Microsoft Dynamics Profile: NAV MVP trains German-speaking market on expanding technology footprint

Rene Gayer has been working with Microsoft Dynamics NAV since 1998 and he has been a Microsoft MVP since 2007. As the Dynamics product roadmap has evolved over that time, he and his firm have adapted to both think more broadly and increase their focus.

Gayer's experience with Dynamics NAV, starting in the partner channel, led him to create MBS-Training in 2005, a company that offers workshops and training in NAV as well as Dynamics CRM mainly to Microsoft partners in the German speaking markets of Austria, Switzerland and Germany. The company's Learn4NAV video-training platform includes more than 200 German-language training videos - over over 13,000 minutes - of online training, live broadcasts and on-demand content.

"Ninety percent of our customers are Microsoft partners," says Gayer, who services as CEO of MBS-Training. "Today, in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, we are the only Dynamics-only training partner. There is no other company that is just focused on Dynamics [training] only and not doing projects. And I think this is something partners like because we're not competition for them."

Training for partners has changed

Gayer says that training of end customers hasn't changed much in the last five years, with task and job-related needs such as navigating, filtering, creating, and deliver records. But partner training has evolved rapidly because of Microsoft's rapid release cycles of every 12 months or sooner.

"Sometimes they have regular updates with new features like integration changes into different products," Gayer says. "So [partners] need to know a lot of things ...