We have some good news to share: Finchloom has earned the Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security designation.
It joins our existing Microsoft designations in Modern Work and Infrastructure (Azure), recognizing our team’s capabilities in helping customers protect their organizations through Microsoft security, compliance, and identity solutions.
We’re proud of the team for earning it. For our customers, it’s another way to see that the people advising them and working in their environments have demonstrated Microsoft expertise.
If you’re looking for a Microsoft security partner, here’s what the designation means and what else to consider.
What Is a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security?
A Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security is a partner that has met Microsoft’s requirements for technical skills, business performance, and customer success in its security solution area.
That includes eligible certifications held by the partner’s team and a record of helping customers deploy and use qualifying Microsoft security technologies.
Earning the designation takes an investment in people and training, along with experience delivering solutions for customers. It provides an outside measure of a partner’s capabilities, giving businesses a useful starting point when deciding who to trust with their Microsoft security needs.
For Finchloom, it adds formal recognition to work that touches nearly every customer relationship.
How Do You Choose a Microsoft Security Partner?
Start with their qualifications, then ask how they’ll work with your business.
A designation helps establish technical capabilities. You’ll also want to understand the partner’s experience with environments like yours, how they explain recommendations, and whether they can help carry out the work.
Useful questions include:
- What experience do you have with the Microsoft technologies we use?
- How will you account for our existing systems and internal IT resources?
- Can you help with implementation and ongoing support?
- Who will we work with when we need advice or technical help?
At Finchloom, we’re 100% Microsoft-focused. We spend our days working with these products, helping customers use them, and keeping up with what’s changed.
We also get to know the customers using them. That combination helps us give advice that fits the business and follow through when it’s time to put a recommendation into practice.
What Qualifications Should a Microsoft Security Partner Have?
Look for relevant Microsoft certifications, demonstrated customer experience, and the ability to explain how their expertise applies to your needs.
Certifications show that team members have met technical requirements. Customer experience helps establish whether they can apply that knowledge in a working business environment.
You should also ask who will be doing the work. The engineers supporting your business need to understand the technologies involved, the effects of proposed changes, and how those changes will be managed after deployment.
The Solutions Partner for Security designation brings several of these measures together through Microsoft’s qualification requirements. We’re pleased to have earned it, and happy to talk with customers about the team and experience behind it.
Your Business Changes. Security Needs to Keep Up.
Most businesses don’t stand still for long. People join and leave. Teams take on new responsibilities. Someone introduces an application, opens another location, or starts using a new cloud service.
Each change can affect security, even when it seems routine.
Take an employee moving into a new role. They may need access to different files, applications, or systems. Giving them that access is one task. Reviewing what they no longer need is another. Over time, people can accumulate permissions that made sense for a previous job but aren’t appropriate for their current one.
Devices change, too. Your business might start with company-owned laptops, then introduce personal phones, shared devices, or equipment for employees working in the field. Your IT team needs a way to protect company information across those devices, with policies that account for how people actually use them.
Applications and cloud services bring their own decisions. Who can access them? What information can be shared? Who is responsible for managing them? A new tool can become part of everyday work well before anyone revisits the controls around it.
AI adds another reason to pay attention. As employees gain new ways to find and use company information, existing permissions deserve a closer look. Access that was overlooked before may become much more apparent when information is easier to discover.
These are practical questions for IT teams. Working with a partner who knows your environment helps you address them as the business changes.
Can a Microsoft Partner Help Secure Both Microsoft 365 and Azure?
Yes, a Microsoft partner with experience across both platforms can help address security needs in Microsoft 365 and Azure. When choosing one, ask about their capabilities in each platform and how they manage the connections between them.
The licenses you buy, the way you manage devices, and the permissions you give employees all contribute to how well your business is protected. Cloud applications and infrastructure bring additional considerations.
A change to an access policy might affect how employees sign in. A device policy might change what they can do on a personal phone. A licensing decision might determine which protections are available to your IT team.
Finchloom works across Microsoft 365, Azure, identity, security, and endpoint management. Our designations in Modern Work, Infrastructure (Azure), and Security reflect capabilities across these connected areas.
When we recommend a change, we consider how it will work in your environment, what it will mean for employees, and who will manage it once it’s in place.
Why Work With a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security?
The designation gives you evidence that a partner has met Microsoft’s requirements in security. It can help you narrow your options and ask more informed questions about the expertise available to your business.
That expertise can also help you make better use of your existing investment.
One thing we see regularly is customers paying for Microsoft capabilities they haven’t deployed. Their IT team may have planned to introduce them but had other priorities. Or the organization may have bought a license without fully understanding everything it included.
Before spending more, it helps to know what you have, what’s in use, and whether it’s configured appropriately.
Our job is to help customers work through those choices. If something you already own can meet the need, we’ll explain how. If you need additional capabilities, we’ll explain why and what it will take to put them in place.
Microsoft Expertise, With People You Know
Customers often come to us because they want more advice and guidance from their Microsoft partner. They want someone they can call, someone who remembers their environment, and someone who can help get the work done.
That’s how we build relationships.
We get to know your team by name. We remember the projects we’ve worked on together and the reasons behind earlier decisions. When you come back with a question, we can build on that history.
Some customers have an internal IT team that can take our recommendations and run with them. Others need help with deployment or ongoing support. We work with both, bringing in our engineers where they’re needed.
Earning the Security designation gives customers another reason to feel confident in the expertise behind that advice and hands-on work.
Thank you to our team for earning this recognition, and to our customers for trusting us with their Microsoft environments.
Have a question about security in your Microsoft environment? Talk to Finchloom.