In a highly technological and fast moving world, it’s always important to think about the customer benefits and to adapt to them. Life-long learning is our motto. At the EASY Academy, in 2019, we further developed and optimized the certification processes and training formats for EASY solutions for our partners to allow them to achieve exactly this. At the 2020 Partner Kick-Off event, Johannes Schäffler, Director of the EASY Academy, provided an update about the training offerings and the current status of the feedback. On the second day, we also provided our partners with the opportunity to complete their re-certification right there, on location.
And you should also make certain that you don’t pass up the opportunity to stay in the know about everything. Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to explain the framework conditions for the certifications once again.
How you benefit from the EASY Academy as a partner
Above all else, it’s about making the different levels of certification, training sessions, courses and requirements as transparent and efficient as possible for our partners. We create a shared information basis to achieve the greatest possible degree of training success, and to make our customers more successful too.
To achieve this, we offer standardized, progressive training sessions and clear timescales, and we can even provide all our services in both German and English. In addition, various formats such as face-to-face teaching, workshops and web sessions are adapted to the different levels and requirements. This means that we have a training concept for each software product and for each role, from sales and consultants, right through to admin and support. The training sessions for EASY solutions and products are optimized even further to the needs of end customers and they are continuously under development.
We also offer both ECM and SAP training sessions. The basic ECM training covers EASY archives, DMS and workflow, and the basic SAP training covers the Process2Design platform. In addition, partners can acquire and develop individual product and problem-solving expertise according to the respective selling plan.
How is the EASY Academy for partners structured?
There are three certification levels: Business, Solution and Excellence. A different number of certified employees is required for each level, as well as a certain number of different roles, including sales professionals, technical professionals and support professionals.
Level 1: Business Partners
Business Partners are partners who are specialized in a certain industry and certain customers. It could be a niche consultancy firm or a new EASY Partner, for example. The Business Partners are able to convey specific product knowledge, and to offer services relating to administration and implementation.
To become an EASY Business Partner, there must be at least one certified sales professional and one certified technical professional in the company.
Level 2: Solution Partners
EASY Solution Partners are also given training in advanced product knowledge, such as product configurations, for example, and are given lots of implementation advice. More broadly speaking, this level also deals with the digitalization of their customers’ business processes.
For this Solution Partner certification level, you need two certified sales professionals, two certified technical professionals and one certified support professional.
Level 3: Excellence Partners
The partners who are certified for this level have an established customer base which uses the EASY Portfolio and have sufficient technical resources to cover and manage a wide range of customer requirements regarding the digitalization of business processes.
To achieve this third certification level, you need two certified sales professionals, three certified technical professionals and two certified support professionals. Altogether, you therefore need seven employees who have received training on our solutions and products through the EASY Academy.
What training do the individual professionals need?
Sales professionals need two training sessions per product and solution, both of which are web-based. The first is the basic training, which focuses on EASY products and solutions. The second is a sales training, which focuses on the right target group approach for the products. They then have to get re-certified after working in sales for a year.
By the way: The participants have to pass a test after completing their training. Therefore: Make sure you’re always paying attention!
Alongside the basic training, technical professionals also have to take part in a face-to-face training about the products. This can last up to two or three days, depending on the solution. They also have to get re-certified after working in administration and implementation consulting for a year.
Finally, the support professionals must complete a basic training about the products, an administration training session, which they then have to be re-certified for annually or after each major release, and an ECM workshop, which takes just one day.
Feedback to date
So far, our training program has also progressed very well. Johannes Schäffler provided an overview.
Around half of the participants provided feedback, 93% of whom were very satisfied.
91% of those surveyed were satisfied with the quality of both the training and the organization. The feedback regarding the training staff was even better: Believe it or not, 99% said they were very satisfied. Almost all of those who provided feedback would recommend the training offered by the EASY Academy to others.
All the details about our new partner certification program, as well as prices and training locations, are available under EASY Academy on our Partner portal.