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The MSDW Podcast

The MSDynamicsWorld.com (MSDW) podcast explores news, ideas, and events in the Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM community.
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Now displaying: May, 2020
May 27, 2020

Kerry Peters and Cynthia Priebe of New View Strategies join the MSDW Podcast to continue the discussion on some of the critical and timely topics they have raised in recent articles about bringing automation and digital tools to bear in financial management with Dynamics 365 Business Central.

They discuss some of the pressures their clients have faced in the last two months due to COVID-19, some of the new features of Business Central that they believe hold a lot of value for clients, and what they have learned about introducing new organizations to Business Central.

Articles referenced:

New View Strategies has created a page that collects all their remote work articles and a checklist.

 

Show Notes

  • 1:45 - Kerry and Cynthia's experience in the Dynamics community
  • 6:45 - How their clients had to adapt quickly to plan for work from home.
  • 10:15 - The challenge of reducing paper processes under situational pressures of COVID-19
  • 12:45 - Experiences implementing positive pay for Business Central - and how well organizations have adapted
  • 17:30 - Why organizations fail to be self-motivated on digital transformation in finance
  • 22:00 - Exciting new features
  • 27:30 - Do organizations need coaching to adopt electronic/paperless features of Business Central?
  • 31:30 - How are GP users evaluating Business Central?
  • 34:15 - Bringing new customers to Business Central from any other finance or ERP system.
May 22, 2020

Editor's Note: This episode is sponsored by DXC Technology.

Companies say they want off-the-shelf software, but the reality is that most products can't meet the needs of a sophisticated enterprise without some amount of enhancement. On this episode we assemble a roundtable of experts from DXC Technology to dive into the common challenges and questions around investing in custom software development. Our guests, delivery manager Mindy Waters, enterprise integration expert Keith Honkonen, vice president of software engineering Will Wirtz, and sales director David LaMarre, discuss software requirements definition, roadmap development, and how to build atop off-the-shelf or bridge the gap between solutions.

And they explore why software development fits in more naturally with application modernization efforts than many enterprise or mid-sized organizations might think.   

Show Notes:

  • 2:30 – In what cases should today's enterprise software buyer be thinking about custom development?
  • 5:45 – Examples of when an off-the-shelf Dynamics solution can benefit from solution development
  • 9:00 – Application modernization
  • 14:00 – Moving from on-prem to cloud and why it's not just about cost
  • 15:30 – The struggle of finding a balance between legacy applications and new development
  • 18:00 – Tips to get started defining their needs and building a solution roadmap
  • 23:00 – Bringing an agile mindset to solution development projects
  • 26:00 – How to measure success in deploying custom solutions

If you’d like to speak with our guests or learn more about DXC Technology and how they can help your organization move your business applications from on-premise to the cloud, you can reach them at phone no#: 877-651-6193 or email: dxceclipse@dxc.com.

May 20, 2020

Editor's Note: This episode is sponsored by DXC Technology

Organizations with on-premises Dynamics ERP or Dynamics CRM solutions probably understand that moving those workloads to the cloud requires planning. But with so many variables, no two cloud journeys are exactly the same.

Today's podcast guests, Chris Lavelle and Heather Palmieri from DXC Technology, join Microsoft MVP Rick McCutcheon to share their experiences planning and delivering cloud migrations of various types. The process always starts with a conversation to understand the business goals and the current application environment, Lavelle and Palmieri explain.

Listen in as our guests discuss their experiences working with customers to move a Dynamics ERP or CRM solution to the cloud and what kinds of plans, expectations, and decisions lead to success.

If you have questions you can get in touch with our DXC guests at dxcexclipse@dxc.com or by calling: +1 877-651-6193.

Show Notes:

  • 3:00 - How to start the conversation
  • 5:00 - Who on the user side needs to be involved in the process from the start?
  • 6:15 - How can an organization estimate the time their migration will  take?
  • 7:45 - Following a project planning methodology to develop a fact-based approach
  • 10:30 - Why legacy system migration usually includes unknowns that make expectation management a challenge
  • 15:15 - Estimating the time required of the end user organization to keep a cloud migration moving forward
  • 17:45 - How to prepare your organization for the commitment required on a cloud project.
  • 19:30 - Supporting an organization's ERP or CRM usage after moving to the cloud
  • 21:15 - How to use cloud migration as an inflection point for our business
May 17, 2020

Editor's Note: This episode is sponsored by DXC Technology.

An organization with a mandate to embrace digital transformation can only achieve its goals if it considers the needs of its workforce. Expectations by the executive team around productivity, flexibility, and expertise hinge on supporting employees with the tools that enable them to do their jobs no matter the challenge.

Today, as IT departments navigate a landscape that bridges the on-premises systems of the last two decades and today's cloud-based services, decisions around new technology investments will determine whether an organization can support a digital workforce.

In this episode, we hear from three subject matter experts from DXC Technology on how their clients are transitioning to support a digital workforce. DXC sales director Russ Riley, director of operations David Bowles, and IT manager Pete Loach sit down to discuss how a digital workforce succeeds today. We dive into how IT leaders are assessing their next investments and the measures that organizations are taking today to accelerate their digital journeys.

Show Notes

  • 2:00 – The value of virtual cloud migrations and scenarios that drive organizations to embrace it
  • 4:30 – What should companies expect to scope a cloud migration project?
  • 8:30 – Adopting virtual desktop infrastructure: The technology and the advantages
  • 12:30 – The importance of client-based VPN tools
  • 17:00 – Disaster recovery services and what they accomplish
  • 22:00 – DR and the importance of defining what's truly mission critical
  • 24:30 – Securing resources in a corporate environment via multi-factor authentication (MFA)
  • 26:30 – The benefits of managing public cloud infrastructure compared to the days of all on-premises data centers

If you’d like to speak with our guests or learn more about DXC's work with organizations building a digital workforce, you can reach them at phone no#: 877-651-6193 or email: dxceclipse@dxc.com.

May 16, 2020

Anya Ciecierski, marketing director of CAL Business Solutions and the creator of several group blogs for the Microsoft channel, joins MSDW's Marilou Barsam for part two of a conversation on the challenges of developing and realizing value from marketing content. Here, she explains how some simple techniques can yield big results when it comes to re-purposing content for different online properties, as well as reviving great older content.

Show Notes:

  • 0:45 - Managing for the unending demand for new content and the risks of duplicating content.
  • 5:00 - Rewriting or repurposing blog posts - when and how
  • 8:30 - Tips for increasing traffic on an existing blog post.

More about Anya:

May 16, 2020

Anya Ciecierski, marketing director of CAL Business Solutions and the creator of several group blogs for the Microsoft channel, joins MSDW's Marilou Barsam for part one of a conversation on the challenges of developing and realizing value from marketing content. The source of the most insightful content at an ERP services firm is the firm's subject matter experts, a group that is notoriously challenging to encourage to write. Anya offers her tips for  getting the most out of her team, as well as some of the options for making the most of the content she develops, whether it is blog posts, white papers, or other items.

Show Notes:

  • 0:30 - Anya's background as a marketer in the ERP channel
  • 2:30 - A 3-step process for marketers who need to develop new content with the help of subject matter experts
  • 9:00 - How to calculate the ROI on content investments
  • 11:30 - The debate on calls-to-action, gating content (or not), and engagement metrics
  • 13:30 - The benefits of content generation with subject matter expertise
May 15, 2020

Paul Soliman is one of the newest Microsoft MVPs and the first for business applications in the Philippines. As we learned from our recent profile piece, Paul splits his time between running two businesses, Hacktiv and Raven Global Ventures and helping to organize his country's growing business apps community group, which has grown from single digits to hundreds of members. Paul sat down to discuss his experiences in more depth, including his work experiences at major Dynamics NAV customers in his country and his realization at the possibilities of the Power Platform to transform businesses and careers.

(Editor's note: Due to some audio engineering issues, some parts of the interview have a bit of distortion, but it is still easy to understand.)

Show Notes

  • 2:45 - Paul's experience getting started in the Dynamics NAV space, including what he learned about corporate culture from his early employers
  • 5:30 - Experiences as an admin on a legacy ERP and exploring open source enterprise software
  • 10:00 - Transitioning to a consulting role and working with the Philippine Red Cross
  • 13:30 - Using empathic listening
  • 15:45 - Embracing the Power Platform
  • 17:00 - What it took to become an entrepreneur
  • 20:00 - Why focus on the Philippine market for his company's solutions
  • 23:45 - Favorite Power Platform use cases so far
  • 27:45 - The types of people who find roles via Hacktiv
  • 30:40 - Paul's early experiences as a Microsoft MVP
  • 32:40 - What's next in the Philippines Dynamics community
  • 36:30 - New and upcoming technology Paul is excited about: Adaptive cards, Teams, and more
May 13, 2020

Microsoft has noticeably ramped up efforts to offer a path for its on-premises SMB ERP customers on Dynamics NAV, GP, and SL to Dynamics 365 Business Central. Some technical tools already exist to help migrate data to the cloud, and there is a roadmap for more to come. And Business Central partners are armed with favorable licensing conversions and special offers for these existing customers.  While many SMB ERP customer will be well suited to a future Business Central solution, others will be best served looking elsewhere. Staying in the Microsoft family, Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations is the logical option for organizations with multi-company, multi-currency, or other complex needs that their current ERP is struggling to fulfill. Some may end up looking at other third party options.

Our guests on this episode, Karen Riordan of Menlo Technologies and Peter Joeckel of TurnOnDynamics walk us through some of the reasons today's on-premises SMB ERP customer may be tomorrow's SaaS enterprise ERP customer - or not.

Show Notes:

  • 2:00 - Karen's background in the ERP channel
  • 3:00 - On being challenged to think about more than just Business Central for today's GP customers
  • 5:00 - When a GP customer should stay on GP
  • 7:45 - Microsoft's advantage by improving GP to BC cloud migrations
  • 11:00 - The importance of master data cleanup
  • 14:00 - Why GP customers may not be aware of the extent of the customization and ISV add-on solutions in their ERP
  • 18:30 - Consolidating legacy systems
  • 20:30 - Why leaving GP ought to be a move to the cloud in some form - whether BC, F&O, or another

See also: Peter and Karen's new article on the options that GP customers can consider when evaluating their on-premises GP solution's future.

May 7, 2020

Editor's Note: This episode is sponsored by Ingram Micro Cloud

Microsoft partners have no choice but to adapt at a time when coronavirus has raised so much uncertainty in the world. But while some firms are facing massive risk, others continue to thrive, engaging their clients and fostering a constructive position in the ecosystem.

To understand more about how partners should face the challenge of marketing during an unprecedented crisis, we're speaking on this episode with Shark Chobot, chief transformation officer at Neural Impact, a sales and marketing consulting firm that applies behavioral economics, neuroscience and persuasion psychology to the customer acquisition process.

On this episode we discuss how partners are adapting to change today, including the impact on the sale, service, and delivery of Microsoft technology, from productivity tools to cloud services to ERP and CRM.

To learn more about today's sponsor, Ingram Micro, and their partner services please visit https://microsoft.ingrammicrocloud.com/dynamics/.

 

Show Notes:

  • 2:00 - What Neural Impact is hearing from partners today
  • 5:00 - Should partners bother investing in marketing activities right now? And what's not working?
  • 10:00 - The impact of mass marketing in the current climate
  • 15:30 - How can marketers get started changing their marketing stance? 
  • 18:00 - Identifying new revenue opportunities
  • 21:30 - New programs Sharka is working on with Ingram Micro
May 7, 2020

Editor's Note: This episode is sponsored by PowerObjects.

 

The Power Platform has evolved into a collection of services underpinning everything about Microsoft's Business Applications suite. First-party apps like Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service are really Power Apps now, but so are the thousands of custom applications, automated processes, and dashboards built by and for customers.

 

Our guests on this episode are Avni Pandya, Merlin Schwaiger, and Dave Kuntz of PowerObjects and they will be discussing how organizations that use the Power Platform should approach critical components of any development project like user adoption, app development, and data protection.

 

They also share lessons from the field about learning how to use tools like Power Apps and Power Automate, mitigating risk, and some success stories.

 

Learn more about PowerObjects' training on organizational adoption and governance of Microsoft’s Power Platform.

 

Show Notes

 

  • 5:00 - How to begin understanding the Power Platform
  • 11:30 - Protecting your data.
  • 19:00 - The benefit of a common database to build upon
  • 22:00 - Assigning responsibility to your users for building, with guardrails
  • 23:30 - How to encourage use in places with resistance?
  • 27:00 - A story of the benefits of modernizing a carpet company
  • 33:30 - A key benefit of asking your team to help define the apps they need: ownership
  • 34:45 - The limitations of the citizen developer's skills and involvement
  • 36:00 - Other app examples
May 1, 2020

Editor's Note: This episode of the MSDW Podcast is sponsored by Avanade.

Larger enterprises have transitioned to remote work in response to the coronavirus, and it has forced IT managers to re-evaluate their traditional methods for mobilizing, managing, and delivering a successful technology project.

To understand the delivery challenges of an ERP project in today's environment, we speak with David Misakian, delivery management group lead at Avanade. David discusses recently completed and ongoing client work and explains how his teams are navigating the current challenges successfully.

Topics include:

  • Client concerns arising from coronavirus
  • Interesting use and the rapid uptake of Teams
  • Whether risk management has changed
  • Observations on successfully transitioning to remote work
  • Project ownership
  • Agile development for ERP
  • Perspective on planning an F&O project today

To learn more about how Avanade helps organizations upgrade, integrate and maximize their ERP technology investment visit https://www.avanade.com/en-ca/solutions/business-applications/finance-and-operations.

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