Shortages of key skills are already causing pain for Australian companies with 59% of organisations believing the IT skills gap is one of the five biggest challenges associated with managing cloud and hybrid IT environments.
Globally, 77% of partners lack a formal training department and rely on other sources, including Microsoft, to deliver the training their employees need.

With that in mind, Microsoft Learn complements the work we’re doing in Australia with our National Skills Program that’s designed to help instil the sorts of skills and capabilities people need as Enterprise Australia digitally transforms itself.

Microsoft Learn adds to our existing Partner enablement programs, allowing us to offer flexible learning options – ranging from bite-sized tutorials through to longer, structured learning paths or in-person courses delivered by a certified Microsoft Learning partner.

There’s more information in Eduardo Kassner’s blog along with details about new role-based certifications.
We know that any change can be challenging, and we’re here to work with you as you start to make use of Microsoft Learn. Check out the first wave of content and course materials, sample the new experience and keep visiting as we’ll be rolling out new content through the year.