The Death of Reason: #wpc13 US Dynamics: Where is MS Going in 2014?

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Источник: http://thedeathofreason.wordpress.co...going-in-2014/
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MS pulled together a select group of top Dynamics partners in a sweltering hot conference room (at least it wasn’t humid…wait, it was) to discuss their strategic priorities and direction for MS Fiscal Year 2014.  David Willis, VP US Dynamics, led the discussion.  Here’s the major points with some of my comments following.

US Dynamics FY14 Strategic Priorities:

• Industry Solutions
• Win the Enterprise
• Win the BDM’s (Business Decision Makers):  Not just CIO, but CMO, VP of Sales, CFO, CEO
• Lead with the Cloud
• Volume Business

Supported by:

• Power of One Microsoft:  Including Dynamics in more messaging and making certain that products have integration across the stack
• Enterprise Social Campaign:  Lead by Yammer, but very much involving Outlook, Lync, Sharepoint and CRM.
• Awareness/Lead Gen Investment:  Increasing advertising to $18mm US for Dynamics including a greater web presence
• Orion:  This is the fall release for Dynamics CRM 2014
• V-ITU v2:  Vertical focus program with partners
• SSP/TS Investments:  Add Solutions Specialists and Technical Specialists for enterprise sales support

Setting up for success:

• Majority of growth is from large deals:MS will invest in more sales/technical resources to fuel growth
• Customers Buy Vertical:  Continue huge focus on priority industries
• Partner base has evolved:  rationalize partner management model to enable our success.  Focus on partners who are staged and investing for growth
• Volume ERP has evolved:  This needs to become a finely tuned machine.  Focus will be on partners how are dedicating to cloud and volume adds.  PAM’s will end up focusing on either volume or vertical. 

In essence, MS needs to align resources to how the business and partners have evolved.

From an Organizational standpoint, the US Dynamics management organization is going to remain largely unchanged.  Jeremy Thies, Senior Director, US Partners and Industry, took over to discuss other changes.

US Dynamics Changes:

• Managed Partner:  AX and CRM partners will move to a centralized national structure led by Mandy Ledford.  Mandy’s team will be sales focused and greatly expanded.  The direct partner managers will be aligned by vertical.
• Volume Partners:  National and centralized as well.  Resources will be cross functional and dedicated.  Will focus on Volume license, Adds, BREP.  Will report to a senior leader that is ONLY focused on GP, SL, NAV in volume.  No specific assignment on the senior leader but hope to have them hired in next couple of weeks.  Will report to Jeremy.
• Sales:  Will take additional resources after above changes and focus on selling large deals in CRM and ERP.  The Public Sector and Retail team will end up here with Retail reporting to Noman Akhtar.

Apparently this will impact some existing people who will have to either find new jobs or leave MS.  On Friday, MS will do a call to discuss these changes in more detail.

In terms of growth in FY14, they are looking for partner lead CRM growth of 31% and ERP growth of 38%.

Now, my comments:

• I edited the content above very heavily since I think some of the stuff we were told has advantage to competitive ERP companies.  Especially, the detail about last year’s results (which were pretty good) and the details about this year’s plan.
• MS has become really tight and very clear about AX/CRM being the vertical,large deal products and GP/NAV/SL being the volume products.  This clarity is very good and makes our jobs a bit easier.
• MS is taking volume very seriously.  Room exists for GP\NAV\SL partners to create thriving  business models, but its cloud, remote and volume not lifestyle.  You have to grow your business.
• The big change effecting partners is how MS plans to deploy resources.  In case its not obvious from the above, the partner support layer (traditionally PAM’s) is all going central and nationalized.  They will focus on selling, not admin.  And they will be assigned to manage partners that are investing in growth and/or already showing results.  All administration is going through MPN.  And, if you don’t make investment or don’t show results, frankly I don’t think they’ll pay attention to you.
• The growth goals for next year are strong, but in my opinion, easily obtainable.

The message hear is clear:  if you want to be a lifestyle business, good on ya.  But MS is going to deal with partners that want to grow.   I think that’s pretty fair from their standpoint and is certainly consistent with the messaging they’ve been giving us for the last 5 years.


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Источник: http://thedeathofreason.wordpress.co...going-in-2014/