This time on the MSDW Podcast we catch up with two of the leaders at Real Dynamics, an enterprise software consultancy with expertise in Dynamics AX and 365, BI, and the vertical of mergers & acquisitions. Yogesh Kasat and Jason Weidenbenner share some of their experiences working with AX customers at various stages of solution ownership, why BI is such a key part of D365 projects at go-live, their recent D365 implementation book, and some of the complexities that organizations deal with during a sale or acquisition.
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R ”Ray” Wang, Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Constellation Research, Inc., author of Disrupting Digital Business: Create an Authentic Experience in the Peer-to-Peer Economy, and longtime enterprise software blogger was on hand at this week’s Microsoft Business Applications Analyst Forum, the first such event from Microsoft in several years. He shared many observations on the fly over the course of the event’s two days and recently published an event report. Among the key findings, he wrote, was an updated Microsoft strategy focused around five key areas, at top of which was a “digital feedback loop” approach that frames technology around customers, people, and products, with data and intelligence at the center. It’s an ambitious vision, though one that the company might not yet have fully realized, Wang tells us.
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21:20 – What does Microsoft leave analysts with as they look across the broader cloud and enterprise software market space?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing is now on track to reach general availability by April, and principal program manager Kishan Chetan joins MSDW editor Jason Gumpert and Forceworks founder and Microsoft MVP Steve Mordue to talk about the newly revealed plans and the application’s role as “the front end of the sales cycle”.
The product is now in public preview and, as Kishan explains, partners, customers, and prospects will see in the solution much of the latest tech related to the recent “CRM v9” release of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. Topics of this interview include:
Rod O’Connor, CEO and founder of Briware Solutions, has been taking stock of a year living with SaaS business applications, both for his own company and some clients. Rod is an ERP and accounting software veteran based in Ontario and who has been a reseller and user of of Dynamics GP for many years. But last year he tried something different - he migrated his own business from GP to what was then known as Dynamics 365 Financials, now known as Finance and Operations Business Edition, and soon it’s likely to have yet another brand name.
Rod talks to us about what the adoption of SaaS has meant for his company, what it will mean for other SMB VARs who are still entrenched in the on-prem ERP world, and the evolution of Dynamics 365 and its add-on solution market so far.
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