As an experiment, back in February, I thought I would try using the LinkedIn “Create an Article” feature, to see how it compared to just posting to LinkedIn from my own blog. I can confidently report that the test was a huge failure. Anyone thinking of using LinkedIn’s “Create an …
There is no need to panic…yet. Procrastinators can freely ignore this post, for now. But if you are one of those people who hates scrambling at the last minute, then maybe this will interest you.
It should be news to no one that Microsoft’s Business Solutions are exploding with new capabilities by the minute. An enormous amount of money and effort is being brought to bear to push the envelope, raise the bar, and then raise it again. The advancements have been nothing short of …
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 …
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.
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 …
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 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 …
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 …
I first heard Microsoft floating the “Industry Focus” concept to partners shortly after Office 365 launched. It seemed pretty clear that this cloud shift was going to eliminate a lot of existing revenue for partners. I felt back then, that the “Industry Focus” concept was something that Microsoft cooked up …
In Microsoft’s continuing quest to make Business Solutions easier, “Configuration over Code” is where they are making the most investment. “Coding” requires skills that most customers, and frankly most partners, do not have, which leads to additional costs for the customer. How is Microsoft doing on lowering this barrier?
