A few weeks after the initial announcements around Dynamics 365, I wrote a post titled something like “The Fog Clears”. With Microsoft’s response to the reaction from the Directions announcements, some fog is clearing, but some fog has shifted… to a different partner type.
I decided to step away from the third-rail and talk about something else. If you are a Dynamics 365 Partner, you should already know about AppSource. Maybe you have already published an App, or are thinking about it, or maybe you are just thinking about it as a place to …
So I am approaching this post with some trepidation. My last one led to a bunch of phones blowing up in Redmond, and I don’t want a repeat of that for sure. But I do want to share my thoughts, now that the dust has started to settle.
When left alone, partners tend to buzz quietly in their nests, working on their customers and offers. Lately, Microsoft has made a habit of kicking those nests, starting with the announcement of Dynamics 365 last year which sent the channel hornets flying out of their nests. Zipping all over, and …
I happened to be scrolling through a list of our past customer deployments the other day. I stopped on one we had recently “completed”, and was remembering the initial phone call we had. Things ended up a lot different.
The Common Data Service (CDS) is suddenly the talk of the town. The potential power of this service is fast becoming a significant differentiator in the competitive landscape. But did this innovative technology start life as a “Hack”?
Those of you who follow me, know that we have a product called RapidStart for Dynamics 365. Well, not “we” actually, RapidStart LLC is a separate company owned by my wife. So I guess I should say, “she” has a product called RapidStart for Dynamics 365. Anyway, that product has just …
Along with the “Cloud Revolution” comes a whole new set of required skills for Partners and Customers. These new skills are not to be added to what you already know, instead they are to replace what you already know. Because, the things you already know… nobody will need anymore.
I can certainly look back at many decisions that I made, that did not work out. I like to convince myself that, at the time, it made total sense, and I would do the same thing again. Sometimes that is even correct. But most of the time, I just wonder …
If you have been around the channel for a while, you are quite familiar with the Microsoft messaging to partners. “Add a Dynamics Practice”, or “Add an Azure Practice”, or “Add a whatever we want to sell now practice”. I suggest you ignore these messages.
So the big news a couple of weeks ago was the preview of the Dynamics 365 Business Edition Apps. Then the rumors started swirling about the reorganization of the Sales Engine for Microsoft. As I sit here at Inspire, chaos and confusion reign.
Last week, within Microsoft’s 3-day Executive Briefing on everything Dynamics 365, the Business Edition was teased out. The Business Edition is Microsoft’s first legitimate effort to meet the business solution requirements of the Small to Mid-sized Business (SMB), and they are about to meet a whole new crop of competitors …
I guess it’s no surprise, that 90% of my blog readers are Microsoft Partners. Most of them, operate in the same space that we do: Dynamics 365. From that, I can also assume that most of my readers were on the Executive Briefing calls last week. So what did we …
Yesterday we had the Executive Briefing for the Dynamics 365 Business Edition Sales and Marketing Apps. It was non-NDA so that means we can talk about it, that also means that lots of details were left out. I have been working with that team for some time now, and while …
As some of you may know, we were formerly Salesforce Consultants, a product that was “Cloud” from day one. For us, cloud was not something we even thought about, until we pivoted to become a Microsoft Partner in 2011. Suddenly “Cloud” was a new thing? Huh?… Okay, we’ll play along.
I was looking at a thread in the Dynamics MVP mail list the other day, and one of the comments was that it would be nice if Microsoft would actually “slow down” the pace of development for Dynamics 365.
Yes, I know, Divorce is a nasty sounding word, and it does not seem applicable to your relationship with your Microsoft Partner… I mean you are not legally “Married”. But today, more than ever, your relationship with your Microsoft partner is feeling a lot more like a marriage, particularly, if …
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.
