The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is one of BrainStorm’s favorite events each year—and this year was no exception. In addition to a host of amazing speakers, hundreds of sessions, and thousands of partners coming together to collaborate and network, BrainStorm was named the Microsoft West Region EPG Specialty Partner of the Year for demonstrating outstanding performance and a providing a lasting contribution in FY15.

Marty Loughlin, West Region PTU Director, said this about BrainStorm when presenting the award, "BrainStorm went above and beyond...[They are] absolutely the white glove treatment for Office 365 customers."

In FY15, BrainStorm hosted the End-User Training Program, which was created to help organizations utilize complimentary adoption, training, and communication tools to encourage end-user learning and utilization of Office 365. Participating organizations received BrainStorm QuickHelp, the eQuick Start Card for Microsoft Office 365, and in some cases, Instructor-Led Training for 90 days to jumpstart Office 365 deployments. While this program was available to organizations nationwide, some of the greatest success stories came from the West Region. Here are just a few big wins from BrainStorm customers:

• Global Visual Communications Company: Due to the nature of their global organization, this company needed solutions that would accommodate multilingual users worldwide. BrainStorm QuickHelp (which includes Bing translation in over sixty languages) helped this organization deploy Office 365 to their entire organization. Their Office 365 utilization went from 5 percent to 81 percent after BrainStorm training solutions were put into place. Trés bien!
• National Airline: With 14,000 end users migrating from First Class to Office 365, this organization needed solutions that would help many users make the most of their software investment. With BrainStorm QuickHelp, Quick Start Cards, and over 240 live instructor-led training sessions, their utilization of Office 365 went from 7 percent to 76 percent.

The utilization and adoption of Office 365 is what we're all about, and to see utilization rates skyrocket as a result of the BrainStorm-Microsoft partnership is our biggest reward. We can't wait to see what comes of our partnership next!

Eric Farr, Principal at BrainStorm says this about winning the award, “We’re extremely grateful to Microsoft for this award and are thrilled to be recognized for our work in FY15. Microsoft has always been a huge supporter of BrainStorm’s end-user adoption solutions—this award represents a big win for the BrainStorm team, but a bigger win for the customers who have benefited from our partnership. We’d like to congratulate our fellow partners for the impressive work they do to improve the way people work.”

But enough about us, to learn more about what went on at WPC, read our WPC Recap post.