Optimizing your resources as QBS partner with ForNAV

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Leusden, 5th May, 2017 – ForNAV, a relatively new company with decades of NAV experience, announced on April 18th a partnership with QBS, to drive more business opportunities within the QBS partner base. With the combined power of the tools of ForNAV and the experience of industry veterans such as Michael Nielsen, Jan Sillemann, Jacob Reinholdt Rasmussen and Mark Brummel, partners can easily overcome obstacles when creating and upgrading reports for Dynamics NAV.

The Reports ForNAV Converter makes going from classic reports to RDLC fast and easy. It enables reports developed for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 and NAV 2009 (also known as “classic” or C/SIDE reports) to run on newer versions that require the RDLC format.

For creating and modifying reports for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, the Reports ForNAV Designer is an easy-to-use tool. If you are familiar with the C/SIDE reporting tool, you can start working with the Reports ForNAV Designer instantly.

For the partners of QBS, this is another way to focus on delivering high-value services to customers, letting smart tools improve efficiency by automating some of the day-to-day work. This partnership is also another example of the services to help partners with the optimization of their resources. And this is why QBS has negotiated a 50% introduction discount for QBS partners, when combined with the use of the Dynamics Upgrade Services.

The long-term strategic relationship between ForNAV and QBS will focus on driving the use of ForNAV tools by new partners and end-users.

Jan Sillemann – ForNAV
“Working with QBS will help us reach more partners. Faster. And thereby help customers take advantage of the new innovation in Dynamics NAV more efficiently.”

Michael Hartmann – CEO QBS group
“We are glad to offer another solution that helps partners focus on delivering high-level services and support the transition to a repeatable business model.”

For more information, visit www.fornav.com/ and www.qbsgroup.com/marketplace/ForNAV

What is the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program (Microsoft CSP)

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Microsoft wants partners to take full advantage of their opportunity in the cloud, so they introduced the Cloud Solution Provider Program (CSP).

The Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program (CSP) enables partners to directly manage their entire Microsoft cloud customer lifecycle. Partners in this program utilize dedicated in-product tools to directly provision, manage, and support their customer subscriptions. Partners can easily package their own tools, products and services, and combine them into one monthly or annual customer bill.

Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program

This program helps Microsoft partners become their customers’ trusted advisors. Because by using CSP, partners are able to own and manage the end-to-end relationship with their customers.

CSP versions; Direct and Indirect

There are two versions of CSP, the Direct (Tier 1) model and the Indirect (Tier 2) model. Partners have to choose at least one model. They can also choose both.

Microsoft Cloud solution provider

The difference between the Direct CSP model and the Indirect CSP model is that the Direct model requires a robust infrastructure to enable end-to-end ownership of the customer relationship. There are a lot of requirements to be met and for most partners this isn’t feasible. The Indirect model however, offers partners (resellers) the opportunity to work with an Indirect CSP partner who can provide the tools and resources necessary to manage their customer relationship. And for most of them, this is the best option.

You need to decide

More and more Microsoft cloud solutions can only be sold through the CSP model, so partners need to decide. Dynamics 365 for example will not become part of the Dynamics pricelist, but will only be available via CSP.

ERP should we look for a new abbreviation

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In the nineties, we were introduced to a new abbreviation: ERP, or “Enterprise Resource Planning”. The term was devised at about the time of the stormy growth of Job, SAP, etc .. Even Microsoft used the term after the acquisition of, among others, Axapta and Navision.

Now, 20 years on from the emergence of ERP, new (cloud) providers have recognized that ERP solutions need to be part of a more integrated platform and adapt their current way of working to consider open and flexible solutions.

So that raises the question; Should we still refer to ERP in same context? Should we find another term or continue with the same abbreviation, but with new definition? Might we suggest using the terms below!

E = Enterprise or Eco-system

When we refer to Enterprise, you can associate images that sums up the definition of the phrase such as a company name, a location (with a parking lot, often an entrance gate and a reception). More often something tangible. In recent years, companies are becoming part of an increasingly virtual world and now their demand is to participate in an eco system of suppliers, partners and customers. ‘Physical boundaries are removed, doing everything yourself is almost certainly not an option for a business and they need external support.’ Enterprise as we know it does not exist anymore; The eco system determines the success. I therefore suggest that we keep the ‘E’, but with a new definition!

R = Resources

Even when it comes to Resources, we immediately think of traditional definitions: employees on the payroll, office equipment, inventory in the warehouse, etc… Is this still the case? As a term, Resource has changed since it was first used in this context. Organizations are now increasingly working with a flexible contractor list, the stock is demand driven, production is outsourced, etc. The ‘R’ may remain, but we should have the underlying realization that we are increasingly talking about Resources that are outside our own organization. With that in mind, can my current business application support this? Or does it limit me to gain insight into all the resources in my eco system?

P = Planning

Under the ‘P’ of ‘Planning’ organizations assume some kind of sense of certainty when it comes to the near and distant future. Planning is time consuming and once again completed. In today’s business climate, we are expected to respond almost instantly to changes outside and within our organization. We collect continuous data and if we do not collect the data that we need, unwanted questions will be asked. Any solution can record data and have alerts but then what. What do we do with that data? How can we arrange the analysis to get the right data from that information? Can my current business application handle all that data? What does my performance do? How do I solve that and what impact does it have on my planning process?

Many questions; The answer lies in an unconditional quest for predictability. Predictability must be embedded in our business processes. Collecting data and converting it into available real-time and accurate information is crucial. Organizations that are well-organized are ready for the future and further growth. Will the term ‘planning’ continue to be used? Possibly not. Let’s just go for ‘Predictability’.

Conclusion

Good news: We can continue to use the abbreviation ‘ERP’. However, with new words that fit the time we live now. From now on we are talking about ‘Eco-system Resource Predictability’. Whether we agree to change the phrase is just a question; what matters right now is what our businesses demand from our applications!

Dynamics 365 Business Edition: Opportunity or Threat

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Microsoft will be launching Dynamics 365 Business Edition in Europe in 2017 – starting with the UK and then rolling out to other countries.

Within the channel, we all recognise that the world of business applications has changed dramatically. With Microsoft embracing the concept of a true SaaS business application suite of software, what will be the impact on existing business models and existing Dynamics NAV and CRM partners? Does every partner need to completely re-engineer their P&L, Cashflow and Balance Sheet to succeed in a Dynamics 365 world? Can we carry on regardless? After speaking with dozens of VARs and ISVs, QBS group is in a unique position to feedback and analyse the views of both our channel partners and the potential impacts of Dynamics 365.

Join Will McIntee to listen to his views on some of the considerations that could or should be taken into account when thinking about Dynamics 365!

The Capacity Dilemma; Short-term Solutions Available!

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In one of the recent partner meetings, the nightmare of every channel marketing person came true: The partner was refusing to take more leads! It was not because the quality of the leads was bad, nor was the partner thinking the leads would be overprized. He simply denied, because he had no more capacity to follow up on new projects.

I think many of our partners have been in such a situation. They can’t simply take on more customers, because capacity is limited and they don’t want to compromise on quality.

Of course, this is a difficult situation and in the past years, I have seen many initiatives to create new capacity by nurturing talents at universities and driving graduates to get into the Business Application space. While this is the right investment in our future, most of these initiatives are more long-term time and typically do not scale as required. Arguably Microsoft invests in product development to make sure the new generation of Dynamics 365 products are faster to implement and therefore do not consume as much capacity.

Want to get inspired by a success story about moving to the cloud?
Read Get yourself a niche, in order to be successful

Yet in the past few months, we have seen 2 great solutions that can have short term impact on our partner’s capacity and that are scalable.

Upgrade services

Most projects do not start from scratch, typically customers have an existing solution for ERP or CRM that they want to migrate to more modern platforms. A huge part of such migration projects is time consuming, low value work that consumes precious time of consultants and technical people. With companies such as 1 Click Factory, QBS group is now offering Dynamics Upgrade service, so you can outsource most of the low value, high time consumption work and focus your people on the high value work. From first cases, we get very positive feedback that partners can free up capacity drastically, while saving cost at same time.

Once partners are following that simple structure, they can see how much capacity can be gained.

Yet this approach requires that the partner structures the project on a new dimension, what parts are low level workloads to be outsources vs. the ones that should still be in-house. Once partners are following that simple structure, they can see how much capacity can be gained by using outsourced services such as our upgrade offerings

Resource Optimisation

All of our partners are profiled in Dynasource, which is a new marketplace to share IT projects and talents. So you can either offer a project where you need additional capacity or you need expertise that you don’t have in-house or in case you have resources available, you can shop for projects and “rent out” your resources to other partners. Like with all disruptive business models, there is an initial reservation. Can I trust the person I source in? Can I make sure that my most valuable resources are not hired by another partner? It’s all a matter of trust and leaving one’s comfort zone. However, with first projects being handled through the Dynasource platform, we see the early movers in our community creating instant capacity through this model.

Dynasource offers you the possibility to hire experienced subject matter experts for existing projects or new projects.

I am convinced that if our partners are taking advantage of both options to create capacity, they will enjoy a larger customer base and higher profits. And in the end, what was the nightmare of a channel marketing person, to have partners reject leads because of capacity constraints, will become confined to history 😊. If you want to know more about these services and how we can help you to create capacity and enlarge your customer base, please contact one of our regional offices or send me an email.

Michael Hartmann

Dynamic Communities NAVUG can help NAV Partners to build a Stronger Relationship with their Clients

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Two months ago, I was contacted by The NAV User Group (NAVUG) with the request if QBS and her partners and end customers had an interest to join the coming Summit EMEA in Amsterdam.

My first reaction was NO, our partners do not see the value of a NAV user group and will see this as a business threat when exposing end customers to other competing partners also attending Summit EMEA. But after having a couple of internal discussions and also with some QBS partners I started to re-think my first reaction and thinking what business benefit could this bring to our partners when jointly attending or referring your end customers to Summit EMEA in Amsterdam on April the 4-6.

As you know we at QBS group, are always looking at how we can improve our partners’ businesses and therefore I wanted to reach out to each of you and share my thoughts, ideas and start some discussion on why you as a (QBS) NAV partner should attend Summit EMEA and what benefits this might bring you.

Benefit I: Show your customer, that you dare to facilitate and act beyond

So when exposing your customers into the NAVUG you give them the chance to provide feedback to the NAV Microsoft product teams and give them a platform to exchange thoughts, ideas or express the worries they have. But above all it will show the customers that you dare to facilitate and act beyond just acting as  a trusted IT advisor.

Benefit II: Create a Long term Relationship

A Long term Relationship with your customers is the most valuable thing you can have as these customers will give you the best recurring revenue and profit. But this will mean that the customer needs to be willing to change and adapt to new technology. What better platform than Summit EMEA to hear all the new exciting stuff from the vendor but above all let peers tell about success of new technologies and which benefits it brought to them. So when driving home from the event you should have multiple upsell and cross-sell leads to be discussing for the coming weeks and create a great (quickly created) pipeline.

Benefit III: Get Customers feedback

By learning and being close to all the new IT developments from the Microsoft teams you can immediately sense the feedback from the customers in the room. What better proof for you to make a company business decision on where to invest in when it comes direct from the source, the end customer!

Benefit IV: The NAVUG is your USP

The NAVUG could be used as a Unique Selling Point and even a differentiator in every new sales engagement. It can be perceived as a comfort and a safe haven in the knowledge that there is an end user NAV platform where they can discuss with peers, learn from others’ experiences and ask opinions and feedback. After all “one of the most important things in sales is all about taking away distrust and uncertainties at the customer side” and this could be just that last customer concern in order to propel  yourself to the next sales round or win the deal.

 

So, I really hope and trust that you will be signing up and take this opportunity to learn from the sessions, spend valuable time with your customer and that this will become a meaningful future platform to build on and for you to make the right future business investments around Dynamics NAV/Dynamics365 for more future success.

And do not forget that Amsterdam is also a great city to spend time in and enjoy the diversity it can give you and your customers.

Part 3 – 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. This is the third blog about the development environment. Please read my previous blogs before you continue with this one. This blog will describe the way you can create a new role center.

For this blog I have used the February update. Additional information about this update can be found on the NAV Team Blog.

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

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

I copied the sources from previous month to a local folder and started Visual Studio code.

When I selected the working folder I got a warning message and I was not able to compile the solution from previous month.

Hmmm, something changed 🙁

I looked around on the DVD and there was no NAV resource files located in C:\Demo\Nav Developer Experience\Resources as requested in the app.json file.

Ok, how do I get those resources? Well I found an installation PowerShell script and executed it.

That trick worked and the resource files where copied to my working folder.

After hitting [F5] the solution compiled, but that was not all, the NAV web client started automatically, very nice done Guys!

Now the solution is working and the web client opens automatically it’s time to add a new Role Center to show our solution information.

I always create a development Role Center to display and test the added functionality.

There is a perfect MSDN blog how you create a Role Center.

The first step is to create the activity or cue table.
To keep this blog simple I just added one cue that displays the open sales orders.

The cue information should be displayed in the card page.

There are a few things that you should be aware of:

  • the card type should be CardPart
  • the group must be a cue group. Otherwise you won’t see any cues in the role center
  • It is a setup table, thus the OnOpenPage trigger should insert a record.

This cue page is added to the role center page.

That’s the code for today. Hit [F5] and compile the solution.

The web client will start and you have to change the profile and user personalisation. I had to restart the service tier but then I got the correct Role Center.

Get yourself a niche, in order to be successful

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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 Elite Dynamics to share their thoughts and experiences with you on their journey to the cloud. On a rainy afternoon we spoke with Jamaine Campbell and asked him what he would suggest others who want to start their cloud business.

Jamaine Campbell on Elite Dynamics

We started Elite Dynamics back in November 2015. Before that I was already working as a Sales & Marketing Manager, Implementation support for a NAV bases vertical for the UK Caravan & holiday park- industry. In the UK alone there are approximately 4000 of these parks. As many of them are quite small the large investment for a full on-premise NAV suite surely narrowed the potential market.  I already wished to start the deployment of this software in an app, but the MD did not share my vision, so I set up a team with like-minded people who understood that the market is shifting. We changed the way we deploy our solutions and we can rely on Azure infrastructure services via QBS, which allows us to focus on the software components.

In order to have our solution implemented in more organisations than my previous employer did in the previous ten years, the answer was a simple rapid deployment of both the database, implementation but equally the back-end servers and associated services. How do we remove the CAPEX costs? The answer is simple: put it in the cloud! Our future is not in concentrating on such large implementations, but in deploying the same solution over and over again.

Our customers

We currently have 9 customers in both the UK as well as Canada, we can tackle both the lengthier on- premise implementations as well as the fast cloud implementations. Over half of our current customers use our solution in the cloud. We expect this to be a larger percentage in the future.

We distinguish between three types of customers: the large ones who own their own IT department, have the CAPEX budget to invest in the terminal servers, SQL servers, the hardware, etc. and often have a quite complex network which involves multiple applications that need to be integrated. They will usually go for the on-premise solution, because they have the infrastructure in place, support and they have the IT budget.

The second type of customers could be easily as large, but they do not have the IT budget nor the infrastructure in place, nor do they wish to put that amount of money into it. They are happy to have the software solution delivered to them as a pure app. In December 2015 we already had a request from a customer in Canada and within 1 day we managed to spin their server up. In a day we got them from zero to deployment and having their database up and running.

The third type of customer we identify is a multi-tenanted environment, the smaller of the vacation and caravan parks. They just want an affordable “off-the-shelf” solution, a pure hosted service. Elite Dynamics is pioneering with this multi-tenant environments.

Find yourself a niche market

By focusing on a specific industry it allows you to understand the requirements of that industry, to better understand your barriers, your constraints but also your USP’s. Having a niche market is surely helping us to gain such a great market position in a short period of time.

We still see many partners who focus on everything, but we believe actually finding and fully grasping a niche market is the way forward.

We still see many partners who focus on everything, but we believe actually finding and fully grasping a niche market is the way forward. It surely helps if no competitors have selected this market yet and if there is a budget to be spent on your solution. After the UK market we are also looking at other native English speaking areas, such as Canada, United States and New Zealand.

Removing the cost of infrastructure

If you are looking for a quick implementation at a lower entry point, you need to remove the cost of infrastructure: in many cases the cost of infrastructure can be greater than the Dynamics NAV and server licenses. In a marketspace that is already sensitive to price, doubling the cost is not an option. The whole NAV environment is a lot more technical then it was 10 years ago, also adding additional costs for support. Remove the requirements, skills and knowledge around the infrastructure.  Let that whole 24/7 uptime become somebody else’s problem, as well as the whole SQL licensing part and focus on delivering a NAV application as an app.

Take the emotions out of it

When moving from on-premise to cloud, you have to make sure you take the emotions out of it. ERP is all about emotion and on-premise is well established over decades. It somehow acts as a “comfort blanket”. People prefer to have 50 servers in a room over having 1000 servers in a well secured and temperature-controlled area.

For us moving to a cloud-based model was a logical step.  Out of the 4000 caravan and holiday parks only 20 could afford the investment in hardware, software and support that is needed in an on- premise situation.

Some final words

We feel we have a responsibility to our staff, our customers as well as to ourselves to do the right thing. In our vision we want to stay focused on quality over quantity and focus on what we do best. We believe this will help us grow and be the dominant player in the UK market in a few years as well as open up the international market of caravan and holiday parks.  We could not have done this without the help of QBS and in our case the help of Andy De Rosa, our Channel Manager. He is there for us when we need him. Having a trusted partner such as QBS surely helps us a lot.

Want to become successful in the cloud with Dynamics 365?
Start now with the Dynamics 365 Acceleration Program.

eXtreme 365 EMEA 2017 Business Report

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The 2017 edition of eXtreme 365 EMEA is expected to be an interesting edition. Today, the world of a Dynamics CRM partner is changing faster than ever before. Being a Dynamics CRM partner today is like dancing on a volcano – far from boring! And the recent announcements around the Dynamics 365 solution makes this effect even stronger!

The EMEA edition picked Lisbon as their 2017 location. It will be organized from March 13th till 15th for the partner event and on March 16th and 17th for end-users. This last part is new and anticipates to fill the gap that has emerged after Microsoft stopped with Convergence.

Due to the release of Dynamics 365 last year, the eXtreme organization decided to change the name of the event from ‘eXtreme CRM’ into ‘eXtreme 365’

Over 600 partners will attend eXtreme 365 EMEA in Lisbon. That’s an all-time high score! If you’re a visitor yourself, an interesting question is how you will bring all these messages back home. Because it’s crucial that all your team members understand what’s going on. And more important – what that all means to them!

Here’s where QBS group can help you out. We will write a business report on eXtreme 365. With 3 authors we will cover more sessions than a single partner normally can do. The sessions that we will cover go ‘cross content’. This means that we will not only cover the keynotes, but also various technical and functional sessions and of course also the business sessions.

On top of that we will publish exclusive interviews that we will have in Lisbon with these Microsoft executives:

  • Tony de Freitas – Director Dynamics Partner Strategy
  • Param Kahlon – General Manager of Program Management, Dynamics 365
  • Satish Thomas – Group Program Manager, Microsoft Appsource

The report will be published in the English language and will be available by the beginning of April 2017.

At QBS group we’ve been writing business reports for Microsoft Dynamics partners on Microsoft’s WPC and DIRECTIONS since 2004.

QBS group partners will receive this report for free as part of their membership. Partners who sign up as a QBS group partner before April 1st, 2017 will get a FREE copy as their welcome present. Non-QBS partners pay only € 350,- exclusive VAT to receive a copy.

This unique and valuable report is bought by leading Dynamics partners from all over the world.

Can you afford to miss on this important business report?

Part 2 – 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.

This is the second blog about the development environment. If you want to know how to create your environment, please read my first blog on this subject.

This blog will describe the way you can create new tables and pages.

For this blog I have used the January update. Additional information about this update can be found on the NAV Team Blog.

To get started I removed a complete resource group, and create a new VM.
You can download a new VM here.

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

 

Start an RDP session and open Visual Studio Code.

To create a new package execute the following steps:

  • Create a new folder
  • Select this folder in Visual Studio Code
  • Create a new file called “HotelSetup.al”
  • Create app.json file
    Hit [F5] and update the app.json file. Store it on a safe place (preferably in a source control system like TFS or GIT) because the ID is unique and should be used throughout the life cycle of your product.

Update the development environment (the list is displayed in the top of the window)

  • Create launch.json file
    Hit [F5] again and the launch.json file will be created
  • As you will see in the output window the empty package file is created

Our package is ready and now it is time to add some code. As you saw I created a new file hotelsetup.al this should contain a NAV setup file.

In the old development environment this was easy:

Well in the new development, it is also quite simple. When you type ‘ttable’ and press enter the table snippet will be executed and the table framework will be there.

Now, it is up to you to create the code, there is not much changed here, it is plain and simple AL as you are used to.

I gave the table a number and name, added the fields and update the primary key information.

Next step is to create the properties like Caption ML and table relations. Just start typing and you will see the snippets.

At the end you will have a perfect created table and you can press [F5] to publish your app.

 

Next step is to create the setup page. In the old development environment it is done via the page wizard.

In the new development environment use the ‘tpage’ snippet to create a page framework.

It takes some time, but in the end you will get the job done.

So finished?

Not really, it is a setup table. You need to add code to the OnOpenPage trigger and to the Company Initialization codeunit.

The OnOpenPage trigger is the same as you are used to.

And now the fun part: make an extension to Codeunit 2 Company Initialize.

This is only possible in the January version!

Hit [F5] to publish the app and you are done!

Meet QBS group at eXtreme 365 EMEA 2017!

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It’s only a few weeks until the start of the most important Dynamics CRM/Dynamics 365 Sales & Marketing partner event in the EMEA region: eXtreme 365 2017. The event will be organized in beautiful Lisbon from March 13th-15th (partner event) and March 16th-17th (end-user event).

Value Add Distributor QBS group is silver sponsor at this event. With over 375 Dynamics NAV partners in 17 countries, QBS group is the biggest partner eco-system in the Dynamics world. In Lisbon, we will present ourselves for the first time to the Dynamics CRM channel where we aim to play this Value Add role as well. We will do this together with our strategic partners Dynasource and MindsUnited. The three of us share a booth on the information market and deliver a series of sessions that might be interesting for you.

Here’s an overview:

We will start with a side-kick role in the session of Microsoft’s WE lead Ingmar Boon on Tuesday afternoon at 2:15 pm, called ‘Building your SMB practice leveraging CSP’.

The second presentation will be delivered by Guus Krabbenborg on Wednesday morning at 8:30 am and is about the partner business side of the new Dynamics 365 solution. The title of his session is ‘This is what Dynamics CRM partners need to change to become successful with Dynamics 365!’.

The third session is one delivered by Peter Vach from Dynasource. The title of this session is ‘Why Have 2500 Microsoft Partners Already Signed Up to Collaborate?’.

And the fourth presentation on Wednesday afternoon at 4:45 pm is again a side-kick role in another session of Ingmar Boon, called ‘Dynamics 365 Sales in SMB – Partner Roundtable’.

Lastly, Guus Krabbenborg will lead a session in the Executive Exchange track on Wednesday, named ‘Build your Business Models’

We also have a booth, number 9, where we can answer all your questions about the new CSP program and how we can support the growth of your Dynamics 365 business. We are more than happy to explain why QBS partners perform substantially better than non-QBS partners.

Curious what you can expect from this conference? Same here! That’s why we wrote this pre-view article for you: ‘What Dynamics CRM partners can expect from eXtreme 365 EMEA 2017’.

Finally, we will publish a business report on this event. After publishing these reports on Microsoft’s WPC for the past 12 years, and on DIRECTIONS EMEA last year, this will be the first year that we will write such a document on the eXtreme event. With a team of expert authors, we will cover most of the sessions – both commercial, technical and functional. The result is a great read for you as visitor. But maybe even more important – a fantastic document to inform your colleagues back home! Our mantra is ‘QBS partners are the best-informed Microsoft Partners!’

This report is available for free for all the QBS partners as part of their membership. Non-QBS partners can buy a copy for only EURO 350 excluding VAT. More details at the QBS booth.

See you all in Lisbon in March!

Guus Krabbenborg

Democratizing Enterprise Solution

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While I was checking our last revenue numbers for a board meeting, using Microsoft PowerBI, I was reminded how much democratization happened in IT solutions over last 2 decades.

As a company, QBS group is a small business, with 45 employees working across Europe. Yet we are benefiting from Business Intelligence that 20 years back, only large enterprises could afford, if at all. As result, I can take decision faster, deciding where we need to invest, I can learn better, comparing results of subsidiaries and analyzing details of our performance.

One critical element to provide enterprise solution to SMB, are partners like the ones in our QBS group network. As the name ERP implies, many business solutions were invented with enterprises in mind, yet with the relentless work you have done over the past years, more and more small and medium business are now enjoying the benefits of IT based resource planning, financials or customer relationship management. Of course, Microsoft has kick started that phenomenon by providing scalable platforms like NAV or SQL server and dropping prices to an affordable level. But you as partner should take pride in being the one that actually made it happen, with each customer you were activating for NAV or CRM. Not only did companies benefit, all people working in the NAV or CRM environment became more productive and enjoyed less cumbersome, routine work. In these time of fast changing technology and business objectives, it is easy to forget what has been accomplished. I suggest, you should take a moment and celebrate your achievement.

But arguably, we just getting started. The penetration of modern business application in SMB is still low, especially if we look at the S, the small businesses in SMB. While Office 365 is getting predominant productivity tool in SMB for new deployments, still the majority of SMB’s installed base is using an onprem, legacy version of Office. But market prediction show, that vast majority of SMB’s will go to the Office SaaS offering in next 3-5 years and if they do, the next logical step is to also deploy a modern business application as a SaaS offering. Research company AMI partners sees the SaaS market for ERP and SMB in SMB to be 1.7 Billion $ in Western Europe alone.

I might be simplifying, but to accelerate the adoption of enterprise type business application in SMB, and therefore take a share in that 1.7 Billion business,  it takes 3 main steps

  1. An affordable, simple to activate platform that can integrate business productivity as well as business processes – Microsoft is providing that with Dynamics 365 Business Edition
  2. A process that connects customer prospects for business solution with sellers. We are heavily investing in that process with our Take-the-Lead program. As QBS we generate interest for SMB’s in modern business applications and then qualify these prospect and hand them over to our partners.
  3. Making configuration for business application still requires services that can hardly be done in a self service model. Also making sure that business processes are correctly reflected in the business application and that these processes are being optimized is something you can hardly automate. That is why at the end of the day, you as Dynamcis partners are still the “last mile” to customer success and to further democratize business application.

So, there is a lot to be proud of and even more to be excited about for the next years when it comes to SMB’s and business application. At QBS group, we want support you in the best possible way to become part of that future. Our upcoming QBShares are an ideal platform to have that dialogue. I will do my best to participate in all of them, in Birmingham UK, Leusden Netherlands, in Germany, Denmark and Spain. I  am looking forward to see you there.

Michael Hartmann

What Dynamics CRM partners can expect from eXtreme 365

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eXtreme 365 is the annual event for Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners. Being a Dynamics CRM partner today is like dancing on a volcano – far from boring. And the recent announcements around the Dynamics 365 solution makes this effect even stronger!

eXtreme started as ‘eXtreme CRM’ back in 2010 with their first event in Las Vegas. Today, there are two editions of eXtreme. The last US edition took place December 2016 in Newport Beach. The EMEA edition picked Lisbon as their 2017 location. It will be organized from March 13th till 15th for the partner event and on March 16th and 17th for end-users. This last part is new and anticipates to fill the gap that has emerged after Microsoft stopped with Convergence.

Due to the release of Dynamics 365 last year, the eXtreme organization decided to change the name of the event into ‘eXtreme 365’.

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

  • According to Microsoft, all Dynamics CRM partners need to transform their businesses in order to stay relevant. However, many partners did not start this transformation process at all! Paul White, general manager for Microsoft Dynamics in the worldwide SMB market, predicted during WPC 2016 that only 20 percent of the CRM partner community will eventually make this transition. So, partners who did not start yet should really focus on the sessions that can help them to transform as soon as possible!
  • To be successful with Dynamics 365 in the Cloud First, Mobile First world, CRM partners must expand their CRM-only based portfolio with solutions like Office 365, Dynamics ERP, Power BI, Flow and Cortana. On top of that they need to differentiate their offerings more than ever before. And finally, they need to market, sell, deliver and support digitally. These are all huge changes for most the partner channel! So it makes sense to attend the specific sessions in Lisbon on these topics and learn fast.
  • Rather than just focusing on the functions and features of Dynamics 365, partners should also pay attention to the business side of this new solution. What does it take to make a success out of Dynamics 365? Are CRM partners able to sell Dynamics 365 at an affordable Customer Acquisition Cost level? To be successful, most partners will need to see Dynamics 365 as a new chapter in their businesses. With less license margin, faster delivery, smaller services revenues and cheaper delivery people with a different mindset. Partners should look for guidance on how to organize this.
  • For a successful delivery of Dynamics 365 projects, the current CRM partners need knowledge and experiences in the ERP and Office domains. There are of course different scenarios to get these capabilities on board. Like building these capabilities yourself. Or co-operate with specialized partners. Visitors to eXtreme 365 need to look out for sessions that give them advice and inspiration.
  • Dynamics 365 is not part of the Microsoft Dynamics pricelist. Instead, this solution will only be sold via the CSP model – the Cloud Solution Provider program. Partners have a choice between becoming CSP themselves (so called ‘Direct’ or ‘Tier 1’ model) or work together with a Value-Added Distributor (‘Indirect’ or ‘Tier 2’). Dynamics CRM partners should not leave the event before they have a good understanding of these programs and an idea for their best future choice.
  • There are many questions around pricing and licensing. How can partners leverage the new reality of the Dynamics 365 launch? And what migration scenarios can they use to get their sales professionals provide their customers with the best deals? That includes a better understanding of the Enterprise offerings, but also to learn what’s in store for the Business editions.
  • Of course, lots of changes are to be expected on the product side. A few examples here. Microsoft Dynamics portals are included in every Dynamics 365 Enterprise P1/P2 tenant. But how do you get the most out of it, how to customize, how to provide your own services and how to deploy? How to work with Flow and Power apps? What are the ways to integrate systems and open your data for mobile use? How does Microsoft see the opportunities with Internet of Things and Field Service Management? How to build your practice? And what are the typical customer scenarios?
  • Now that Microsoft decided to finally integrate her different workloads into this new Dynamics 365 offering, the question comes up what this all means for formerly single product oriented events like eXtreme and DIRECTIONS (Dynamics NAV). Should they integrate as well? Partners can expect some indications on the future of these events as well.

 

See you in Lisbon!

Guus Krabbenborg

QBS group CfMD Service

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The “Certified for Microsoft Dynamics NAV” (CfMD) logo is the highest decoration awarded by Microsoft for ERP solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision). Microsoft imposes the most stringent requirements on awarding solutions with this award. Certify your Microsoft Dynamics solution and win more business.

Availability
From February 1st, 2017 for all QBS group-Partners

Why should you buy this?
Earning the CfMD logo is a time-consuming process which needs a lot of experience – we have the experience and can help you to speed up the process, pass the SoftwareSolutionTest (SST) and get certified for Microsoft Dynamics.

Who is it for?
All partners who want to acquire or renew a CfMD certification

Description
For a successful certification your solution has to meet a lot of requirements. The QBS group CfMD Service will help you to prepare your solution. We will check all the requirements and manage the contact to Lionbridge and 1ClickFactory. We’ll assist in creating the documentation, help-files and many more tasks to prepare for the SST. Furthermore we’ll escort you through the SST to get the CfMD logo and – of course – we will do the yearly recertification process with you.

Engagement Format
The QBS group CfMD Service will have the following format:

  • Requirement call
  • Check available documentations against the requirements
  • Onboarding the CfMD process
  • Guidance on Software Solution Test
  • Re-Certification

The service will be delivered online in English or German.

Price

  • SST at 1ClickFactory € 800
  • 30 Quattro’s/hour (expected 5 to 10 hours – depending on solution)

Next step
For more information and registration email: tneusser@qbsgroup.com

The IT Channel Company and MindsUnited sign strategic agreement

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Leusden and Amsterdam, February 7th, 2017 – The IT Channel Company (TICC) – via it’s division Quattro Business Solutions (QBS) world largest Value Add SMB Distributor for Microsoft Dynamics – today announced a new strategic partnership. The partnership will combine QBS’ distribution capabilities and ERP expertise with MindsUnited’s leading CRM knowledge, tools and services to be the first mover in delivering Microsoft Dynamics 365 cloud solutions. In addition QBS has acquired a stake in MindsUnited under this strategic collaboration agreement.

“We are very proud of the cooperation we have agreed on with QBS. As a business-to-business software company with a focus on Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM solutions for partners and SMB customers, this strategic partnership allows us to unite our innovative CRM services with the marketing and distribution capabilities and ERP expertise of QBS. Together we will create an even better proposition for our partners and SMB customers. In this way we will be well positioned to lead the “Digitalisation of SMEs” and drive forward our market leadership in the Dynamics 365 area” says Arjen Jansen, CEO at MindsUnited.

MindsUnited is a leading international ISV in the Dynamics CRM channel, best known for its two offerings, both aimed at improving “customer activation” and ease of use of Dynamics CRM/365:

  • JumpStart 365 – easy activation of CRM including process design & user setup
  • CloudChains 365 – tool to connect Dynamics CRM to third-party software

“Our next step is to make our valuable services portfolio CRM ready and then open that portfolio to the Dynamics CRM channel,” said QBS Group partner Guus Krabbenborg in a statement.

Louis Rustenhoven, CEO at TICC, also emphasises the importance attached to the digitalisation of small to medium sized businesses and the leading role of the Microsoft partner community in this respect: “With this collaboration we once again underline our commitment to our QBS partners in driving forward digitalisation in the SME sector. MindsUnited is an innovative Independent Software Vendor specialised in CRM with whom we will work very closely together to provide benefit to our partners. The combined service offering will be further developed within the framework of this strategic agreement and make us the leading Dynamics 365 distributor for Europe.”

And  as part of their partner recruiting effort QBS has also hired former Microsoft Dynamics lead in The Netherland Richard de Goederen as their new Partner Recruit Lead.

Together with her partners MindsUnited and Dynasource QBS group will be present at eXtreme 365 EMEA in Lisbon in March.

What is your Top-5 Microsoft Dynamics capacity killers?

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Well regarded, Microsoft Dynamics partners are capacity organizations. For most of these partners, selling time is the core of their business. And just like hotels have with rooms and airlines with seats, a consultancy day that is not sold will never return. So it makes sense to analyze how and where Dynamics partners lose their precious capacity.

Here’s my personal top-5, in random order:

1. Inefficient customer acquisition process

Most Dynamics partners have far too high Customer Acquisition Cost due to long sales cycles (no methodology, no formal process, no KPI’s), due to long pipelines without focus and due to a bad timing of the lead hand-over from marketing to sales

2. Poor lead-to-order conversion rate

In general, Dynamics partners are optimistic people. Their glasses are always half full. So they often participate in sales cycles where the best result they can achieve is the silver medal. That results in a direct loss of scarce sales and pre-sales capacity.

3. Fixed price projects based on inaccurate assumptions

Often due to winning deals on unknown territories, many partners offer fixed price projects based on incorrect assumptions. As a direct result, they are spending parts of their valuable and scarce capacity without even getting paid for! Isn’t that a pity?

4. Delivering inefficient upgrades

Over the years, upgrade services have grown into a real specialization area. However, the average Microsoft Dynamics partner still delivers upgrades without methodology, with a lack of sophisticated automation tools and not rarely with unmotivated consultants who of course prefer to implement new technologies at net new customers.

5. Hiring specialists without enough projects

Microsoft’s constant stream of innovation creates a dilemma. Naturally, it’s great for a partner to hire a specialist in Power BI, IoT, machine Learning or Cortana Intelligence. But you will lose both valuable capacity and money if you don’t have enough projects where this new employee can work on. After all, having your talented and expensive people waiting on the bench is not really attractive, right?

So do you know your own top-5?

Need some help?

At QBS group we’re fully focused on helping Microsoft Dynamics partners all over the world to grow their revenue and at the same time lower their cost. Helping partners to get rid of their biggest capacity killers is of course part of that mission.

Here’s my believe on how our services can help you use your capacity in a more effective way:

  1. Customer acquisition process. We offer specific training courses and individual partner coaching to help you structure your customer acquisition process. Result: improved efficiency at a lower cost level
  2. Lead-to-order conversion rate. We can help you to become a (more) specialized partner through our training courses and partner coaching. On top of that we can also teach you to pronounce the one most difficult word for sales people…..  Result: you will stop losing time in sales cycles that will never pay off.
  3. Fixed price projects. We provide you with smart tools and methods for both sales people and project managers to protect your business against delivering capacity for free. Result: smarter offerings at a lower risk
  4. Inefficient upgrades. We’ve recently introduced a new service, called ‘Upgrade as a Service’. With this service you can outsource your upgrade project at fixed price to real specialists, who consider upgrades as their core business. Result: you can offer cheaper upgrades with a nice margin at a lower risk. Even more important: you unlock your own capacity to implement (more) new customers.
  5. Underutilization. Together with our strategic partner Dynasource (www.dynasource.com), a partner-to-partner marketplace for IT sourcing, we help you better balance your capacity needs. You can easily find the expertise and resources you’re missing and offer your over-capacity to other partners. Result: higher utilization of your resources and potentially more project deliveries.

Are you a Microsoft Dynamics partner? And do you want to stay successful in the future? Then you’d better analyze your own capacity killers. And find ways to avoid them.

Every non-billable hour that you can turn into a billable one adds direct to your bottom-line. Any idea how 2% extra utilization will impact your EBITDA result? Or 5%?

At QBS group we’re more than happy to support you in that important process. So please feel free to reach out to your local QBS group contacts or directly to me to discuss how we can help you become more efficient in monetizing your valuable capacity even better.

Guus Krabbenborg

Part 1 – Microsoft Dynamics Development Preview

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Microsoft released during Christmas an Azure Virtual Machine where you can play around with the new Development Environment. In the coming months I will blog about the new NAV development environment.

In this first post you will find information about Azure subscription and how you can create your first app.

HAVE FUN AND STAY TUNED!

If you want to keep up with the latest from Microsoft you need to have an Azure subscription. Information can be found on: https://account.windowsazure.com/signup?showCatalog=True. You can start with a free subscription.

SO WELCOME IN THE AZURE WORLD!

The developer preview will be updated on a regular basis. Be aware that it is a preview so things you make can be broken in a next version. Follow the NAV team blog to see if a new version is available: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/nav/category/announcements. If you run into any issues, please log them on GitHub project:  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/nav/category/announcements/

SO IT IS TIME TO GET STARTED!

The new Azure Virtual Machine (VM) can be created via http://aka.ms/navdeveloperpreview and provide the parameters to create it. The deployment will start and will take some time to finish.

 

In the end, you will see the VM with additional information.

When you click on Server1, the VM information will be displayed

Make sure you stop the VM in case you don’t require this.Once stopped (and thus dislocated) the hours won’t be invoiced by Microsoft.

Start a remote desktop application and connect to the virtual machine by using the DNS name label. When you stop / start your VM a new IP address will be provided, so connecting via the public IP address will work only once.

SO IT IS TIME TO GET STARTED !

Start the new Development Environment called Visual Studio Code

If you compare the old (left) against the new (right) one, there are not that many changes 🙂

There is no Object Designer anymore, so you can start directly with coding. NB: Don’t type too fast as most of the information you want to see can be inputted via IntelliSense.

First you need to select a folder to store your files.

SO START CODING !

Create a file with the extension .al. This is a pre-requisite for NAV IntelliSense to work !

It is straight forward to create a new file newtables.al and to create your first table

Compiling [F5] results in an error message, when you check the created app.json you are can see what issues may occur.

The installed NAV version is US, so the locale should be US.

As this is an addition to the standard NAV application, the standard navx files should be in C:\TEMP.

When everything goes as it should press [F5] to publish your app.

 

QBS group next phase of growth.

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As we go in to Dynamics 365 we have learned from the Microsoft Strategy that NAV and CRM are no longer two distinguished workloads. Bringing together ERP and CRM into Dynamics 365

We are convinced that Microsoft has a very strong agenda for Business Applications in the cloud that is unique. The Dynamics 365 strategy is superior to competitive platforms integrating not only business applications, but also connecting them to the data cloud with Azure and productivity cloud with Office 365.

This is a big opportunity to bring partners currently focusing on the competitive platforms to the Dynamics platforms. We received positive feedback around services from our partners to grow their business, that’s why we are inviting CRM and Office 365 partners to join our network and take advantage of our services.

To provide the right services to these partners we are happy to announce that Richard de Goederen is joining QBS group as our new European Partner Recruitment Lead of QBS group. In this role, de Goederen will play an important role for QBS group in its next phase of growth. Before beginning at QBS group, he was the Dynamics Lead in Microsoft Netherlands.

We are extremely pleased that in his new role with his experience and vision he will make an important contribution to our future plans.

Richard de Goederen: “With the introduction of Dynamics 365 I see great momentum for partners to capitalize on the by Microsoft long foreseen evolution of integrating back- and front office applications, as well as blending unstructured and structured data in one holistic user experience. Building an eco-system around this value proposition and enabling partners through QBS services is definitely something I look forward to”.

QBS group will join eXtreme 365 in Lisbon from the 13th till the 17th of March.

Michael Hartmann shares his vision for 2017

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When it comes to mission statements, simplicity is king in my view. When founded, QBS created a simple, but strong mission statement:

Our partnership is about increasing our partners revenue and lowering their cost.

I am confident that this will remain the essence of what we want to be: The organization that puts business success of its partners as the north star. Everything we do, all services we provide must have one goal on top: Making our partners, our customers, become more profitable over time.

Yet the challenges have shifted for the Dynamics channel. While in the beginning of QBS, ERP in cloud was more buzz than reality, more and more customers are now asking for a cloud solution, to gain flexibility and lower cost of ownership. As we all know, this is a different business model and requires a complementary go-to-market. Key word being “complementary”. The NAV on prem business is not going away. As research company AMI predicts, ERP On premise will stay at current revenue level, growing only 1%, but still being the dominant deployment method for ERP, even in 2019.

As Paul White, GM of Dynamics, clearly articulates in his video to the QBS team during our kick-off early January, we need to support our partners in driving profitability out of existing NAV business to have muscles to then complement with a solid cloud business based on Dynamics 365.

In order to do that, we want to provide our partners with added value services around training, sales and backoffice support as well license and operations. Yet the highest impact on our mission to increase their revenue going forward should come from helping them get onto modern marketing platforms, providing them with sales qualified leads for customer acquisition. This is why we introduce our program called “Take the Lead”. For our partners to maximize their revenue opportunity today, our partners have to add customers at a constant pace. And rather than leaving this entirely on their shoulders – we are stepping up and providing the lead generating “locomotive” that they can attach themselves to. In our latest survey, our partners also confirmed that marketing services are top of mind for them.

Looking ahead, we are fully committed to Microsoft cloud strategy on Dynamics 365. We believe that our partner eco system has the capabilities to create Dynamics 365 apps that will dramatically reduce the sales cycle and activation process for business application in SMB. Our updated OneBizz range of products will become a strategic asset in turning your existing IP into a Dynamics 365 app. In addition, our channel partners will face competition not only from other ERP or CRM solution reseller, but also from solution providers that come from business productivity or collaboration perspective. Rather than wait until you face that competition on your home base, we will work with our partners to extend their portfolio, so they can secure their customers even outside of the classical ERP scenarios. With OneBizz 365 we offer a great piece of software that will instantly activate Sharepoint in Office 365 with role based dashboards, so customer will see immediate benefit in investing in Office 365 through one of our partners.

We have no doubt that our partners will be the spearhead to go after the SMB opportunity for Dynamics 365 and our desire is that QBS will be their sparring partner in acquiring and serving new SMB customers while developing cloud solution offerings at low cost. So that our mission remains simple and true: Increase your revenue and lower your cost.

Please feel free to reach out to your QBS contacts or directly to me to discuss your opportunities in the foreseeable future. We thank our partners for their trust and take it as aspiration for our services.

What is the Dynamics 365 opportunity

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There is a lot of excitement but also question marks around Dynamics 365 Business Edition. In fact, there are many aspects that Dynamics 365 promises, like simpler pricing, simple licensing model, integration into Cloud Solution Program and others. I wanted to take opportunity to share what I believe is the biggest opportunity for us Dynamics partners with Dynamics 365.

Simply put, it is (finally) the opportunity to drastically reduce sales cycles and deployment cycles for a business application that covers most important business processes like financials, sales and marketing. Yet one might argue, that this is contra-productive to how most of Dynamics partners monetize, consulting customers though the sales cycle and invoice consultants that configure, customize and implement a Dynamics Business Solution. This conflict gets solved, if we look at it through two strategies that can complement our current business.

The Starting Point: Building Dynamics 365 Apps that give industry context

First of all I am convinced, that SMB’s that have 10-99 employees, which is main target group for Dynamics 365 Business Edition, will make faster decision for a business application if it is being presented in the industry context. This does not necessarily mean that the business application has to have deep vertical functionality, but it should immediately advertise that this solution is targeted to solve customers’ challenges. And these challenges typically happen in context of industry. Also worth while to note, that most SMB’s now tend to inform themselves through the web before they even speak to a partner. So the more a solution is presented in the industry context, the more likely a prospect takes next step and contacts the vendor.

Again, this is not same verticalization we typically need in mid market space. It can be templates that uses a certain industry terminology while using functionality that is common across all SMB customers. Given the lower degree of complexity this approach will require, you can even go into micro-verticals, e.g. not only provide solution for professional services, but for marketing agencies, event agencies, web agencies etc..

OPPORTUNITY 1: SELL DYNAMICS 365 AT SCALE

If you combine this “light” verticalization with the Dynamics 365 Business Edition simplified setup and implementation and include further IP to shorten the activation of the solution, like OneBizz, then you can really start to sell and activate Business Application at scale. And given the shorter, simplified sales cycle you can also engage sales channels that so far, could not handle a rather complex proposition with NAV or CRM Online.

OPPORTUNITY 2: UPSELL TO YOUR ESTABLISHED BUSINESS MODEL

In past 2 years I heard consistent feedback that typically customer start with set of functionality with NAV or CRM Online and doesn’t take long before they want to add functionality, integrate more business processes or connect to other systems. Which then propels the consumption of consultancy hours that you can invoice. This certainly will hold true for customers that take advantage of Dynamics 365 in future as well. Once they start with a more simplified Dynamics 365 solution, they will also explore additional opportunities that will not come “out of the box”, but where they need consultancy and support from a partner that understands how to optimize and integrate business processes.

Probably the best outcome is if you combine both opportunities, i.e. sell Dynamics 365 at scale and then take opportunity to upsell to your services.

The advantage of the Business Application Channel

If you agree that selling a business application in an industry context, helps driving volume, then questions is who is best positioned to provide this industry expertise. I have no doubt that especially our QBS partners are in “pole positions”. They have built deep knowledge about certain industries over the years. Not only do they speak the language of that vertical or industry, they also know what processes and what functionality is most critical to customers and hence they can also determine what benefits need to be highlighted to a given prospect. So I would place a big bet on our partners to enable both strategies and drive positive impact for entire eco-system.

How can we get practical?

At QBS group we are already preparing services for both scenarios, the verticalization and volume sales of Dynamics 365 as well as the upsell approach. These services as well as products such as OneBizz are all focused to enable you as partner to take advantage of the Dynamics opportunity, regardless if you are coming with a Microsoft Dynamics NAV, a Dynamics CRM Online background, with your self-developed solution, from one of Microsoft’s competitors or simply from productivity background with Office 365. We would love to have a dialogue with you and see how we can make above scenarios become reality for your business. So if you find that dialogue interesting, please contact QBS group one of our QBS subsidiaries.