Note: This episode is sponsored by Sana Commerce.
What does it take to earn and retain the business of B2B buyers today? For manufacturers contemplating ways to improve the experiences of their customers, technology investment is likely a major component of any plan. After all, B2B buyers are hard to replace and, since they are also consumers when they're not at work, their expectations have changed over the years to include things like choosing their preferred ways to buy products and get support.
Our guest, supply chain technology marketing strategist Adam Robinson, joins us to provide context on how manufacturers investments in customer experience technology like modern e-commerce is becoming one of the most critical ways to position a company for success in the future. Robinson foresees a wave of change coming to the manufacturing sector that will impact supply chains through new waves of acquisition, continuing risks disruption, and new options for buyers who will more actively seek new options if a vendor fails to meet their needs.
Show Notes
References:
Microsoft offered partners a wealth of Azure-related updates at Inspire 2021. To help us get our bearings on them all, we invited Gordon McKenna, a veteran Microsoft MVP and CTO for public cloud at Ensono, for a conversation. Gordon shared his perspective on both the hybrid scenarios that his clients frequently care about and some of the forward-looking goals that Microsoft has set with new Azure and Azure-adjacent product and service updates.
Show Notes:
This episode is sponsored by Cavallo.
Distribution software firm Cavallo may have recently appeared in the marketplace, but the brand is really the new incarnation of one of the most well-established vendors in the Microsoft business applications ecosystem. Formerly known as Salespad, the company has a long legacy building its solutions atop Dynamics GP and the firm has announced plans to launch its next generation of solutions on Dynamics 365 Business Central first, while also planning to support some products more broadly.
Senior vice president of product Jeremy Boogaart joins us to discuss the story behind the new brand, the evolving needs of distributors, the company's outlook for customers on both Business Central and GP, and his own lengthy career at the company, starting as one of the first employees sixteen years ago and building his expertise in a range of roles.
Show Notes:
To view Cavallo’s solutions, request a demo or visit their website at www.cavallo.com
DevOps has changed a lot in the last decade. And in the world of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and its predecessor, Dynamics NAV, the devops landscape has absorbed many of those changes in just the last two to three years as Business Central emerged as a cloud-first SaaS ERP product.
Our guests on this episode, Tobia Fenster, a Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Regional Director and fellow MVP Waldo (a.k.a., Eric Wauters), discuss their experiences with DevOps for Business Central, including the tools and services they have created to improve the experience. Their work in this area has been driven by both a need to help their internal teams and to offer solutions for the broader BC developer ecosystem that take on a range of needs in areas like container management and automated build pipelines.
DevOps requirements are more sophisticated than ever, which means the tools are more powerful, but the concepts are also more complex. That rapid shift could be a risk both to partners and to BC customers that rely on customizations in the cloud. The situation remains quite manageable, Tobias and Waldo say, but development teams joining the BC community need to address the challenges straight away and understand the stakes, for their own sake and for their customers.
Show Notes:
Links:
This episode is sponsored by Versapay.
The payment processing landscape today has been shaped by the enormous stresses of the last fifteen months. As our guests, Meredith Mitchell and Jason Read of Versapay explain, they have seen customers accelerating existing modernization plans while for others, their companies' survival hung in the balance of opening up new digital payment options for clients.
Jason and Meredith discuss some of their latest thinking around payment modernization and process automation, like ways to help an organization get paid on time and to make the process both easy for customers and united with the rest of the business operations through systems like Dynamics 365 Business Central.
The Versapay team is also watching some of the more interesting trends today in the Microsoft space, like supporting migrations of Dynamics SMB customers to Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management and helping customers seeking achieve even more optimization around payments.
Show Notes
For more information on Versapay or book a demo with them, visit https://info.versapay.com/versapay-payments-schedule.
This MSDW Podcast episode is sponsored by KwikTag by enChoice.
Mike Fernandes, VP Products, and Mary Miller, Director, Marketing and Channel, from KwikTag by enChoice joined us to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence and the cloud on AP automation solutions for the mid-market – specifically in the Dynamics space. We discussed the growing market demand among organizations for cloud-based, accelerated deployments as companies continue to have team members working from home. We also explored the rising demand for complete procure-to-pay process coverage and where AP automation fits into the picture. Mary and Mike also provided insight into their product roadmap, which includes payment automation and new solutions for Dynamics products.
Show Notes:
KwikTag, by enChoice, leads organizational digital transformation as the one system for invoice and payment automation. KwikTag helps organizations increase efficiency and gain visibility into their invoice workflows with complete AP automation and powerful integrations with the Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems. Visit kwiktag.com to learn how automation could benefit your business.
Learn more about KwikPayables Accelerate, the cloud-based AP automation solution for Dynamics GP: Coffee With KwikTag – KwikPayables Accelerate. To read about AI within the KwikTag AP automation solution, check out the whitepaper “What’s Intelligence Got To Do With It?”