Microsoft Dynamics Information

Based on reports from industry analysts and the many conversations that our team has with clients, we believe four megatrends will radically change how businesses view enterprise IT over the coming decade.

• Mobility and social are the driving forces for change in business today, particularly as employees (and customers) increasingly expect to use mobile and social technology to interact in new ways. These two elements are becoming a competitive differentiator for business - for recruiting and retaining employees and for attracting and retaining customers.
• The cloud and big data are quickly becoming enablers for business success. The tremendous scalability and agility enabled by the cloud and the new insights made possible with big data can help businesses today get ahead of the competition and tap into new sources of revenue.

These trends represent not only what is most important to our customers today, but also what we feel are likely to be the dominant forces of change in the coming decade.

• The proliferation of new device types, along with the connectivity of the cloud, is making us more mobile and changing the way we work and play. Mobility answers the growing expectation from your employees to be able to work from anywhere, with the device that they choose. Mobile technology also delivers a great mobile experience to customers, bringing your business to them wherever they are through their mobile phone or tablet.
• As technology becomes more immersive, we also expect it to help us develop more personal and social connections with our colleagues and customers. Social networks build strong work communities, enhancing collaboration, information sharing, and productivity.
• The connectivity that the cloud offers is changing what we expect from technology. With an always-on connection, apps can provide innovative new services with instant scalability and attractive economics.
• While business intelligence (BI) has been important for a great number of years, the explosion in connected devices and apps is generating an exponential growth in data and the need to get better insights from “big data.” The challenge for today’s businesses is to make that data useful—to put it into the hands of their people to drive informed, forward-thinking decisions.

We’re not alone in identifying these megatrends. According to IDC, “In 2012, the ICT industry's shift to its third major platform of growth—built on mobile, cloud, social, and big data technologies—will accelerate.” In contrast to what IDC refers to as the first (mainframe) and second (PC/server) platforms, they estimate that by 2020, “…enterprises’ highest-value leverage of IT will be driven by these third-platform technologies as well as an explosion of new solutions built on the new platform and rapidly expanding consumption of all of the above in emerging markets.”

It’s amazing just how fast our world is changing today. Just think…

• Within 15 years, a little startup named Amazon has gone from transforming the book industry to changing the face of retail.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users. In less than nine months, Facebook reached 100 million users. And in the space of just a few short years, social networking services have significantly changed people’s expectations of how we interact with each other and with businesses, particularly for the millennial generation.
• Within just two months of its launch, Kinect for the Xbox 360 changed the face of gaming and became the world’s fastest-selling consumer electronics device ever.

Each of these examples reflects the tremendous impact that the megatrends are having on our world - and the pace at which it is all changing. As we enter this new era in the enterprise, the question is - what can your business do to make the most of it?

Of course, technology trends on their own aren’t going to revolutionize your business or help you stay competitive. How you adopt new technology and put it to work in your business will ultimately be the responsibility of IT. We know how important it is to ensure that your technology solutions truly empower your IT professionals to deliver what the business needs. What are those needs?

• Integrate new devices and applications with their existing line-of-business apps, for a seamless experience that keeps people productive and connected to the business.
• Help maximize end user productivity, with solutions that put the tools users need at their fingertips, wherever they happen to be working from, and that connect them with the people, information, and content they rely on to do their jobs well.
• Ensure that corporate data and resources are protected and secure, even as access to those data and resources becomes possible from an increasing number of devices and apps.
• Fully manage all devices on the network, both local and remote - a task that is becoming ever more complicated as users bring more and more devices into the enterprise and work from more and more locations.

At Merit Solutions, our goal is to deliver ground-breaking technology solutions that empower IT to take advantage of the latest trends without compromise. By achieving this goal, we are able to provide your IT professionals with the tools they need to help you innovate and compete while meeting the core needs of the business in all new ways.

Learn more about how Merit Solutions can help you transform your business!

Nenad Simeunovic, Vice President of Services for Merit Solutions, was recently featured in the PM Network's March 2013 issue discussing using Agile Project Management techniques for ERP implementations.

Here a short excerpt from the article, titled Big Delivery in Small Packages:

Eliminating Waste: Agile is based on lean processes that remove non-value-added activities such as downtime. As a result, agile components such as daily stand-up meetings can help project teams deliver ERP-related functionalities faster. "During the 15-minute meeting, each team member says, 'This is what I did yesterday, this is what I'm going to do today and these are the obstacles I need help with,'" says Nenad Simeunovic, vice president of services at global IT services company Merit Solutions, Wheaton, Illinois, USA. "If there's a challenge, we can address it on the spot and move on. As a result, there are fewer distractions, and progress is being made on a more consistent basis."

Agile's benefits are especially appealing in the current volatile economy. "The departments are reluctant to tackle large-scale projects as one big initiative with scope, time and resources locked. Instead, they are looking more to deliver functionalities in iterations, where flexibility is allowed - even expected - due to rapid changes happening in the marketplace and in the organization. We can longer guarantee that our planning for today will be applicable in nine months," says Mr. Simeunovic.

View the digital release of the magazine, PM Network - Governing Creativity: Marrying Project Management with Innovation. The Agile ERP Project Management article starts on Page 60.

Last month Microsoft announced the launch of the Microsoft Dynamics Business Analyzer for Windows 8 – the first Windows 8 App available for Microsoft Dynamics ERP clients.

The Microsoft Dynamics Business Analyzer displays business intelligence (BI) information from your Microsoft Dynamics ERP solution, including Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2, Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, and Microsoft Dynamics SL 2011 FP1. Users of the Microsoft Dynamics Business Analyzer can display reports from their ERP solution, interact with the reports using a variety of actions (such as copy, edit, view, and refresh), and open Microsoft Lync ( for Windows 8 ) directly from a report to initiate a conversation with someone about the report. This can all be done from any of your Windows 8 devices!

The launch of this new app is a milestone in the road to enterprise business mobility for Windows 8 and Microsoft Dynamics ERP clients. In today’s increasingly global and interconnected world, customers need to have quick, easy access to their business data – and they need to be able to access it from a variety of devices. The Microsoft Dynamics Business Analyzer for Windows 8 is the first of what is expected to be even more enterprise business mobility apps to deliver this value to clients.

Merit Solutions is honored to have played a significant contributing role in the development of the Microsoft Dynamics Business Analyzer app. While this milestone signifies a great achievement for Microsoft and its clients, it also represents Merit Solutions’ ability to build and deploy innovative, leading edge Windows 8 and mobility solutions that can help clients get more value out of their Microsoft Dynamics ERP investments.

The Microsoft Dynamics Business Analyzer is free and available for download from Microsoft on the Windows Store: Microsoft Dynamics Business Analyzer for Windows 8. We encourage everyone to go download and use the app - then rate it and let us know what you think!

Access Control Service (ACS) is a Windows Azure service that offers a way of outsourcing authentication. It decouples the application from all the complexity of maintaining a direct relationship with all the identity providers the application is collaborating with. ACS takes care of engaging every identity provider with its own authentication protocol, normalizing the authentication results in a protocol supported by the .NET Windows Identity Foundation (WIF). In just a few clicks ACS can be configured as the authentication manager for the application. Once running, ACS takes care of the application authentication. Furthermore, ACS even offers an UI for the user to choose among the selected identity providers.

Using ACS, applications can:

• Leverage an existing Active Directory user stores through Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS v2), as well as other stores compatible with the WS* or SAML 2.0 protocols, to multiple Windows Azure applications through a single trust relationship with the ACS 2.0 service.
• Implement a Single Sign-On.

ACS uses security tokens instead of credentials, which is more secure because credentials are not passed over the network. Also, Building around claims allows separation of authentication logic from application logic.

References:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd440951.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg429786.aspx
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/SIM324

In Sure Step, projects are a collection of documents, tools and templates that follow the Sure Step implementation methodology. When creating a new project, Sure Step Online Project Wizard will always retrieve the latest content ensuring that project documents are up to date. As the documents reside on SharePoint, it enables easy collaboration of the whole project team.

Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Online Project Wizard is a SharePoint hosted Silverlight application which harnesses the power of both SharePoint and cloud-based content storage. It can be hosted either on your local SharePoint 2010 environment or on SharePoint Online.

After a simple one time process for manually deploying the Project Wizard to the desired SharePoint environment described in the User Guide, Sure Step project can be created on the same site collection or any other accessible locally. (If the site collection resides on another SharePoint farm or web application additional configuration of the destination web application is required. This will be described in one of the later posts.)

Each time a Project Wizard is started it retrieves the configuration information and checks for compatibility. Only if a new version is required (which actually means that there were significant changes to the Sure Step content metadata model) a user will have to download the latest version and redeploy it to the destination SharePoint environment before continuing with the project creation.

Project Wizard retrieves the latest content metadata and generates the options offered in the wizard itself. Content as well as all the options offered in the Project Wizard are dynamically loaded from the Sure Step Online content repository. This enables seamless update of the Sure Step content, addition of new tools and templates, new solutions, project types and languages. This architecture ensures that each time a project is created using the wizard, it will contain the latest content available from Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Online without the need to regularly download and install client and content updates (which can be around 400MB for each language).

The Sure Step content is categorized into seven (industry related) solutions, six Dynamics product lines, five project types for implementation engagement type and numerous accelerators for diagnostic phase and optimization offering. An inventory of more than 750 tools and templates are available for use on each project with partial translation in nine languages. Projects are created for a specific Solution, Dynamics Product, Engagement type and a selected Project Type or accelerator. New project contains copies of all Sure Step documents applicable to selected criteria.

Sure Step Online Project Wizard can be deployed on the following environments:

• Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
• Microsoft SharePoint Online

More info and the links to resources can be found here.

Last autumn Microsoft announced Sure Step Online, which enables you to:

• View the complete Sure Step methodology, including all tools and templates.
• Create and manage customer projects based on the Sure Step deliverables on SharePoint.
• Link to online marketing, training, and other resources on PartnerSource and CustomerSource

Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Online is a new approach to using the Sure Step methodology. Instead of having a client application with a set of content language packs, Microsoft developed a Silverlight application available on Partner Source and Customer Source. As the Sure Step Online is cloud-based, you no longer have to regularly download and install client or content updates (around 400MB for each language) to have the latest tools and templates, Sure Step Online will always contain the most recent content, and be available from anywhere, always.

Some of the advantages of the Sure Step Online include:

• Using the latest guidance and content available online without downloading and installing the client.
• Ability to access and share content quickly from anywhere. All you need to have is an internet connection, a browser with a Silverlight plugin and access to Partner or Customer source.
• All supported languages are also available. Besides English, Sure Step Online offers (partial) methodology and templates in Chinese, Danish, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.
• Ability to point users to a specific guidance page or template, which will eliminate the need for them to download the whole methodology to locate the specific content/guidance.
• Ability to create customer projects on your local SharePoint instance, partner hosted SharePoint or SharePoint Online. Projects created using Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step Online Project Wizard will always contain the latest templates.

Sure Step Online is available for partners and customers on the following location https://mbs2.microsoft.com/SureStep

For more details, please refer to the Sure Step Online User Guide.

Merit Solutions often utilizes the traditional ‘waterfall’ project management approach within the Sure Step Methodology that divides project work into the following phases:

• Analysis
• Design
• Development
• Deployment
• Operation

Additionally, we can utilize an alternate project management approach within the Sure Step Methodology named Agile Project Management. This approach improves the control within the project. Merit Solutions works with individual clients to determine the appropriate methodology for this project.

Agile Project Management methodology uses a series of ‘Sprints’ to deliver implementation capabilities in incremental steps. Each ‘Sprint’ is carefully planned and lasts no longer than 4 weeks. At the end of each Sprint the project team presents the solution to the Executive stakeholders as confirmation that the agreed upon Sprint objectives were accomplished.

A key element of this approach is the prioritized Solution Backlog. This document identifies all the User stories (requirements) that will be implemented during the project. At each Sprint planning session, the project team selects user stories from the Solution Backlog, plans the activities required to complete the user stories and obtains agreement on the hours required to accomplish each activity.

This process enables the project team to efficiently manage capacity for all project team members.

Merit Solutions has found that an Agile Project Management approach enables strong project control and visibility, which allows us to deliver projects on-time and budget with high customer satisfaction.

How does your distribution software system measure up?

Continuous flexibility in order to control costs and meet customer demand is critical to succeed in the distribution environment of today and tomorrow. The following Distribution Software Survey was designed to help you analyze your current system’s ability to deliver the speed and flexibility you need to stay competitive. It will also help you measure your system’s potential for improvement and help you determine if your organization would benefit from implementing a new distribution software system.

Take a few minutes right now to complete this Distribution Evaluation from Microsoft

The Distribution Software Evaluation & Planning Guide is divided into three separate sections. Each section deals with factors critical to a fast, flexible system, including software system requirements, information access and reporting needs. Please circle your answer to the questions as best you can, and write your score in the right-hand column. When you’ve finished, tabulate your total score to find out the results of your survey.

Take the Distribution Software Evaluation now!

We have posted 16 new Microsoft Dynamics Webcasts to the Merit Solutions Resource Library, adding to our already long list of Microsoft Dynamics Demos and Microsoft Dynamics White Papers. We will be adding more webcasts as they become available.

You can browse the current webcasts by product:

• Microsoft Dynamics AX Webcasts
• Microsoft Dynamics GP Webcasts
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Webcasts
• Microsoft SharePoint Webcasts

These on-demand webcasts show how Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) products can make it easier for you to do business with your customers, vendors, and partners.

View these free webcasts to help you make more-profitable decisions and accelerate your business's growth with Microsoft Dynamics.

Now is a great time to expand your current Microsoft Dynamics ERP solution with the special “Microsoft Dynamics ERP Holiday Season User Offer”.

From November 1, 2010 through the end of the business day December 23, 2010, existing Microsoft Dynamics customers can purchase additional user licenses for up to 20% off of the standard price list for their current Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics NAV or Microsoft Dynamics AX solution. What’s more, they only have to purchase a minimum of 2 licenses to be eligible for the discount and the discount can be applied on up to 20 additional users.

Contact Merit Solutions or learn more about other Microsoft Dynamics Promotions and Incentives.

Microsoft is excited to announce the “License Model Transition (“LMT”) Offer” - a Microsoft Dynamics US Existing Customer promotion for Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV & Microsoft Dynamics SL customers who are currently licensed on Module Based Licensing (“MBL”).

For a limited time, eligible Microsoft Dynamics customers can receive up to a 30% discount off of the cost of the transition to Business Ready Licensing LMT fee for up to 30 users.

Offer Examples:

• Customer with up to 20 users is eligible for a 30% discount off of the minimum $10K LMT fee.
• Customer with up to 30 users is eligible for a 30% discount off of the $500 per user LMT fee.
• Customer with 35 users is eligible for a 30% discount off of the $500 per user LMT fee on the first 30 users transitioned. Additional transitioned users will be calculated using the standard LMT fee of $500 per user.

For more Microsoft Dynamics Promotions and Incentives, view:
Microsoft Dynamics Promotions and Incentives

As Winston Churchill once said, “There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.” However, people and organizations tend to shy away from change because of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of something new. Fear of failure.

The same holds true when considering ERP change. Even though new ERP has proven value, we fear taking away our “tried and true” ways of working. Employees are used to working in disparate systems, re-entering manual data, using Excel to “patch” gaps, and waiting for responses to business-critical information. We overlook the cost-implications of these time-consuming tasks, and instead focus on “what’s worked for years”. And in our fast-paced world, time means money...

So, the question is: How can you overcome the fear of change, and view ERP as a necessary competitive advantage? Here are a couple of factors that will not only increase internal support of ERP change, but will also increase the probability of a successful implementation.

1. Executive Sponsorship. Every successful ERP implementation begins from the top-down, with full executive sponsorship both in funding and resource commitment. During large ERP projects, the Executive Team must make tough decisions regarding key business processes, organizational changes, and other critical issues that will not be resolved without executive involvement.
2. Business Process Planning. ERP systems will change critical business processes across the organization, automating manual tasks, connecting departments, and increasing visibility to information you didn’t have before. New ERP systems will remove inefficient practices and turn them into productivity boosters. All of this, however, is dependent upon your ability to properly plan for these efficiency improvements and process changes.
3. Communicate Early and Often. When it comes to change, you cannot communicate too much. The more people know about why you are changing, how it will benefit the company, and how it will affect their jobs, the less resistant they will be to any new implementation. If you communicate early and often, you can respond to resistance before it becomes problematic.
4. Involve Employees At Every Level. As mentioned above, your people understand your current systems. When asked to give up what they are comfortable with, you will most often get resistance. The more involved your employees are in the ERP process, the more buy-in they will have into the project. This will lead to a sense of “ownership” of the project, and will speed user adoption.
5. Train Like Champions. Training employees on your new system is critical. You must make sure that all employees know and understand how key business processes will change, and the new ways of getting things done. In addition, you must take advantage of ongoing training opportunities and resources that can improve employee productivity.
6. Reinvest For Your Benefit. Your IT investments should not stop upon your ERP implementation. A recent NYU study, “Which Came First, IT or Productivity?”, indicates that the use of ERP systems actually causes performance gains rather than strong performance driving the purchase of ERP. It also shows a positive feedback loop in which successful IT investments initiate a continuous cycle of investment and gain. Reinvesting in IT is reinvesting in productivity.

Microsoft Dynamics delivers built-in, flexible functionality that provides business value now and into the future. It simplifies your business processes with a single solution that connects financials, manufacturing, supply chain, sales and marketing, project management, human resources, and services information. It improves productivity by providing your employees with familiar, easy-to-use tools that work like and with Microsoft Office. Plus, Microsoft Dynamics is flexible and easily customizable, enabling you to adapt to growth and change.

Which brings us back to change. Arguably her most inspiring quote, Maria Robinson once spoke about change, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

Start making your new ending, a more profitable ending, today. Contact Merit Solutions for a free business systems assessment.

Acquiring Microsoft software, IT services, and hardware has never been easier! Get deferred payments for 3 Months!

Get your Microsoft investment payments deferred for 3 months:

• All transactions must be financed through Microsoft Financing (contact Merit Solutions for more details)
• Financing under the Microsoft Financing program requires all transactions contain a minimum of 10% Microsoft software or services
• Program is effective October 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010

With approval of credit, Microsoft Financing will cover your total IT solution: Microsoft software, services like consultation, installation and training—plus third-party software and hardware.

Contact Merit Solutions for more information.

Are you putting band-aids on your current accounting systems to make it through your month end close? Are you relying upon Excel as a ‘crutch’ for your financial reporting?

Do either of these questions describe you/your company? If so, you may be outgrowing your current accounting software.

There are a number of challenges businesses face today, including SOX, GAAP, Integration, Compliance, Reporting, and more. These challenges may vary based on your role in the company. For example, employees in the accounting department may be frustrated as your company grows if the database in your current accounting software can’t accommodate adding more customer accounts. Information is often stored in people, not systems. There are too many projects going on throughout your day and interruptions are common, especially for the accounting department, because other employees are dependent on your team to provide information critical to decision making.

To do this, we focus on the Microsoft Dynamics Approach.

Microsoft Dynamics delivers the benefits of new technology without the trauma:

• Works the way you do: Because of the native Microsoft Office and Outlook experience, Microsoft Dynamics works the way you are used to working. With Microsoft Dynamics’ familiar look and feel, your employees can learn the tool quickly. An intuitive user interface, navigation and processes mean less training and a return on your investment from day 1.
• Works the way your business does: The integration between Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office can improve your organization’s ability to anticipate, manage, and respond to changes in the marketplace. It can also help you streamline management and processes, and includes a robust and consistent workflow experience that leverages Windows Workflow, ensuring user specified tasks are complete through notifications in your Outlook email. Additionally, you can keep track of tasks by employee for compliance purposes. Microsoft Dynamics helps fuel the productivity of a business by automating business-critical operations and adapting to fit into the type of business ensuring the most relevant insight.
• Works the way technology should: Microsoft Dynamics works with the tools you already have: Excel, Word, and your Outlook email, to name a few. Your employees' productivity can be significantly improved by accessing the information that resides within Microsoft Dynamics from your Outlook email – both with Smart Tags and with the FRx report book. What this means to you is a fast implementation - and an easy to manage solution.

Microsoft Dynamics enables you to reap the benefits of new technology, while overcoming business challenges.

So what does an investment in the Microsoft Dynamics application platform mean to YOU from a business perspective?

Microsoft Dynamics helps ensure efficient innovation success by accelerating the process for specialty markets and new niches. It enables you to drive sustainability leadership to differentiate your business with lean processes and sustainable products.

In addition, Microsoft Dynamics increases responsiveness to market demands and improves product freshness by driving faster production and meeting shorter life cycles - all while reducing the cost of creating and tracking complex products and recipes.

Microsoft Dynamics enables companies to:

• Implement products that are easier to deploy, use, and manage: Complicated implementations and solutions that users don’t want to adopt are too common with complex manufacturing environments. Microsoft Dynamics solutions look and feel like familiar Microsoft Office system applications and offer you strong choices, with many selling partners, to help you manage and maintain your solution as your needs change.
• Gain seamless access to critical information at all levels: People share information at all levels in a business. Executives share information that helps them make decisions about profitability. Managers analyze and share information to help ensure that business processes are running smoothly and that employees share information about specific projects. With RoleTailored access to information, Microsoft Dynamics helps people access the data that’s relevant to their job. It can also help you gain business intelligence that drives future growth of your organization.
• Reduce the cost of doing business with technology that grows with you: An investment in Microsoft Dynamics is supported now and over the long term, so you don’t have to worry if the product will be phased out. Just as important, we offer the scalability that can support your business as it expands.
• Improve operational efficiency: Easily connect the value chain—employees, customers, business partners, and suppliers. Based on the Microsoft business infrastructure, Microsoft Dynamics utilizes Windows Server, SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint technologies, and BizTalk Server to help connect your people and disparate business systems for improved efficiency.
  • Microsoft’s easy-to-use “Outlook-centric” user interface—the world’s most familiar UI for a business application—makes it easier to get your staff up and running.
  • Access to information anywhere, anytime, on any wireless device connects people to your business center to respond to opportunities as they arise.

So what does an investment in the Microsoft Dynamics mean to you from a business perspective? Lower costs and increased productivity... which drive results straight to your bottom line.