Magento Solution Specialist Certification

Magento announced its first business-oriented certification program at this year’s Imagine Conference. The Magento Solution Specialist Certification is now available to everyone. What does it entail, who is it for and is this a good step forward for Magento? Read on…

According to the Exam Study Guide you can download here, a Solution Specialist is “an expert user of Magento platform who can efficiently align business objectives with Magento functionality, optimize use of native features and avoid unnecessary customization”.

In a nutshell, a Magento Certified Solution Specialist (who will be known around Magento community as MCSS) is your go-to person when it comes to planning your new Magento store or improving the existing one.

If you’re a merchant, you should be able to rely on these people to provide additional value to your scoping process and assist you with some of the basic as well as more advanced usage of Magento and its features. Magento Solution Partners who will have certified solution specialists on their teams will show an even greater commitment to the platform than earlier.

Add some solution specialists to your frontend and backend certified developers, and you’ll have yourself a winning recipe for tackling virtually any kind of ecommerce project out there.

What does it take to get certified?

I can tell you one thing from taking a look at the study material – it’s not exactly a walk in the park. Candidates will need to show knowledge and experience in four main content areas:

eCommerce – 13%
Magento Architecture – 27%
Elements of a Magento eCommerce site – 35%
Applying Magento knowledge to business goals – 25%

You can check out some reference questions in the guide and see for yourself that this will indeed be a test of your overall grasp of Magento and the understanding of ecommerce businesses.

Who is the test for?

Well, if you’re trying to be an organization that boasts itself in being a full-service Magento agency, you won’t want to miss out on this – again, the certificate itself is not a proof of value any individual can add to a project, but it does show clear commitment to the area you’re getting certified in.

Project managers, business analysts, ecommerce consultants, UX designers, even developers – everyone’s invited 🙂

Is this a good thing?

In my book, definitely, and this is why:

1) Magento – well, they’re starting the business-oriented certification branded with Magento name, so this probably means the folks over at Magento have been further reassured by eBay that the platform is here to stay. With development and now business certification, it’s going to be perceived as a good long-term choice for merchants across the globe.

2) Partners – certification will enable some of the partners who have already shown great results to position themselves as more than “just” design and development agencies, they’ll now be recognized for their ability to add value to their clients’ bottom line, providing a more comprehensive set of ecommerce services.

3) Merchants – when you’re investing your time and money in a new project, you’d like to surround yourself with experts, right? Well, certificates are one way of hinting towards someone’s credibility and expertise – granted, there are no guarantees, but you can certainly feel you’re in good hands if you go with a product that cares enough to put up and manage its own certification program, and a company (you can choose from a variety of solution partners) that has both a proven track record and certified developers and consultants across the board.

Who’s in?

So, are you up for this challenge? We’re starting with preparations, and we’ll let you know as soon as we add some new shiny badges to our roster 🙂