For the 14th time, Jakub Skałbania, the founder of Netwise, has been awarded the title of Microsoft Most Valuable Professional in the CRM field. Since 2010, he has consistently been among the top experts worldwide who actively share their knowledge and experiences.
Most Valuable Professional
Microsoft MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional) is a title awarded by Microsoft to technology experts who have deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services. The company emphasizes that MVPs have the ability to combine different platforms, products, and solutions to identify and solve complex problems. Qualified candidates must demonstrate leadership skills and the ability to share knowledge with others. The title is currently awarded in 12 categories (which have changed over the years), and one of them, in which Jakub was recognized, is Business Applications – encompassing CRM, ERP, and the Power Platform.
Individuals with the MVP title form a global community of over 3,000 technical experts in all Microsoft technologies across 90 countries and regions.
– says Jakub Skałbania, Founder and CGO of Netwise.
It’s worth noting that commercial activities do not influence the acquisition of the title. It cannot be obtained by selling a certain number of licenses or acquiring new clients. Only activities for the community such as speaking at conferences, conducting recorded webinars, or publishing articles, are evaluated, always focusing on the knowledge possessed and shared.
All my activities evaluated by Microsoft for MVP are carried out in my free time, it’s my personal time. Whether it’s a conference in the United States where I am a speaker or a blog post, it’s never advertising for Netwise. Furthermore, even the most attractive sales webinar organized by the Netwise Team is not considered for revaluation of the award to maintain complete transparency of this title. That’s why achieving MVP status is not a simple and easy matter.
Combining such activities with running a business is not easy, especially when it comes to being a judge during the Imagine Cup Junior 2023 (a competition for students from around the world dedicated to AI), speaking as a presenter at the Microsoft Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas, writing blog articles, and recording podcasts.
Currently, there are four individuals in Poland holding the Most Valuable Professionals Business Applications title, and it should be noted that this category encompasses all Microsoft business technologies in the CRM, ERP (F&O and Business Central), and all Power Platform components.
Early Adopter Program and knowledge base
As mentioned on Microsoft’s website, the MVP title is one of the quantifiers for the Early Adopter Program. The main goal of the program is to gain a better understanding of new functionalities and acquire valuable knowledge before introducing product changes on a wide scale. The experience gained through the AEP positively impacts later cooperation with clients, as the team has a chance to prepare and improve their adoption plan and even test some scenarios in a production environment among a selected group of EAP participants. Depending on the product, webinars may also be available within the program, during which questions are answered, feedback is collected, schedules are shared, and support is offered.
MVP titles are awarded in specific categories, meaning that among the honored individuals are outstanding specialists from various Microsoft business areas. This opens the door for direct knowledge and insights exchange among the awardees, resulting in mutual support among exceptional engineers in challenging and technically complex topics.
However, these are not the only benefits that Microsoft guarantees to award recipients. As the company emphasizes, they also gain direct communication channels with product teams and receive invitations to the Global MVP Summit—an annual event held at the global headquarters in Redmond, where the best specialists from around the world gather. The awardees also establish close relationships with local Microsoft teams whose role is to support MVPs in meeting their needs and leveraging available opportunities in the local ecosystem.
You can find more about MVP on the website: https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/