Our Build or Buy Agenda

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When I joined QBS group a year back, it became clear, that we have to invest in 2 directions in order to stay competitive in the post Dynamics 365 environment.

One big change with Dynamics 365 proposition is to get from distinct products to an integrated experience, very much like Office did vs. single apps in productivity. As QBS group we have built expertise and IP around NAV. So we needed to quickly get access to CRM related knowledge and also get IP that can provide additional value not just to ERP related scenarios for our partners, but also to Sales and Marketing. While we could have chosen to start building these assets from scratch, it would have taken way too long. So we were looking out for a partnership.  We found a great fit of objectives with MindsUnited. They were coming from the exact opposite side, focusing on CRM related workloads only. Yet same approach as QBS group – target SMB market  and have clear focus on partners. So that drove our decision to invest in MindsUnited and eventually integrate them into our holding The IT Channel Company.

Also brought in talent and expertise on the CRM side, which we already made good use, in the interest of our partners.

As direct consequence, we were able to offer their CRM Online Jumpstart product to our partners. Jumpstart is a wizard based enabling tool, that let’s you configure and implement the relative complex CRM Online environment, even with little CRM expertise. So partners that wanted to also serve customers on CRM Online, but with a simplified implementation, were provided with that immediate opportunity. Also MindsUnited Cloud-Chain service was great addition to our partners portfolio, as it helps them to integrate data and process from different business application and productivity platforms. As intended, the acquisition also brought in talent and expertise on the CRM side, which we already made good use, in the interest of our partners. MindsUnited experts gave technical trainings and consultancy as well as direct support in customer negotiations. Their Jumpstart product is supporting D365 Sales Enterprise Edition right out of the gate and therefore keeps our partners connected to latest technology from Microsoft Dynamics.

They are very successful in providing outsourcing capacity on migrations for NAV solutions and other development workloads.

Next we knew that we need to differentiate ourselves through services we provide to partners. Doing license transaction will become a commodity in context of SaaS services like Dynamics 365 in long-term. Hence it will be harder for us to provide unique value to partners. While we already developed comprehensive service platform for lead generation (Take-the-Lead) or enablement (our D365 accelerate program), we saw one common challenge our partners had, that we could hardly address: Create more capacity by offloading IT work. On one hand side, we work very closely with Dynasource as a marketplace for our partners to offer and take in IT talent, yet when it comes to concrete outsourcing projects, we had to point to 3rd parties. That was decision point to have strategic alliance with 1ClickFactory and also invest in that partnership. They are very successful in providing outsourcing capacity on migrations for NAV solutions and other development workloads. In fact they are one of the few ISV development centers for Microsoft Dynamics. So we are confident that this partnership can help us to further deliver against our promise, to increase revenue of our partners and reduce costs.

We will continue to listen carefully to our partners in terms of their pain points and the market opportunities they want to pursue. We will continue to invest inside our company, but also through partnerships and acquisitions to make sure we provide the best value to our partners moving forward. But at same time, we are very clear that we do not want to compete with our partners at any time. We continue to be a partner led organization that has clear mission: Help our partners to increase revenue and decrease cost. So if you have any suggestions or comments, I am eager to hear it.

Directions EMEA 2017 Madrid

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Find here all the information you as Microsoft Reseller need to know from Directions EMEA 2017.

Hot News from Directions EMEA 2017 (48 Minutes)

More videos about Directions EMEA 2017, you can watch on our
QBS group Playlist – Directions EMEA 2017

Blogs

This year’s edition was delivered in Madrid from October 4th till 6th. This year Directions has many announcements and new strategies especially around Dynamics 365 and the local availability in the EMEA region.

Like every year, QBS group has attend this event with a large team.

Reflections on this weeks announcements from Microsoft

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One of our founders summarized this week plain and simple: Never a dull moment. Yes it was a roller coaster week for Dynamics partners, especially the ones that build their business on the NAV platform. Other than just summarizing the events, I wanted to write up my position. And I felt it might make sense to put myself into the product marketing shoes of Microsoft and start with a white board session. How I would structure the best possible go-to-market for Dynamics in SMB?

First consideration is that most, if not all SMB companies do not deploy Accounting, Finance, ERP, Sales and Marketing all in once. One because they might have an existing solution and complement that or because they prioritize one over the other. Second we would want to optimize for the 10-99 employee space. As we have seen in past through market research from AMI, this is space where we should expect the highest growth for SaaS Business Apps. If I would now optimize the go-to-market for prospects that are starting from Finance / ERP, I would always integrate the industry context of a given prospect. I don’t believe that you can attract majority of customers in that space with a “vanilla”, one size fits all ERP platform. (See also my blog earlier this year) As customer you at least want to use the business app within your industry environment. The more sophisticated you get, the more you then need processes and functions that are specific to your industry, which is hard to get from a “horizontal” business app solution. So I probably would not bet on a finished user experience coming from Microsoft, but rather a platform where partners provide their industry expertice. Well isn’t that what Tenerife is all about? I think we should be really excited about the platform Microsoft announced this week.

Then I think about the Sales and Marketing side. This is still relatively new business process to many of our SMB customers. Which would suggest that you start simple, with processes that are most common, like managing a pipeline and then as you grow into the CRM concepts, you add functionality. As far as I understand, that is path forward with Dynamics 365 Sales, one service to start and then pay as you go. If you need more functionality, you add and pay. Looks like a winning strategy in SMB to me as well.

My point being that, highlevel, the go-to-market that Microsoft presented early this week is good news for us and our partners to be successful in acquiring more SMB customers to cloud, at scale. Unfortunately, it came with 3 major issue :

  • We need to benefit from Microsoft’s branding. Taking Dynamics with its individual brands to Dynamics 365 was a very smart move. It associates Dynamics to the de facto standard for cloud productivity, Office 365. If the SMB go to market, that is based on Teneriffe can’t take full advantage of thatbrand proposition, it limits its potential success. Even worse, it could be misperceived as having NAV become a legacy platform. Many competitors would love to take advantage of such a misperception.
  • The way it was positioned, provided room to speculate how committed Microsoft is on the different ERP platforms. So far, Microsoft and especially Marko Perisic did great job to ensure that customers and partners place a safe bet with AX, NAV, GP and the SL platform. I am not a technical person, but I do understand that providing only one ERP platform from small business with 10 employees to enterprises with thousands of employees and international subsidiaries is simply bound to fail. All competitors equally struggle to do so, they all go with 2 platforms to serve the purpose. We all need to see that strong commitment from Microsoft to the different Business Application Platforms.
  • I am with Steve Mordue that it was odd to have announcements around branding, positioning and product portfolio go out completely untested. That is why there is an Inner Circle, why there is a Partner Advisory Council. It’s great to see that Microsoft is taking feedback. They reacted at Directions, they start to react on the feedback we and other partners gave as part of the Inner Circle event, but it could have saved a lot of unproductive discussion and sleepless nights for many of us, if it would have been done in a small forum first and positioned to a larger crowd.

So in closing, there is much to be excited about the Dynamics future in SMB. The strategy is sound and Microsoft, especially the Dynamics NAV team, has demonstrated that they can deliver. If they take feedback to heart and make sure we remain in the strong position as Dynamics SMB partners, we have the best ahead of us. As QBS we will continue to represent the interests of our partners best we can and provide feedback to Microsoft, to optimize our joined go-to-market. Also watch out for our Directions 2017 Business report. We will have exclusive interviews with Marko Perisic and other executives from Microsoft.

Best regards,

Michael Hartmann

CEO, QBS group

Slimstock and QBS group join forces to strengthen QBS partner capabilities

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Leusden, 21th of September 2017

Slimstock: market leader in inventory optimisation in Europe, announced a partnership with QBS to drive more business opportunities within the QBS partner base. With the complete software package Slim4, Slimstock helps customers to get the right inventory to the right place at the right time. Slimstock offers assistance to help reduce your inventory while at the same time increasing the service level. So turnover increases, while costs decrease and they offer a guarantee on these results. QBS will work with their partner community to explore opportunities for and with Slimstock which should result in service projects for the QBS partners.

The long-term strategic relationship will focus on enabling clients to implement the complete solution for the structural optimisation of their inventory with Slim4 and give our partners an upsell possibility at their customers and create more value add in the value chain of the customer.

Eric van Dijk, CEO, Slimstock: “Working with QBS will help us sharing our knowledge with more partners and customers. Thereby helping customers to take advantage of the new innovation in Dynamics NAV more efficiently.”

Michael Hartmann, CEO, QBS: “We are glad to offer another solution that helps partners adding more value add software on top of the existing NAV base”

For more information, visit www.slimstock.com

 

Important news from Directions US 2017

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QBS Partners are the best informed partners. As this is the mantra we live by, we are sharing the latest news on Dynamics NAV via this article. This week the first of the two Directions conferences is taking place in Florida. Some important news was shared which is crucial for your business planning for 2018. Although most of this news is very fresh, not fully detailed and will be repeated at Directions EMEA in Madrid, we would like to share what we know right now.

Dynamics  365 “TENERIFE” will offer full NAV functionality

The current versions of D365 Finance and Operations BE, avaliable in UK, US and CA offers limited functionality. This product was scheduled to become avaliable in other countries in Q4 2017. At Directions US it was announced that the new product, code name “TENERIFE” will have full functionality, giving customers the ultimate decision power to go for any configuration (OnPremise, Hybrid, SaaS or Multi Tenant hosting). For customers requiring less functionality, Office 365 Business Center will be the place to start. With this news it looks like the rigid division between Business Edition and Enterprise Edition is a blast from the past. This news proofs the full and continued focus of Microsoft on offering a great cloud product for the SMB with the same code base and functionality provided by Dynamics NAV. It is expexted that this product will launch in the spring of 2018

 

Extensions will be be optional

This new product “TENERIFE” will offer more possibilities to enhance the solution without the eminent need of extension. Although extensions will be by far the BEST option (in terms of upgradebilty, scalability and technical support), there will be options to leverage on the investment done in the current verticals build on older techniques

Although many more news was shared, these are the most important messages for now.  During the coming QBS Share Events we will share with you more details and indepth insights on these subjects. The connections we have with Microsoft via Inner Circle (amongs others) will be used to keep you updated and gives you early on the possibility to adapt to this news.

If you have any questions regarding this news or want to know more about our services around cloud readiness, please contact your PAM.

 

The CSP Direct model is like an iceberg

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At QBS group we believe that our partners deserve the best. The best support, the best software and the best stories. This time we have asked one of our UK partners, Creative Business Systems (Cbiz), to share their thoughts and experiences with you on their journey to the cloud. We asked Amit Wason if he could share his experience with you on the matter of a direct or indirect approach.

CSP inDirect

The market request for a subscription based approach is growing

We noticed that the market is changing, our clients are, more and more, requesting a subscription based approach. This allows them to not have their own services nor the hassle. At Cbiz we have always liked doing new things both in as well as with NAV, where we focus more on a service oriented delivery and not a product delivery. For now we are working on creating our own apps that will work on Dynamics 365, thus allowing us to have less on-offs and go the more repeatable side of the business. We will engage with our customers to see what is really important to them and fill the gaps with our apps to make sure the standardised Dynamics 365 offering is a perfect fit for them. By working with QBS group we can get rid of the technical challenge and focus on the solutions.

Find your market; do some proper market research to see where the vertical is that you should go for. Do not just dive in; the potential market for Dynamics 365 is different than the traditional market.

Direct or indirect approach, that’s the question

There are 2 options when going to the cloud. Some 4-5 years ago we had set up another company that would focus on 2 things: cloud (internet) security and cloud based services. We tried to offer the works: provisioning, creation of new users and portals, automated invoices etc. In the end it was just a mammoth task and towards the end we managed to make it all work, although we were not there where we wanted to be. The competition of large players however is fierce, the investments are huge and all the other things you need to think about were just crazy; support, security. Unless you can really go to market with some serious numbers, it does not make sense to go direct.

We have gone through the pain and realized how hard it is to create your own direct model. So when Andy De Rosa of QBS group, he and I go back for some 10 years, mentioned we could use QBS group for all this we were most definitely interested. And I can only say when looking at the indirect model, such as offered by QBS group, it is just brilliant. My advice to others…don’t take the direct approach, it is like an iceberg; you only see a small portion, the majority of the work takes place under water. QBS group and his CSP offering has the best margin. If you would go direct all the margin would be eroded with all the hassle you have to keep it working. Setting up the hardware part is actually the easy part, the hard part is trying to service it. QBS group has done all the hard work and they give us one place with all the information we need. Adding additional services is a matter of seconds.

In the process we of course encountered many questions, such as security, who is hosting what, who does what. Getting clients to understand what goes where. Security has been the biggest hurdle, especially more corporate companies want to know all the details and do the technical governance themselves. It would have been good to have a pack with the answers to these questions, explaining this is what you are buying and this is what happens. We collaborated with QBS group in providing the right answers to our clients in these projects.

Results so far

We have been using QBS group for our services for 2 years now, and we have several customers live on the platform. With QBS group we have found a partner in the process and not just a supplier of the platform. When dealing with Microsoft directly you are on your own to make things happen. We also have our own portal on Azure but do realize it is a lot more difficult and more work if something is not working. Whereas with QBS group you just switch your server on. It just makes it easy to get it working.

As well as the costing is a lot easier; we do not have to worry about how much database was used that month, how many connections, etc. We have more confidence as with QBS group we get a fixed price for our infrastructure costs, user bandwidth costs so that we know exactly how much our cost price is and what we can pass on as resale costs to our customers.

Our plans for the future

We will be offering half our services on the cloud and thus repeatable and half of it still on a project basis. The mass of our customers will work in a more slick way. We expect some of our smaller clients to outgrow Dynamics 365 and move towards projects. We might even need to set up a separate company for the cloud business, with their own marketing and sales. I expect we will have doubled the manpower by then, whereas there will be a shift in people we will attract. We will focus on creating apps that will assist our clients in getting the most out of their ERP software. In the short term we will need to get ready for NAV 365, as we are the first country in Europe to launch. These are exciting times!

Start selling Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales now via special SMB SKU

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QBS group guarantees “future proof selling” to Dynamics 365 Sales when it becomes available

You want to get started selling D365 Sales but don’t want to wait to Dynamics 365 Sales to become available in your country…. We got you covered!

In combination with the Jumpstart add-on we can sell you D365 today and guarantee you the upgrade to future products.

The basis for this offering are the 2 promotional SKU’s from Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales or Dynamics 365 for Sales and Customer Service (for more information visit our Partner Portal).

These promotional SKUs basically allows you to sell the D365 Sales Enterprise Edition to with a “SMB” price, which means that you can start selling to customers and don’t have to tell them to wait.

More info on Jumpstart via: http://www.jumpstart365.com/ 

If you want to know more or order this solution, please contact QBS group via the Partner Service Desk.

Promotion of Anne D. Jakobsen to VP of Marketing for QBS group

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Customer lifetime value and customer adds have become the new currency in the business application space. So at QBS group we want to strengthen our ability to offer world class marketing to our partners in order to keep them competitive. Promoting our Global Marketing Lead to VP of Marketing, Anne D. Jakobsen, is a natural step in this direction.

Anne has been with QBS group since November 2015, when she joined as the OneBizz Marketing Lead in the Nordics. Before that, Anne had a 15+ year history with Microsoft/Navision, so she’s a long time veteran in the world of Dynamics. She brings in a wealth of marketing experience on numerous disciplines and experience on cross-European activities, latest from her role as Marketing Manager with Microsoft Western Europe team. We are sure that strengthening our marketing organization like this will benefit all partners in the QBS group community.

In her own words: “I’ve spent most of my adult life doing marketing on the Dynamics portfolio – and over the years it has become more and more evident that creating modern marketing activities is what can make or break a company in this industry. So the services of the QBS group marketing teams are vital to the success of the partners in our community”.

Partners with QBS group benefits from marketing services such as strategic consultancy, lead generation, online marketing and marketing automation. Want to know how to join the QBS community? Read here.

As Microsoft changes and the market evolves: Stay on top of your Dynamics business

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As we prepare for the Directions conference in Madrid, I was reflecting on the last changes that Microsoft did to their field organization.

Having been at Microsoft myself for a long time, I understand the intension to heavily focus all resources on the main objective you have as a company and that is certainly to become the leading provider of cloud services. The data cloud with Azure, the productivity cloud with Office 365 and then the business cloud where Dynamics 365 Business Edition should be the focus for SMB customers. So decision was taken to align their field resources to enable that cloud transition at scale. So the previous role of a Partner Account Manager or Partner Sales Executive, as it was called last year, simply no longer exists. Amongst other roles you now find the Partner Development Managers that will support you in transforming to cloud, build offerings on top of Microsoft’s cloud services and monetize your IP and services. But when it comes to the traditional NAV business, you might feel a bit like Kevin home alone.

Where to turn to if you have questions around NAV licensing, what if you want to still add customers on prem and with a perpetual licensing? Of course, Microsoft still offers all of that, but will you find the same dedication as you had few months back? Your initial reaction might be similar to mine, to see that change as a challenge. But then I suggest to join the QBS Network. While partners in our network are all different, they are facing many of the same challenges. As QBS, we can aggregate and execute programs that single partner can’t afford or create. We now have more than 400 partners in our network across Europe and we do everything we can to make sure their investments are secured and that they transform and evolve at their pace, which is not necessarily the same that Microsoft has in mind. They benefit from offerings that generate qualified leads, so they can add customers for their solutions and services, we provide additional capacity and capabilities that they can tap into without hiring new resources, we enable new technologies like D365 with their teams and we keep their operation up and running, making sure our partners can focus on providing value to their customers.

If you are partner interested in our services and our community, please come to our booth (#10) at Inspire or visit my session at Directions on Wednesday at 15:30 in room Milan. Hope to see many of you in Madrid.

What Dynamics SMB partners can expect from Directions 2017

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For many years, Directions was the annual event for Microsoft Dynamics NAV partners. Driven by partners – organized for partners. This year however, the event makes a shift from ‘NAV only’ towards embracing the full Microsoft stack. DIRECTIONS is now open for all Dynamics SMB partners and focuses on attracting the Dynamics CRM partner community as well. Being a Dynamics SMB partner in todays’ market is like dancing on a volcano. And the various Microsoft announcements that partners can expect at these events will make the dancing effect even stronger!

The Directions conferences bring together developers, implementers, technical experts, marketeers, sales and executive/owner representatives from Dynamics SMB partners, ISV’s, service providers and Microsoft. At present, there are three editions of Directions. The 13th US edition will take place on September 17th till 20th in Orlando, Florida. According to the website, both the venue for the event and the Orlando international airport have survived hurricane Irma, so everything is good to go. The EMEA edition picked Madrid as the 2017 location for their tenth anniversary that will be organized from October 4th till 6th. And finally, in March 2017 the first edition ever of Directions ASIA was organized in Bangkok, Thailand.

The EMEA edition is expected to book another all-time high partner registration. Last years’ edition in Prague counted some 1.750 attendees, which by that time was a record. This year, the organization committee expects even (far) over 2.000 registrations, mainly due to the additional CRM attendees!

This article aims to give you an overview of what Dynamics NAV and Dynamics CRM partners can expect of these events. And where they should put their focus regarding the sessions.

  • The position of Dynamics NAV is under pressure. The announcement of the Dynamics 365 concept at WPC 2016, combined with today’s limited geographic availability of the D365 Finance and Operations Business edition (D365FOB) SMB solution has put Dynamics NAV in an uncomfortable position. Competitors have successfully sowed confusion in the market about NAV’s future determination. Microsoft now has the challenge, together with her partners, to recover the positioning of Dynamics NAV as her flagship ERP solution for SMBs. Partner can expect messages on this in the keynote presentations!
  • Many Dynamics SMB partners are eager to make a real start with Dynamics 365. However, this is of course directly related to the availability of the Dynamics 365 Business Edition. That includes both the ERP domain (‘Finance and Operations’) and the CRM domain (‘Sales’ and ‘Marketing’). In the interview we’ve had with Marko Perisic for our Inspire 2017 business report, he stated: “At DIRECTIONS, we will communicate our localization plans in detail. It means that every single Dynamics SMB partner in the world – be it NAV, GP, SL or Dynamics 365 – of every partner type in the channel – be it VAR, SI, or ISV – in all geographies of the world will get clear guidance on what they need to do to participate in Dynamics 365.” So every partner should look for news, guidance and a clear roadmap of their path to the Dynamics 365 platform.
  • Microsoft will officially launch Dynamics NAV 2018 – formerly known under the code name “Tenerife”. The agenda offers all kind of functional and technical sessions for this new version.
  • Over the past 12 months, Microsoft has managed to maintain the same code base between D365FOB and Dynamics NAV. Although this is a more technical statement, it is also a very important and strong strategic statement that should put partners at ease, since it means that any investment made in D365 Finance and Operations, Business Edition is a 100 percent investment in NAV, and vice-versa. At this season’s events, all Dynamics SMB partners should find further evidence for this statement, including the motivation and confidence for their ongoing investments.
  • All Dynamics NAV partners need to transform their businesses to stay relevant in a cloud-first world. However, many partners still have not started this process at all! Paul White, the former worldwide general manager for NAV, predicted during DIRECTIONS 2016 that only 20 percent of the NAV partner community will eventually make this transition. So partners who have not started yet should really focus on the sessions that can help them to transform as soon as possible. Partners can expect many sessions on this important topic.
  • To be successful with Dynamics 365, SMB partners must walk on two legs. For Dynamics NAV partners this means that they have to add the CRM domain to their solutions portfolio. And the Dynamics CRM partners have to find a way to expand their offering into the ERP domain. Failing to do so will, over time, limit their chances to win new deals and at the same time will put their customer bases at risk. Of course, there are several paths partners might follow to get there like building a new practice, cooperating with other partners, or acquiring the missing part. Partners should watch for sessions that give them guidance in this process.
  • The prospects for business success with “stand-alone” Dynamics NAV and/or CRM are expected to decrease over time. Separate from their attention to Dynamics 365, all partners should prepare to expand their current portfolio with solutions like Office 365, Power BI, Flow, Cortana Intelligence, and Azure. Most partners will probably not be able to take all at once, so they must make choices. What workloads are most important for your target markets? How much can you afford to invest? And what employee capacity do you have available? At the two events, there will be many functional and technical sessions that will give guidance on how to plan for these opportunities.
  • With the channel converging on Dynamics 365 solutions, the competition between partners will become much more intense. A Google search on ‘Dynamics 365’ results in tens of millions of results. So it’s far from easy to be found just based on the standard solution. More than ever before, Dynamics SMB partners need to differentiate their offerings by specializing on specific workloads and/or markets. Again, partners might want to select those sessions that help them prepare for this process.
  • Furthermore, success in the Dynamics 365 arena demands for modern marketing, sales, delivery and support processes. The reality is that most Dynamics SMB partners are still far away from that ideal situation. So it makes sense to attend the specific sessions on these topics as well. Digital transformation is the overall umbrella that Microsoft is using in her marketing and branding. Dynamics SMB partners should adapt the positioning and branding of their propositions to take advantage of this. And at the same time consider what digital transformation means for their internal IT processes.
  •  What business model do you need to make a financial success out of Dynamics 365? Probably even more important than all the product aspects – no matter how interesting they are – is the business side. Marketing, selling, implementing, and supporting Dynamics 365 demands a different approach compared with the traditional Dynamics projects. In order to be successful, most partners will need to see Dynamics 365 as a whole new chapter in their businesses – one that involves less license margin, smaller services revenues, and cheaper delivery people who work with a different mindset.
  • Partners much figure out Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner model. OCP is the biggest change in the Microsoft sales organisation of the last 10 years. It’s important for any Dynamics partner to understand this model and the impact it will have on their relationship with Microsoft. Are you still a managed partner in FY18? If so, will you be managed by a Microsoft Dynamics contact person or a more generic Microsoft contact person? And if you’re an unmanaged partner – where can you go for business support, especially for the more traditional NAV and CRM business issues?
  • What’s the future of Dynamics partner events? Now that Microsoft decided to finally integrate her different workloads into the new Dynamics 365 offering, the question arises of what this all means for events that were traditionally single-product focused but now are compelled to evolve, like DIRECTIONS (traditionally NAV-focused) and eXtreme365 (traditionally CRM-focused). Should they integrate as well? Partners can expect some indications on the future of these two events.

I will not be in Orlando, but I do hope to see you all in Madrid!

Guus Krabbenborg

Winning more deals by using strong communication templates

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Well, there are not many industries where (sales) people make promises so easily. And at the same time, the follow-up often is so poor. That’s bad news, right? However, you can also see this low expectation level as a huge opportunity! Why? Because it’s relatively easy to stand out of the crowd. Just by saying what you do and do what you say. It can be as simple as that! But of course, a right mindset is not enough. You will also need practical tools, like communication templates.

In this edition of QBS Talks you’ll learn why strong communication and an accurate follow-up has a huge positive impact on the decision-making process of your prospects. After this session, you’ll walk away with a good understanding of the psychology behind the buying process. And why being reliable and accurate improves your win chances dramatically. We also introduce a valuable set of sales documents that help you guide your prospect through his or her complete buying cycle.

If you’re active in sales or marketing, this is a session you definitely don’t want to miss!

Important factors to consider when implementing a CRM solution

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The key to a successful implementation

Implementing a CRM solution can be challenge. You can put many effort in it, and at the end it’s a challenge to meet the customer’s expectations. Every partner and customer wants to make the most out of their Sales or Marketing. But how to make it a success?

In this edition of QBS Talks Arjen Jansen from MindsUnited will give you important factors you need to consider when you are implementing a CRM solution. After watching this session you’ll walk away with a great understanding of how to make the implementation of a CRM solution a success.

General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) – a Microsoft perspective

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The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years – make sure you’re prepared.

On May 25, 2018 the new regulations around how we treat personal data in all EU countries* will come into effect. The key changes of the new regulations is much about introducing consequences to previously established rules from former directive, so if you’re not living up to these – this is the time to get your house in order. You may not think that these new regulations will have any effect on your business – simply because you don’t process personal information.

Well – you would be surprised what is considered “processing personal information”. Very few companies do not in some shape or form. E.g. if you support your custo- mers via remote help – that’s a case of a situation that require rules and processes to be described for cases of breaches.

On this session, the National Technology Officer of Microsoft Denmark, Ole Kjeldsen, gave an introduction into how Microsoft views the GDPR – what their advice to the industry is and also touch upon some of the things happening on the R&D front of Microsoft to comply with GDPR.

*The GDPR not only applies to organizations located within the EU but it will also apply to orga-nizations located outside of the EU if they offer goods or services to, or monitor the behavior of, EU data subjects. It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of data subjects residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location. That means that Brexit won’t exclude UK companies if they do business abroad.

General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) – a Microsoft perspective

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The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years – make sure you’re prepared.

On May 25, 2018 the new regulations around how we treat personal data in all EU countries* will come into effect. The key changes of the new regulations is much about introducing consequences to previously established rules from former directive, so if you’re not living up to these – this is the time to get your house in order. You may not think that these new regulations will have any effect on your business – simply because you don’t process personal information. Well – you would be surprised what is considered “processing personal information”. Very few companies do not in some shape or form. E.g. if you support your customers via remote help – that’s a case of a situation that require rules and processes to be described for cases of breaches.

On this session, the National Technology Officer of Microsoft Denmark, Ole Kjeldsen, gave an introduction into how Microsoft views the GDPR – what their advice to the industry is and also touch upon some of the things happening on the R&D front of Microsoft to comply with GDPR.

*The GDPR not only applies to organizations located within the EU but it will also apply to organizations located outside of the EU if they offer goods or services to, or monitor the behavior of, EU data subjects. It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of data subjects residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location. That means that Brexit won’t exclude UK companies if they do business abroad.

Strategic alliance with 1ClickFactory

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1ClickFactory and QBS group are delighted to announce a strategic relationship between the two companies. The synergies in such a relationship are apparent: both organisations are partner centric and dedicated to the Microsoft Dynamics products with very different yet complementary services.

Since 2009 1ClickFactory provided partners worldwide with extended development capabilities around Dynamics and packaged services aimed at specific tasks, such as Upgrade Services, code transformation, provisioning on Microsoft Azure, Certification for Microsoft Dynamics and much more.  Today 1ClickFactory does business every year with more than 300 Dynamics partners.

Since its creation 4 years ago, the QBS group network of partners in the Dynamics channel has grown to encompass 400+ partners. The services that QBS group provide partners range from strategic partner advice and management, staff readiness, sales and marketing support through to being the distributor of Microsoft licenses and enhancement plans and a CSP platform for partners.

Søren Fink-Jensen, CEO, 1ClickFactory:
“This will be a great partnership, where both 1ClickFactory and QBS partners, will benefit increasingly from an end-to-end experience, provided by 1ClickFactory and QBS”.

Michael Hartmann – CEO, QBS group:
“We want to be the best provider of services to Dynamics partners, and this alliance is a big step on the way”

Inspire 2017 Business Report available

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From 9 to 13 July the Microsoft partner conference Inspire was held in Washington DC. Inspire (aka WPC) is the most important annual Microsoft partner event. QBS group was there with a team of 8 people to hear from firsthand about Microsoft’s plans for FY 18 and beyond. And with that same team we have once again written our unique and well known Inspire/WPC business report.

Microsoft and her Dynamics partners live in exciting times! The switch from the traditional long-lasting, heavily services oriented on-premise projects to a more product oriented, vertical-specific approach based on subscription pricing is a big challenge!

At QBS Group, we understand that informing Dynamics partners well is crucial in that journey for making the right strategic decisions. That’s why we strive every single day to make “QBS Partners the best-informed Microsoft partners.”

We have been writing business reports on the Microsoft WPC/Inspire events since 2004. This year’s report will be our thirteenth annual publication. So we know what we’re doing.

What you can expect
This unique report features broad, insightful and independent business reporting on the happenings at Inspire 2017, especially for Microsoft Dynamics partners. The report, which consists of 54 pages of need-to-know information, is bought by leading Dynamics partners from all over the world.

The report contains no less than 16 pages about everything you need to know about Dynamics 365. It also features exclusive interviews with Marko Perisic(General manager for Microsoft Dynamics SMB) and Jeff Edwards (Director ERP Channel Strategy and Programs).

Index of the report 

What do Dynamics partners say about these reports?

This is what some of your colleague partners said about this report:

  • “We are a loyal purchaser of these WPC/Inspire reports. Where in the world can you find a solid, structured and well-informed second opinion for so little money? We always discuss the report in our board meeting. QBS helps us to stay alert!”
  • “This is a great report service! It contains lots of background information that helps us better understand how to translate Microsoft’s strategies to our daily business.”
  • “I’ve only recently started in the Dynamics channel. Thanks to this report I was up to date in no time of the various Microsoft strategies, her product policies and the trends in the Dynamics partner channel”

The average satisfaction score for this report over the last 5 years was 8,6 on a 1 to 10 scale.

First taste?
To get a good idea of what you can expect from our Inspire 2017 Business Report, you can now download the 2016 edition of our WPC Business report for free. 

Order your copy now!

Partners of QBS group receive this Inspire 2017 report at no additional cost, as it is part of their QBS membership. For non QBS Microsoft partners, the report is available for only € 400,- exclusive of VAT per partner company.

Do you want to know all about Microsoft’s plans for FY 18 and the opportunities these create for your business? Then order your copy today!

As a Microsoft Dynamics professional, can you afford to miss on this important information?

Inspire 2017 – daily business updates

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From 9-12 July in Washington D.C. QBS group attended the Inspire 2017 edition.

Are you ready to be Inspired? Watch here the daily business updates back from Guus Krabbenborg during Inspire 2017.

Day 1

Day 2 

Day 3

Exclusive interview with Joe Longo – SBS Group

Day 4

Day 5

QBS group receives prestigious Microsoft 2017/2018 Inner Circle Award

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For the fourth year in a row QBS group is awarded Inner Circle for Microsoft Dynamics

For the fourth consecutive year, Microsoft has awarded QBS group with the prestigious membership of the Inner Circle for Microsoft Dynamics. The 2017/2018 Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle honours an elite group of <60 of the most strategic Microsoft partners across the globe, showing high commitment to customers reflected in their business performance and high level of sales achievement.

Membership in this elite group is based on sales achievements that rank QBS group in the top echelon of the Microsoft global network of partners. Inner Circle members have performed to a high standard of excellence by delivering valuable solutions that help organizations achieve increased success.

This recognition of Inner Circle for Microsoft Dynamics came during Microsoft Inspire (formerly Microsoft WPC), the annual premier partner event, which took place July 9-13, 2017 in Washington, D.C.

Maria Garaña, Vicepresident EMEA, Microsoft Business Solutions: “QBS group continues to be a strategic partner for Microsoft across Europe. Not only do they serve more than 400 partners with sales, marketing and technical services, they will also one of our key partners to launch  Dynamics 365 Business Edition. QBS will further grow their impact in Microsoft’s partner ecosystem by enabling partners new to Dynamics to build solutions and serve SMB customers across Europe.”

Frank Holland, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Business Solutions Sales & Partners: “Each year we recognize and honor Microsoft Dynamics partners from around the world for exemplary business performance. These award-winning partners represent the top 1% of Microsoft Dynamics partners in terms of sales performance, but their critical impact on the success of our shared customers is what truly stands out. Microsoft is honored to recognize QBS group for their achievements this past year and for their dedication and support of Microsoft Dynamics solutions.”

Michael Hartmann, CEO QBS group says: “I am extremely proud that we have succeeded in receiving this prestigious award for the fourth year in a row. This award means a lot to us and is the result of great achievements by both our partners and our team. It is also a constant reminder to provide services that will help our partners take full advantage of the opportunities that come with Dynamics 365.  Our community counts now more than 400 partners and we will continue to invest heavily to make QBS the most attractive service provider for partners.”

Microsoft Dynamics 365 – an SMB perspective

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Live from Inspire Washington the latest insights into the upcoming Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Editions!

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is taking CRM to the SMB. There will be some big changes in the SMB world of CRM with the launch of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Edition for Sales and Marketing apps later this year. Microsoft is finally offering a truly SMB ready CRM solution.                                

We’ll discuss the latest updates and insights. You’ll learn the latest highlights about the Business Edition apps. Do you wait for it or start selling now? And what’s in it for you as a partner? Don’t miss it!

Part 4 Microsoft Dynamics Development Preview

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Microsoft released during last Christmas an Azure Virtual Machine where you can play around with the new Development Environment.

It is the fourth blog about the development environment. As this one does not rely on previous created code, you can start with this one. When the new NAV development tools are completely new, then please start with the first blog.

This blog will describe how you can upgrade your existing objects to be used in the new development environment. To upgrade your code, the June update is required. Additional information about this update can be found on the NAV Team Blog.

There are multiple ways how you can work with the new development environment:

1. Via Azure

If you have already installed a previous preview version, please remove complete Azure resource group, and create a new VM.

The deployment will start and it will take some time to finish. In the end, you will see the VM with additional stuff.

2. Local

Eric Wauters aka Waldo created a blog post how you can install the new development on your local machine.

So it is up to you how you continue.

In the NAV team blog post of June there is some information on how you can upgrade your code.

To get things going I need some files from a current development system. I choose to use a small piece of our internal system and opted for our Quattro subscription system as it has almost no impact on standard NAV.

The following objects need to be upgraded

As this is only a part of our internal system, I copied these files to standard NAV database and compile them, of course there is some interaction with standard NAV.

On MSDN you can find an item on how to upgrade your code via the TXT2ALtool.

The first step is to export the NAV objects in a clean format. The only way this can be done is via the command line, the command I used:

finsql.exe
Command=ExportToNewSyntax,
File=c:\temp\exportedObjects.txt,
Database=”Demo Database NAV (10-0)”, ServerName=<servername>\NAVDEMO,
Filter=Version List=*IPS*

That gave me the objects in a well-known but clean format.

Even the extension (version 1) codeunit is converted 🙂

Next step is to create .DELTA files, as these are all new objects, no files should be located in the ORIGINAL directory. The above created file should be copied to the MODIFIED directory.

When the PowerShell command Compare-NAVApplicationObject is executed the DELTA files are created.

Now it is time to transform the objects to AL objects. Copy the created obect to the directory c:\project\al_original.
This conversion can be done with the TXT2AL tool, execute the following command via the command line.
TXT2AL –source=c:\project\al_original –target=c:\project\al_ready –extensionstartid=71000000.

The files in the al_ready directory should look like this. Ready to be used in the new development environment.

And what about the standard NAV objects that didn’t compile? Well, maybe it is time for redesign? If you don’t do it now, you will never do it.