By Guus Krabbenborg, Partner in Partner Master Class & Quattro Business Solutions
Guus Krabbenborg's tenth annual Business Report from WPC will be coming out soon - you can download the 2012 report and view the 2013 table of contents here.
As a longtime WPC-observer with a perspective geared toward Microsoft Dynamics, I'd like to share some of my initial impressions on this year's WPC 2013 in Houston. And highlight some of the important trends you'll find more detailed analysis of in this year's report.
These are among the most important stories - and questions - coming out of WPC 2013:
- Microsoft tried to explain how the company will transform to a devices and services company. This didn't seem to be an easy story to land at the partner side. However, this new ‘One Microsoft' goal does seem positive for the Dynamics business.
- At the end of the conference Microsoft announced the largest reorganization in its entire history. Surprisingly the Dynamics group ‘survived' as a separate entity and will still be led by itsPresident Kirill Tatarinov. Steve Ballmer wrote: "We will keep Dynamics separate as it continues to need special focus and represents significant opportunity." However there are a few new "dotted line report" relations to other group leaders in the company. Time will tell us more about the impact of this new construction.
- Microsoft confirmed its growth goal for Dynamics to double the Dynamics revenue over the next 2.5 years. New global partners like System Integrators (SI's) and Independent Software Vendors (ISV's) seem to play an important role in achieving this target. But what does this all mean for the average Dynamics VAR?
- Dynamics AX has now been part of Microsoft's Enterprise Agreements for a year. Executives told us that they are happy with the progress Microsoft has made in the enterprise world: over 90 big deals have been won in FY13 and there seems to be an attractive pipeline for FY14 as well.
- Microsoft reinforced thesplit between the Enterprise (value) and the SMB (volume) marketsin Houston, which will continue to have consequences for the relationship between Microsoft and its partners. Is it clear what this division means for your company?
- At WPC, Microsoft declared war on ‘stand-alone Dynamics CRM and Dynamics ERP solutions'. The new mantra is ‘A Dynamic Business Solution from Microsoft'. No doubt that the integration of CRM and ERP within the stack will have an impact on a partners proposition in terms of marketing, sales, delivery, support and customer satisfaction.
- The Partner Account Manager (PAM) role is expired and will be replaced by the new Partner Sales Executive (PSE) role. Microsoft also decided to reduce the number of PAM's/PSE's dramatically. PSE's will devote ninety percent of their time to sales activities. But what does this mean for you as a partner? Where should you go with your non-sales questions and issues? Which partners will have a PSE? And what about the rest of the channel?
- More and more Dynamics partners will find themselvesin the domain of the Master VAR, which is poised to become more of a "Value Added Distributor" program - my own term - with a new role and position for these new distributors that works with VARs rather than conflicting with them. Different types of partners will be weighing their options carefully in the coming year.
- Microsoft introduced the MPN partner program over two years ago. How is the Dynamics partner channel handling MPN today? How big was the reduction in the number of partners so far? Where does the new partner growth come from?
- Microsoft unofficially announced the comeback to EMEA of Convergence - the event for Dynamics end-users and prospects. Convergence EMEA 2013 will be held early November in Barcelona.
- In the cloud delivery models, customer retention is one of the most important business criteria that determines profit or loss. At WPC, Microsoft urged partners to focus on avoiding customer losses and to build the right internal organization for these goals. If they haven't already, Dynamics VARs should be working toward goals like building a customer care center; appointing a customer success manager, responsible for project success; and changing compensation schemes from customer wins or utilization toward customer retention.