AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog
Investing in AWS Training and Certification is Good for Business
By Jeremiah Jenson, Head of Global Partner Training and Enablement at AWS
Companies all across the world and in virtually every industry need cloud expertise to help them transform their business.
A survey from 451 Research shows that 90 percent of IT decision makers report cloud skills shortages. To help close this gap, companies of all sizes are looking for educated and certified partners.
This is where the skill, expertise, and knowledge of AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners makes a difference for customers. From quality solutions to implementation time and expert recommendations, customers are teaming up with APN Partners to help them get to the next level in their business evolution.
AWS Training and Certification offers free training for APN Partners, as well as AWS Certification resources designed to specifically help partners build crucial skills while achieving and maintaining APN Partner tier status.
Learn more about AWS training opportunities for APN Partners >>
Business Impacts of AWS Training and Certification
In 2018, AWS Training and Certification—along with research firm Metrics That Matter, a division of Gartner Research—conducted a global survey of nearly 6,000 APN Partners to understand the business impacts of investing in AWS Training and Certification.
APN Partners who attended AWS training or achieved AWS Certification reported a variety of benefits, including improved quality of solutions and deliverables, increased number of customers migrating to AWS solutions, and shortened implementation time.
Of all the APN Partners we surveyed who attended AWS training or achieved AWS Certification:
- 55% agreed it improved the quality of their solutions and deliverables.
- 36% agreed it increased the number of customers migrating to AWS solutions.
- 31% agreed it shortened their implementation time.
Of the APN Technology Partners we surveyed who achieved AWS Certification:
- 77% reported it helped broaden their skills.
- 94% reported at least one business benefit, such as enhanced career opportunities and enablement to sell additional AWS services.
Achieve AWS Certifications Before the December Deadline
APN Partners have until December 13, 2019 to meet the APN tier requirements for AWS Certifications.
Now is the time to achieve your Foundational and Technical AWS Certifications so that your business can continue to build strong AWS-based practices and solutions while maintaining APN tier status.
For 2019, there are several major changes related to AWS Certifications and APN tier compliance:
- AWS Foundational Certifications: APN Partners at each tier must have individuals complete AWS Foundational Certifications. AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification validates people who can effectively demonstrate an overall understanding of the AWS Cloud, independent of specific technical roles addressed by other AWS Certifications.
. - AWS Certifications for APN Technology Partners: Individuals working at APN Technology Partner organizations are required to have AWS Certifications at the Associate, Professional, or Specialty level. This new requirement ensures products built on AWS follow best practices and improve a partner’s time to market.
. - Unique Individuals vs. Total Certification Count: Rather than counting the total number of AWS Certifications per APN Partner, we are now tracking the number of unique individuals who have obtained AWS Certifications at the Associate, Professional, or Specialty level within an organization.
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The highest-level certification will be counted for each individual. In the case where someone is both an Associate and Professional-level AWS Certified Solutions Architect, the Professional-level certificate will be counted.
NEW! Track AWS Certifications Achieved Within Your Organization
We are excited to announce a new feature that helps APN Partners track the number of AWS Certifications achieved within their organization to better match the needs of your customers.
Once an AWS Certified employee consents to allow their organization to view his/her AWS Certification records, APN Partners can track which AWS Certifications their employees are earning, as well as which Knowledge tier requirements are being met by their organization.
Learn more in APN Partner Central >> (login required)
Leverage AWS Certifications to Sustain Learning
At AWS, we offer both role-based and specialty certifications to help you address the cloud skills gap, increase the expertise of your business and technical resources, and grow your AWS practice while maintaining APN tier compliance.
By investing in ongoing learning as a core function of each employee’s development, and creating a culture that values learning—validating that learning through AWS Certification—APN Partners enable their workforce to more easily adapt to constantly changing technologies.
In this video, hear from Manish Govil, Global AWS Business Head at APN Premier Consulting Partner Wipro, who discusses how AWS Training and Certification helped Wipro create a solid pool of highly trained and skilled cloud employees.