Driving Customer and Partner Success with the New Accredited Professional Credentials

We’re excited to introduce Accredited Professional, a credential earned in Partner Learning Camp, the learning destination for Salesforce partners. Accredited Professional is specifically designed for Salesforce partners to deepen product and industry knowledge and earn distinctions in Salesforce Navigator, the primary way for partners to differentiate their expertise and demonstrate they possess the expertise and skills to drive customer success. 

With the release of Accredited Professional credentials, Salesforce Partners now have access to over 200 courses, and exams made available exclusively in Partner Learning Camp. Each exam includes an exam guide, along with curricula to help you prepare to help you pass your Accredited Professional exam. Partners who successfully pass these exams will earn an Accredited Professional credential, which can be applied to the knowledge requirements of the Salesforce Navigator program. 

We sat down with Don Lynch, SVP, Worldwide Strategic Alliances, to discuss Accredited Professional credentials and how empowering the Salesforce partner ecosystem drives customer success. 


Q. How is the partner ecosystem growing and evolving? What role do you play in it?

The Salesforce economy is creating millions of jobs around the world. In fact, the ecosystem is more than four times larger than Salesforce itself and is expected to be six times bigger than Salesforce by 2024! The partner ecosystem is a key growth driver of the Salesforce economy —  ISVs extend the functionality of our platform with customized apps, and consulting partners help customers implement technology — giving Salesforce scale and specialized expertise. 

In my role, I focus on accelerating the growth of our partner ecosystem by identifying knowledge and skill gaps by cloud, industry, and geography. I work with a team across product management, sales, marketing, and learning design to address these gaps and build enablement tools to ensure our partners have the expertise to meet customer needs now and in the future. 


Q. Why are Accredited Professional credentials important for the Salesforce ecosystem?

Inspiring our partners to expand their capabilities and drive customer success is not just what we do, it’s at the core of who we are. As our customer needs evolve, the demand for our partners to continually expand capabilities is at the top of our agenda. This is why Partner Learning Camp was created. Much like Trailhead, Partner Learning Camp offers self-paced training, but it is a learning platform exclusively for our partners. We believe the learning needs of a customer and a partner are very different. 

We saw an opportunity to empower our partners to build on the product and industry knowledge that they had earned through Trailhead certifications. Now, partners have access to over 200 new courses in Partner Learning Camp that go beyond foundational training and leverage product and industry curricula to train our partners. We found that this training often helps partners sharpen problem-solving skills when it comes to implementing the newest Salesforce core and industries products   and drives repeatable integration and implementation success. 

And now, with Accredited Professional credentials in Partner Learning Camp, partners can prove their expertise through the Salesforce Navigator program. Navigator measures a partner organization’s deployable expertise based on customer-validated industry expertise, Salesforce product knowledge, and customer success. It is the only Salesforce-approved way for partners to market expertise to customers. Trailhead certifications, in combination with Accredited Professional credentials, count towards Navigator. Previously, only Trailhead certifications counted towards Navigator distinction knowledge requirements. 

Q. How do Accredited Professional credentials benefit customers?

Success begins with trust, and trust starts with transparency. Navigator provides transparency around a partner’s capabilities. When partners do the hard work to build expertise and earn credentials, whether it be through Trailhead certifications or Accredited Professional credentials in Partner Learning Camp, it shows up in Navigator. The Expertise tab on AppExchange will be updated to reflect these achievements later in the year. As a result, when a customer chooses a partner, they can have the confidence that the partner can do the job well.  It’s an exciting time for everyone — Salesforce, our partners, and our customers. 

Learn more by exploring our additional resources:

• Learn about Partner Learning Camp
• Learn about Salesforce Navigator program
• View the list of Accredited Professional curricula and exams
• Have questions? Post them in the PLC Collaboration Group
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