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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: January, 2021
Jan 31, 2021

Join us for a quick recap of top headlines from the first month of 2021 in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform channel.

 

Show Notes:

Jan 25, 2021

As the pandemic drags on, the Microsoft business applications community is finding a new and evolving ways to connect. The DynamicsCon virtual event began in 2020 and will run for the second time in March. To learn more about how it began and what is going into the next event, we talked to the founder, Jon Stypula. MSDW is a media sponsor of the event and we wanted to discuss both the event has developed and where Jon hopes it will go in the future.

 

Show Notes:

  • 4:45 - Deciding to provide a professional level of production for DynamicsCon, including funding through sponsors.
  • 8:30 - Why to maintain transparency in the event's planning and organization, including with session selection.
  • 10:30 - Why the DynamicsCon is aiming to make the speaker lineup a mix of veterans and newcomers.
  • 17:30 - Microsoft's role in the community and event landscape these days, and why Jon believes they do not appear to be interested in overall community management.
  • 27:45 - Updates to the attendee experience
  • 30:30 - How virtual events have opened up accessibility to much of in-person events' value and how they will continue to change
  • 35:45 - How DynamicsCon has changed from the first event to the upcoming second event
  • 39:00 - How partners and customers work together differently with Power Platform and other tech compared to Dynamics
  • 42:00 - Microsoft's mixed reality solutions, from Dynamics 365 apps to HoloLens 2 more generally
  • 48:50 - More on what to expect from DynamicsCon
Jan 19, 2021

In this special edition of the MSDW Podcast we are featuring a recent conversation between Microsoft MVP Rick McCutcheon and Microsoft global strategic ISV alliance manager John O'Donnell on how partners are utilizing Microsoft AppSource. Rick originally published this conversation as part of his Partner Talks series.

Microsoft launched its AppSource ISV solution directory in 2016 as a replacement for a collection of old and fragmented systems. The initial coverage compared it to Salesforce AppExchange and Microsoft promised it would lead to higher ISV solution quality and that it would evolve quickly with.

Nearly five years later, AppSource has evolved and grown, though probably not as quickly as Microsoft has wanted. Still, most ISVs in the  Dynamics 365 and Power Platform space list their solutions there, and some partners even list services offerings. Some vendors report closing sales thanks to the platform, others don't.

In this conversation, O'Donnell emphasizes several strengths of the platform, from its global reach to its expanding set of offerings, beyond Dynamics 365 and Azure into other areas of Microsoft's business. They also discuss some ways vendors can optimize their listings to get the most out of the platform today.

Jan 18, 2021

The Microsoft's Dynamics 365 FastTrack team has been holding a TechTalk webcast series in recent months featuring the use of various tools and capabilities of the Power Platform in the context of strengthening a Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management (a.k.a., Finance and Operations) system.

 

Series organizer and FastTrack architect Rachel Profitt explains that, while there is lots of great material on Power Platform and likewise plenty of information available on D365 F&O, customers and partners can still find it hard to connect the dots that open up the full range of solution possibilities.

 

Profitt and principal technical specialist Murray Fife of Microsoft's Black Belt team recently co-presented  a new session in the event series on AI Builder, and they discuss with us some of the highlights of that session, the audience reaction, future plans for the webcast series, and the broader outlook for building momentum in blending Power Platform tools with ERP.

 

Show Notes

  • 2:30 - How Rachel and Murray's work with AI Builder is being received by customer and partner audiences.
  • 7:00 - Rachel's role as a FastTrack architect and Murray's role as a principal technical specialist on Microsoft's Global Black Belt  team
  • 10:30 - Why Rachel felt a need for a Power Platform TechTalk series for F&O customers to showcase customization alternatives
  • 12:30 - Reactions from the partner community after seeing the presentations.
  • 15:30 - Why developing with Power Platform requires a shift in the F&O customization mindset
  • 18: 00 - F&O customer roles most interested in Power Platform adoption
  • 21:30 - At what point in the development of a D365 solution do customers make the decision to deploy Power Platform?
  • 27:30 - What's in a partner's demo versus what's in scope for the delivery team
  • 29:30 - How accurate are AI Builder tools in doing their jobs?
  • 33:30 - What's next in the Tech Talk series, and what else has been covered already
  • 34:30 - What Rachel and Murray are excited about for 2021: events and features
Jan 11, 2021

On this episode we welcome back Peter Joeckel of TurnOnDynamics and Karen Riordan of Menlo Technologies for a discussion of the new year's Dynamics GP outlook for customers and partners.

Dynamics 365 Business Central is Microsoft's SMB ERP product of the future, so changes still to come are to some extent predictable already starting to play out: incentives for legacy ERP customers to plan for a transition to BC; greater urgency on partners to transact via Microsoft's CSP program, and a GP product roadmap that has shriveled to almost nothing.

But given these realities, what is to be done? The economics of ERP are changing along with the rest of IT and enterprise software. We discuss the impact of some of Microsoft's latest moves like new cloud assessments for on-prem customers (not necessarily through their partner of record) and the latest channel sales incentives. These changes, will impact customers not just in terms of whom they consult with, but what types of partners can really serve their needs in the future.

Show Notes:

  • 2:30 - Microsoft's interest in getting customers to assess a transition away from Dynamics GP
  • 4:30 - Why aren't GP customers more interest in transitioning to cloud ERP?
  • 7:00 - Pressure on partners to manage their GP customers
  • 10:00 - Finding an optimal way to engage with Microsoft customers: Can a partner talk to both IT and the CFO?
  • 12:00 - What should a customer really expect from their partner in terms of making sense of Microsoft's offerings?
  • 16:30 - How difficult is it for GP customers to do a full assessment of their next steps?
  • 20:15 - The economic challenges of ERP for Microsoft partners
  • 25:00 - What does the subscription-based ERP model mean for Microsoft's goals and partners' challenges?
  • 32:30 - How well has GP served its user base during the pandemic?
  • 36:30 - How many GP to BC transitions are really happening?
  • 39:00 - Who is doing GP to BC transition assessments for Microsoft and what are the outcomes?
  • 44:30 - How will Microsoft's  newest incentives shape the partner channel in 2021?
  • 47:30 - Do partners and Microsoft have a responsibility to encourage their clients to evolve enterprise IT?
  • 48:30 - 2021 predictions
Jan 5, 2021

This episode is sponsered by HCL-PowerObjects.

 

As the Microsoft Power Platform has enjoyed greater adoption, the challenges of managing security, governance, data migration, licensing and other needs have gained greater urgency for customers.

 

John Doris and Jamie Barker of HCL-PowerObjects join us to discuss their experiences working with a wide variety of organizations that have been investing in the Power Platform to modernize their systems and processes. We dive into the most common challenges as well as other considerations that both partners and customers are dealing with like the future of front office and back office applications, the impact of Microsoft Teams, and Jamie and John's experiences helping organizations build a Center of Excellence.

 

Other resources:

 

Show Notes:

  • 2:45 - Judging and measuring growth of Power Platform in the last year
  • 5:45 - How the pandemic impacted PowerObjects customers' priorities around collaboration and automation
  • 7:15 - Why a Modern Workplace are taking a stronger interest in use of Power Platform and Teams
  • 11:30 - Organizational challenge: finding a balance of front office and back office support
  • 13:00 - The varying approaches to governance and IT fundamentals with Power Platform
  • 16:00 - Challenges that customers should be considering next: onboarding, app evaluation, and more
  • 18:00 - Encouraging app makers to be innovative while also taking advantage of reusable components and following development best practices
  • 22:30 - Center of Excellence: What it takes to plan for creating one properly
  • 24:00 - How do organizations work with a Microsoft service provider for help with Power Platform development?
  • 27:45 - Measuring end users' happiness with the apps and flows they get from a citizen developer corp.
  • 33:00 - Discovery tools: Know when to retire, replace, augment, or keep them
  • 36:00 - Dealing with the end of life of SharePoint 2010 workflows and replacing them with Power Automate flows
  • 41:15 - What can organizations expect in licensing for Power Platform elements?
  • 44:45 - License consumption strategies
  • 48:00 - How to get in touch with Jamie or John
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