Amazon.com Inc. does not break out revenue from its public sector business, but what partner metrics are known help paint a general picture of how it is doing. And what the numbers show is that business is booming.

“Our partners are just exploding in the public sector space right now; COVID accelerated their movement to the cloud,” said Sandy Carter (pictured), vice president of worldwide public sector partners and programs at Amazon Web Services Inc. “Our public sector partners grew 54% this year; they grew the number of certifications by 40% and the number of new customers by 32%. Those are unreal numbers.”

Carter spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. They discussed why certifications are on the rise and the importance of culture in cloud strategy implementation. (* Disclosure below.)

Higher skill level

Certifications are on the rise because customers are demanding a higher skill level, according to Carter. AWS and its partners are hearing from customers that it is not just about being in the cloud, but what can be done in the cloud.

“Those certifications demonstrate that customers have raised the bar on what they expect from a partner,” Carter said. “It’s no longer just the technology input; it’s also the industry side. The movement to the cloud enabled people to see it wasn’t as scary as they thought it was going to be; they could still leverage a lot of the skills that they had and learn new ones.”

AWS has fueled much of its public sector growth through a series of programs it makes available for its network of partners. These include the Partner Transformation Program, or PTP, a comprehensive assessment, training and enablement process to build a successful cloud business.

“PTP lays out a 100-day program on cloud best practices,” Carter explained. “Guess what’s the number one topic? Culture. Culture eats strategy for lunch. Even if you have a great strategy around the cloud, if you don’t have that right culture, you won’t win in the marketplace.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: AWS Public Sector sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE