Microsoft Convergence
2009 New Orleans Wrap Up
The Merit Solutions team would like to thank
everyone who attended Microsoft Convergence in New Orleans. We
enjoyed speaking with everyone who stopped by our booth, and hope
this opportunity allowed you to see the integration possibilities of
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009.
Following Convergence, Merit Solutions has been
featured in two Channel publications. The first is from the Redmond
Channel Partner, titled, "Dynamics
Partners Try to Unleash Potential":
"In other words, Microsoft's sticking with the four-suite thing, just as company officials have said for at least a couple of years now that it would. Yes, it's a bit confusing. Yes, it can send mixed signals to the market. But it's also the only way Microsoft can move forward with Dynamics ERP without cannibalizing those partners and customers that have bought into, say, GP, and want to stick with it. So we'd all better get used to it. And it's really not that tough a strategy to explain, said Josh Richards, marketing specialist for Merit Solutions, a GP and, more recently, AX partner located in Wheaton, Ill. It's just a matter of spelling things out to customers up front.
"We do still see prospects coming in unsure of what they need but thinking that they're going in for Microsoft Dynamics and not even knowing that it's an option to go for AX, GP, SL, whatever," Richards said. "There is still confusion, but the way we've been marketing, the inquiries are always AX, GP inquiries. We make it clear that we're not a shop for SL or NAV."
But enough about the four horsemen of Dynamics, which will just keep riding on. What Microsoft would really want us to write about -- and it's worth mentioning -- is something called Unleash Your Potential. That's a software tool that partners can use in customers' shops to go through the company, role by role or even person by person, to determine which functionality the company needs, and, in the case of current Dynamics customers, whether the company is getting everything out of the system it can.
"At the very end, it spits out a business solutions roadmap," Richards said. "It's not how are you using your system, but what could your system do. It's an in-depth view of their complete system." And it works, especially at a time when Microsoft is encouraging partners to sell into their current customer bases with upgrades and add-ons -- and to move customers who are using really old versions of Dynamics suites up to speed. Richards, who is also not at Convergence but was watching from his office in Minneapolis as snow fell, said Unleash Your Potential helped his company tap into a customer base it had been neglecting...
"
The second article is from ChannelWeb,
titled, "Microsoft
Adds Sales Incentives, Tools for Dynamics Apps Resellers":
Microsoft is also playing up the value of its "Unleash Your Potential" customer evaluation tool that channel partners use to assess the needs of customers using Dynamics ERP applications. The idea is that solution providers can ensure customers are getting the most out of the software they have, but also identify cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Microsoft developed the tool last year and will offer an update next month that partners can use to evaluate new customer prospects.
"We recognized the opportunities we were losing [among] our customers," said Josh Richards, marketing specialist with Merit Solutions, a Dynamics AX and Dynamics GP reseller in Wheaton, Ill. The company has been using Unleash Your Potential since mid-2008 and Richards said his company generates $18 in sales for every $1 spent using the evaluation tool.
Contact Merit Solutions and
Unleash Your Potential.
