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Appropriate roles: Referrals admin | Referrals user
Microsoft has a large ecosystem of partners who are skilled in helping our customers achieve their goals with Microsoft technologies. Services co-sell enables such skilled partners who attain Microsoft AI Cloud Partner program designations to unlock better outcomes by working with Microsoft sellers in a co-selling motion. Furthermore, such qualified Microsoft partners who have either Solutions partner designations, Specializations, or Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP), can now co-sell with Microsoft sellers without having to publish a marketplace Consulting services offer.
Note
Opportunities that are part of Microsoft Commerce Incentive program (MCI) are tracked as co-sell opportunities. Learn more about MCI engagements.
Publish a business profile
We encourage our services partners to publish a business profile in the Referrals workspace. This profile showcases their capabilities and designation status to Microsoft Sellers appropriately in our internal tools as well on the marketplace listing. To learn more about how the recently modernized business profiles, see Create a business profile.
Note
A business profile admin role is necessary to create and update the business profile listing.
Create a services co-sell opportunity
Partners can now create a Services co-sell opportunity in the Referrals workspace in Partner center and request help from the Microsoft Sales team. A typical services co-sell opportunity includes a Partner role field that indicates what role the partner would like to play in the deal such as Presales envisioning, Migration, and so on.
The following roles are applicable for Services co-sell deals:
- Presales envisioning
- Solution design
- Proof of concept
- Business strategy
- Deployment services
- Adoption and change management
- Transaction
- Managed services
In addition to specifying their role, a Services partner must also indicate the appropriate customer objective - the Solution area and Solution play for the opportunity - to help us direct the opportunity to the appropriate seller in the Microsoft Sales team. This additional information also helps the Microsoft seller understand the customer needs in familiar terminology to make the partner and seller interactions seamless. Partners can optionally add their consulting services offer/solution to the opportunity, but it's no longer required to actively co-sell with Microsoft.
The following table shows the values for Solution Areas and Solution Plays for FY26.
| Solution Area | Solution Play |
|---|---|
| AI Business Solutions | Converged Communications |
| AI Business Solutions | Data Security |
| AI Business Solutions | Sales Transformation with AI |
| AI Business Solutions | Copilot and Agents at Work |
| AI Business Solutions | Secure AI Productivity |
| AI Business Solutions | Scale with Cloud and AI Endpoints |
| AI Business Solutions | Innovate with Low Code AI and Agents |
| AI Business Solutions | ERP Transformation with AI |
| AI Business Solutions | Service Transformation with AI |
| AI Business Solutions | AI Ready with Surface Copilot PCs |
| AI Business Solutions | Scale Business Operations with AI |
| AI Business Solutions | Drive Cloud Success through Unified with Enhanced Solution |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Innovate with Azure AI Apps and Agents |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Unify Your Data Platform |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Migrate and Modernize Your Estate |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Modern SecOps with Unified Platform |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Protect Cloud AI Platform and Apps |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Copilot and Agents at Work |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Scale with Cloud and AI Endpoints |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Innovate with Low Code AI and Agents |
| Cloud and AI Platforms | Drive Cloud Success through Unified with Enhanced Solutions |
| Microsoft Unified | Drive Cloud Success through Unified with Enhanced Solutions |
| Security | Protect Cloud AI Platform and Apps |
| Security | Data Security |
| Security | Modern SecOps with Unified Platform |
| Security | Migrate and Modernize Your Estate |
| Security | Secure AI Productivity |
| Security | Unify Your Data Platform |
| Security | Converged Communications |
| Security | Drive Cloud Success through Unified with Enhanced Solutions |
| Security | Copilot and Agents at Work |
Receive a services co-sell opportunity
Microsoft sellers can now send co-sell opportunities to Services partners who attain Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program designations, Specializations, or Azure Expert MSP. Microsoft sellers evaluate these partners for co-selling based on the partner's business profile that is published in Partner center. These opportunities shared by Microsoft sellers are available in the Inbound tab in the Co-sell opportunities page.
Specifically, the field is introduced in the services co-sell opportunity: Partner role, to help partners qualify such opportunities. A Partner role is the role that a services partner can play in the opportunity based on their endorsements, such as migration. Services co-sell opportunities also have Solution area and Solution play fields indicate the customer's needs. This additional information helps partners understand the opportunities and deliver the best outcome for the customer.
Note
Partner Program field is retired and there is no impact on referrals.