It is official! Softera Baltic has been awarded the title of Microsoft Country Partner of the Year 2022.

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered outstanding Microsoft-based applications, services and devices during the past year. Awards were classified in various categories, with honorees chosen from a set of more than 3,900 submitted nominations from more than 100 countries worldwide.

“I am honored to announce the winners and finalists of the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards,” said Nick Parker, corporate vice president of Global Partner Solutions at Microsoft. “These partners were outstanding among the exceptional pool of nominees, and I’m continuously impressed by their innovative use of Microsoft Cloud technologies and the impact for their customers.”

We are proud and happy to be acknowledged among the best Microsoft partners in the world.

Our journey to cloud or how we became the Microsoft Country Partner of the Year

For more than 14 years we are helping Lithuanian businesses discover how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and CRM solutions empower every person and organization to achieve more.

For us, Microsoft is not only a partner in terms of technology. We have always been curious how the technology leader envisions the future, and when we heard plans for the Cloud, our dream was clear – to become the most reliable Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS partner in Lithuania. Besides, we wanted to bust the myth that Business Central is not suitable for small businesses, because it is expensive, complex, and only applicable to larger businesses.

The Microsoft Country Partner of the Year award is a recognition of our courage to dream and achieve more. Today, looking at what we have already done, we can confidently say that we are the most advanced and leading Business Central SaaS partner in Lithuania, that offers a ready-to-use Business Central Cloud solution, named Softera.UNI.

In order to achieve the goal, we have changed and adapted

Keeping in mind that small customers have different needs and expectations in terms of price and speed, we have replaced traditional deployment projects with the Agile methodology that allows Softera.UNI to be activated for the customer within a week of signing the contract. Once activated, the solution has all the settings and data needed to start working.

We have prepared Lithuanian self-training material (videos and instructions) for user training. The consultants also prepare client specific training program, which is adapted to the client’s main processes. The training is organized in weekly meetings, during which we answer questions and agree on homework for the following week.

Our aim is not only to teach the functionality of the system, but also to help clients optimize their business and financial processes, so that the Business central solution creates real business value. For this reason, we have hired experienced financial, sales and production consultants to join Softera.UNI team.

The service process was reoriented from problem solving to proactive customer care. Few times aa quarter users are invited to free webinars “What’s New?” and receive newsletters about relevant product updates. The cornerstone of the product development process is the collection and prioritization of customer needs. This is also done using the latest technologies such as telemetry.

Investment in market education

One of the biggest challenges in achieving the dream of becoming a Business Central SaaS partner was that companies in Lithuania knew little about Business Central, Cloud and SaaS. There was a great myth that Business Central was not suitable for small businesses. The SaaS model and the Cloud were considered unreliable. Therefore, we have invested a lot of effort in communication, market education and have organized more than 30 free webinars.

This year we started with a unique and unparalleled idea in Lithuania – a free Business Central Cloud UNIversity, targeting current and future Business Central users. UNIversity “students” participated in a series of 9 lectures (24 academic hours) where Softera‘s consultants presented the main processes managed by Business Central (finance, purchase, sales, manufacturing, analytics with Power BI). Participants have broadened their knowledge of process management and learned the best practices for using the system.

We are continually working to ensure that small and medium-sized companies in Lithuania would have access to a world-class, modern system that will help businesses achieve their goals more easily and quickly. For us, being named Microsoft Country Partner of the Year is a great confirmation that we are on the right track.