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

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.