In this article: The Opportunity | Program Components | Partner Success Team | Partner Program Team | Microsoft Team | FastTrack Ready Partner Team | Microsoft Team | Success Team FAQ
The Opportunity
The FastTrack Partner Community Team supports FastTrack Ready Partners (FRPs) who work with commercial, education, or government customers with 150+ Microsoft 365 licenses to deliver the FastTrack Benefit. Through the deployment and adoption of Microsoft 365, FRPs accelerate customers' success by complementing the customer's unique needs with their skills and expertise, or value-added services (VAS).
The combination of the FastTrack Benefit and VAS allows FRPs to provide customers with a truly customized onboarding experience.
Program Components
The program consists of three components:
- FastTrack Partner Community Team - Comprised of the Partner Program Team and Microsoft-wide resources.
- FastTrack Methodology - The repeatable method partners use to ensure a smooth transition for the customer to the cloud.
- Delivering the Benefit - The "how-to" of the FastTrack Methodology.
Partner Success Team
Within the partner organization, specific individuals need to be assigned roles. The most critical role is the Primary Point of Contact. This person will be the FastTrack Partner Program expert and they will participate in Rhythm of Business (RoB) calls with customers. They will also work with the Partner Success Manager (PSM) to review customer portfolios for onboarding and adoption opportunities and provide insights, feedback, and success stories regarding the program.
Partner Program Team
The Program Team provides worldwide and regional support for FRPs. The team monitors program success factors and solicits feedback from partners, customers, and PSMs to create actionable insights.
Partner Program Team activities include:
- Programming support to help partners effectively implement the program.
- Collecting and acting on partner feedback.
- Creating and testing program improvements.
- Providing a strategic roadmap.
- Escalating all program issues (payment, claims, and disputes).
- Ensuring alignment with Microsoft field teams and initiatives.
Microsoft Team
| Microsoft Roles | Responsibilities |
| Account Executive | - Manages, orchestrates, and leads a virtual team and closes opportunities with customers that produce transformative business outcomes.
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| Customer Success Account Manager (CSAM) | - Leads the success planning, delivery execution, and support team, orchestrates Cloud Solution Providers (CSP), projects, and milestones.
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| Customer Success Manager (CSM) | - Accountable for Modern Work (MW) Customer Success, drives adoption and usage by delivering business-focused workshops.
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| FastTrack Architect (FA) | - Assists the customer with the engagement kick-off, coordination of the M365 deployment by involving the necessary resources when needed, and the creation of a deployment plan when applicable (not all customers require a deployment plan).
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| Partner Success Manager (PSM) | Microsoft’s main point of contact to partners; PSMs assist an assigned set of partners in delivering the FastTrack Benefit to customers. The PSMs success is directly tied to their partner's success. PSMs responsibilities include:- Coaching how to deliver the FastTrack Benefit to customers based on the customers’ needs and intentions.
- Training partners on how to use FastTrack resources.
- Explaining how to use available reporting to identify new opportunities.
- Conducting regular portfolio reviews.
- Providing access to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) Note: This is only available to partners who opt-in to the FastTrack Ready Partner Program.
- Collecting partner insights and feedback.
- Advocating, managing, and resolving field escalations.
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| FastTrack Engineer (FE) | Responsible for the technical aspects of onboarding and migrating M365 and EMS workloads, including:- Proactive guidance
- Remediation assistance.
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| FastTrack Migration Support Team (MST) | The Migration team is responsible for:- Running the migration tools and reports.
- Offering support and guidance (upon request) to the customer.
- Liaising between the customer and the Migration team.
- Available 24/7/365.
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| Subject Matter Expert (SME) | A Subject Matter Expert specializes on specific workloads, i.e., Teams, Migration, Viva, Windows 365, or Exchange Online. |
FastTrack Ready Partner Team
| Partner Roles | Responsibilities |
| Executive Sponsor | - Supports the rollout of the program in the partner organization.
- Provides community management, including gathering feedback.
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| Primary Point of Contact | - Point of contact between the partner organization and Partner Success Manager (PSM).
- Works with Rhythm of Business (RoB) and assists FRPs when blockers and/or issues are identified.
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| Partner FastTrack Manager (P-FM): | - A Partner FastTrack Manager (P-FM) is a resource who manages the relationship with the customer and coordinates with the CSU team and FastTrack Architect. This role often provides support in pre-sales, sales, consulting, and Benefit delivery.
- The P-FM recommended training for partners can be found in the FRP Academy and the Knowledge Badge exams.
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| Partner FastTrack Engineer (P-FE) | - A Partner FastTrack Engineer (P-FE) is a technical delivery role that will deliver the technical onboarding guidance. The guidance exists in predefined actions (Tasks) within the FastTrack Playbook.
- The P-FE recommended training (up to a Level 200 expertise) for partners can be found in the FRP Academy and the Knowledge Badge exams.
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| Success Team FAQ
Tip! Most problems occur when the Point of Contacts are not aligned with the program.
Some easy solutions:
- Problem: Only one Point of Contact has a full understanding of the FastTrack Ready Program.
- Solution: Have the entire team attend the FRP Academy OnDemand Training.
- Problem: The Delivery Team Point of Contact doesn’t understand how to deliver the FastTrack Benefit or how to integrate value-added services.
- Solution: In addition to attending the FRP Academy training, the Delivery Team must learn how to deliver the FastTrack Benefit through available resources.
- Problem: The Sales Team Point of Contact doesn’t know how to implement the FastTrack Benefit and/or FastTrack Ready Program in their sales pitch.
- Solution: Create value-added services in addition to understanding the FastTrack Benefit and teach the sales team how to deliver that message.
- Problem: The Executive Sponsor is not reinforcing the FRP message throughout the organization.
- Solution: The Executive Sponsor is the preferred communicator of the FRP message throughout the organization and should communicate support and promote the change, empowering the chosen stakeholders in the organization.
Microsoft provides the partner with an expert support team to remotely deploy the FastTrack Benefit to customers.
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