Avanade and eLogic plan for new opportunities bridging SAP, Microsoft business apps

Avanade acquired manufacturing specialist firm eLogic in September, gaining a team with expertise in both Microsoft and SAP business applications as well as a focus on manufacturing and configuration. The eLogic team also brings experience in scenarios that tie deeply embedded SAP systems back to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.

To learn more about opportunity Avanade sees in manufacturing and the impact they expect from bringing in the eLogic team, MSDW spoke with Avanade representatives at the recent Community Summit North America event about the acquisition and the bigger picture. David Kohar, a Microsoft channel veteran and a partner at eLogic, told MSDW that the firm's expertise made the company a good fit at Avanade in terms of the types of clients with which they engage:

Where we are really differentiated is in a manufacturing company that's doing a lot of engineer-to-order, configure-to-order. It's like we had a superpower on the SAP side where we could take all things Microsoft, whether it was Power Platform or Dynamics 365 Field Service or Sales, and then surround that particular customer [with those applications] in the front office. That was like our North Star. We want to do more of that, but then we want to do the five other things at that account that probably is 300% more revenue than we were actually doing, all the other things that they would actually value bringing us to the table to do.

Jennifer Johnson, senior director and North American industry lead for manufacturing at Avanade, explained that today her team explores a range of challenges with manufacturers related to servicing end customers. It's a perspective that was less common in earlier decades but nearly pervasive today, she says.

The concept of not directly servicing your end customer is now very foreign in the manufacturing space. The feedback loop is much tighter now than it was a generation ago or even 10 years ago because of social media, because of connected products. And manufacturers need to keep up and get ahead of those trends.

She also expects the eLogic acquisition to help strengthen the firm's work in scenarios like dealer management and customer service.

The capabilities that eLogic brings to the table around field service and connected products, and certainly around how an organization that sells through dealers, services those dealers to enable them and empower them to increase their own sales and revenue, but also engages with their parent [manufacturer] in a highly efficient way, is just business critical for those types of organizations.

With SAP and homegrown solutions so embedded in global organizations, services firms like Avanade are often navigating the reality that their projects must account for critical legacy technology. Abi Sridhar, senior director at Avanade and the North America digital sales and service lead, believes eLogic's approach will help Avanade better explain how large organizations can deploy Dynamics and Power Platform strategically while making the most of their SAP investments. He explained: