Quorum Cyber signs the Microsoft Partner Pledge

Microsoft’s commitment to working with partners is helping drive digital transformation for people, organisations and industries around the world.

That is why Quorum Cyber is delighted to be supporting Microsoft’s Partner Pledge for 2021, sharing their global vision to empower every person and organisation to achieve more.

As a Microsoft Gold Partner and member of Microsoft Intelligent Security Association, one of the few MSSPs globally to hold this distinction, the commitment behind the Partner Pledge sits perfectly with our own mission of not only just ‘doing the right thing’ but being part of a wider community, sharing the same values.

By signing the Microsoft Partner Pledge we are committing to their critical goals, with fives pillars; Digital Skills, Apprenticeships, Diversity & Inclusion, Responsible and Ethical AI and Sustainability.

Here’s what this means and how we are committing to this vision;

Digital Skills

Aims to raise awareness of digital skills initiatives and take advantage of opportunities to provide staff and partners with new skills, while promoting the same initiatives to customers.

We are committed to providing every employee the opportunity to embark on a guided Microsoft training path, including some core courses and then specialisation based on the roles and/or teams they belong to. Core courses for any technical team include:

• MS-500; Microsoft 365 Security Administrator
• AZ-500; Azure Security Engineer Associate
• Ninja Training for Azure Sentinel
• Ninja Training for Azure Defender

We operate on an “always be training” policy and all employees, regardless of team, are working towards their next professional development milestone (including courses, certifications, research papers). Running a fortnightly Quorum Cyber Academy session, internal staff or special guests present a keynote or workshop on a specific technology, including a regular visit from industry experts, such as Microsoft Technical Specialists.

Lastly, we keep a comprehensive knowledge platform internally, where we ensure we are up-to-date with industry news, product developments, and events of interest. We attend Ignite, and all other Microsoft specific webinars to ensure we have the latest intelligence and can provide the most advance support to our customers.

Apprenticeships

Aims to help address the skills gap, helping people gain the right qualifications for the right job.

According to Microsoft, the UK needs more than 3 million skilled people in technology careers by 2025. We are extremely proud to have gained a significant and positive reputation in the wider market that has enabled us to attract new talent as well as the investment in Graduate Apprenticeship programs, to help further employees’ education and careers.

Our Graduate Apprentice Program aims to attract individuals regardless of their knowledge, experience or age, who are looking to achieve a degree while working at the same time. Since 2020 we have had a number of  individuals join the company remotely, as part of this program. Read Elizabeth’s story here.

To further demonstrate our commitment to the Pledge, for 2021/2022 we aim to;

• Commit to one apprenticeship through Microsoft’s Apprenticeship Learning Partners
• Review requirements in our selection criteria for early-in-career-roles
• Explore opportunities on how best to inform young people about careers in Cyber Security – Skill Fair Events and new online career presence website.

Diversity & Inclusion

Aims to improve inclusion, focussing on inclusive recruitment and promotion processes and practices, striving for a strong representation across all levels.

We are an innovative, customer obsessed and industry leading managed security service provider -our key competitive advantage is our people.

Promoting and supporting diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a vital part of our recruitment policies and actively encourage applications from anyone and everyone. To further advance our cause, early this month John Wallace was appointed Chief People Officer, a newly created leadership role with a focus on people at the heart of our business and responsible for implementing our People Strategy.

In March 2020, Quorum Cyber team became signatories of the TechTalent Charter (TTC), a commitment to increase the diversity of the technology workforce in the UK. We are proud to be part of the TTC community, championing the exceptional talent and potential from underrepresented groups and encouraging greater diversity into Cyber Security. You can read more about our commitment to the TTC here.

We continue to support the Scottish Business Pledge, a commitment to promote fairness, equality, opportunity and innovation in Scotland, which in turn creates greater economic success and sustainable, inclusive growth.

Responsible and Ethical AI

Aims to ensure AI is developed and deployed with the accountability of the people who create it, following key AI design principles that require it to be fair, accountable, explainable and ethical.

Microsoft recognises six principles that they believe should guide AI development and use — fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. As a Microsoft-only house, we are safe in the knowledge that responsible AI practices and guidelines are instilled into Azure AI’s services and Azure Machine Learning capabilities and toolkits.

We have taken Microsoft’s principles and applied them across the entirety our services, as well as extending these to our internal processes and working practices.  In addition, as a CREST member company, we meet the requirements of the CREST Codes of Conduct, that include the following areas:

• Promotion of Good Practices
• Professional Representation
• CREST Assignments
• Regulations
• Competencies
• Client Interests
• Sanctions
• Ethics
• Responsible Reporting

Sustainability

Aims to reduce carbon footprint through the use of technology.

The Partner Pledge believes in the power of technology to help safeguard our planet.
We are committed to reducing our impact on the environment and strive to improve our environmental performance over time, initiating additional projects and activities that will further reduce our impact on the environment. Our commitment to the environment extends to our customers, our staff, and the community in which we operate.

Offering a sustainable working balance of office and remote working for all staff members, especially prevalent in the last year, has helped towards environmental benefits; lower gas emissions, reducing air pollution and lower carbon footprint.

As a cloud-only company, we support the digital transformation of our customers through cloud services. With the 2020 pandemic accelerating remote working there has been a mass shift to cloud-based services, helping to mitigate the consumption of energy through the reduced use of traditional data centres.

To find out more about the Microsoft Partner Pledge visit https://partner.microsoft.com/en-gb/connect/local/uk-partner/partner-pledge