In Part 1 of this post, we followed a fictional first-person path to picking a Business Solutions (CRM) platform. It appeared that Microsoft Dynamics 365 was under strong consideration, when the topic of a Microsoft Partner was introduced. Let’s continue this fictional journey, and see how this critical step plays …
Selecting the best platform and partner for you to work with, is probably the most important determining factor to your success with Business Solutions. It really is the “make or break” ingredient, and selecting the wrong one(s), can lead to disaster. Here is a fictional first-person account.
In my last post, I wrote about Leads falling through the cracks, but the other extreme, presents some interesting challenges also. I had a call recently from a prospect who was looking to move up from spreadsheets, to a true CRM, and he was exploring Dynamics 365.
We were working with one of our larger customers the other day on their Lead Import process. We noticed that many leads were failing to import. The person handling the importing said “Yeah, if I can’t figure out the issue, I just ignore those“.
A “Meeting of the Minds” is probably the number one challenge in the SMB space, particularly with Business Solutions like Dynamics 365. Am I saying SMB customers are not smart enough to understand? Not at all, but I have learned that a nodding head, is not a good indication, that …
I just finished watching the live Microsoft Business Forward event, and it was pretty impressive. In addition to Satya Nadella giving us the Grand Vision, Microsoft also trotted out a few customers who had “Digitally Transformed” their businesses… big customers. But as I was watching this, with my SMB Customer …
Let’s get real for a minute. The typical SMB customer does not wake up every day thinking, “How can I spend more money with my Microsoft Partner?” They are more likely thinking, “How soon can I get rid of my Microsoft Partner?”
Let me preface by saying, I am not an ERP Guy. At our own firm, we use QuickBooks, even though we have access to Microsoft ERP software at no cost. Is QuickBooks better? Far from it, but is it good enough?
A tweet caught my eye the other day, it was a quote from Richard Branson that went something like, “If you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers. It’s that simple.” I could not shake this from my brain, so I thought I would try and crystallize my …
Many of you may wonder why I would title a post “Dynamics 365 vs. SharePoint”, as though it were an either/or decision. But many customers, particularly in the SMB space, seem to grapple with “deciding” between the two.
Okay, maybe the Outlook thick client for Dynamics 365 hasn’t actually been deprecated by Microsoft… yet… but it should be. I think the last UI refresh was in 1972. So I am personally declaring it deprecated! Fully three quarters of our customer support issues for Dynamics, have involved the Outlook …
When Microsoft launched Dynamics 365, they launched an entirely new licensing model based on Apps and Plans. The community became aware of this deconstruction, before they were made aware of the pricing, which led to some early speculation on how it would roll out… then in November, the associated pricing …
Unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you know that Microsoft is developing versions of their Dynamics 365 business applications, that are geared for smaller businesses. Across the Dynamics Partner community, you are either very excited about this, or ambivalent, depending on the customer base you cater to. So, …
If you have been following along, you know that we were Salesforce Consultants for 10 years before we moved to Dynamics 6 years ago. We left Salesforce in the rear view mirror, and never heard from anyone related to them again… until recently.
In my last post, I wrote about Evaluating Dynamics 365. In that post I glossed over the part about demos, because it felt like a bigger topic, that deserved a post of its own. I will start writing now, and we’ll both see if that is case shortly. A product …
A big part of the job for a Dynamics 365 Partner, is talking to customers about their business problems. They heard about Dynamics 365 somewhere, and are hoping that it is “the” Silver Bullet that will solve all of their issues. Maybe it is… and maybe it isn’t… how can …
The other day I wrote a post about Account Based Marketing “ABM”. This was prompted by a short blog post I read on ABM, and it resonated with me as a pretty cool idea. I received a lot of responses from people “in the know”, and I quickly realized that …
When you have been around as long as I have, you will have seen “The Next Big Thing”, many times. An article caught my eye they other day about “Account Based Marketing”. Now, I don’t know if this is the next big thing or not, but it seemed interesting, and …
I got a call the other day from a customer who said that another partner told them that they should not use a solution like ours because “It can cause issues”. I thought, what a vague and crappy thing to say. I assume this partner was not a reseller of …
You cannot go to a Microsoft partner event today without hearing about AppSource. It’s not that third-parties haven’t extended Microsoft products, like Dynamics 365, in the past, but those extension/solutions haven’t driven product sales, at least not in the way Microsoft knows they could. Other companies, like Salesforce.com, have proven …
