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.
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 …
