Event Recap: A Microsoft partner perspective on the Community Summit 2024 experience
Community Summit 2024 gave many customers their best look yet at Microsoft’s plans for the future of business applications. As older applications like Dynamics GP near their official end and the newest tools like Copilot Studio and other AI features ramp up, partners in the Business Applications space will need to re-prioritize their plans going forward.
In a recent channel-focused webcast, a panel of subject matter experts reflected on the themes of Summit and how partners can learn from them. Scott May, Director of Channel Development at Stratos Cloud Alliance was joined in the discussion by Stratos senior VP Jeff Edwards, senior partner development manager Rich Fowler, and Microsoft senior channel partner marketing manager Pam Johnson to discuss topics including GP, Microsoft Business Applications partner incentives, ERP migrations, and the growing role of AI across the Dynamics and Power Platform landscape. (Note: Stratos Cloud Alliance was the sponsor of the event.)
May noted that the large in-person turn out of customers and partners at Summit 2024 reflected ongoing community momentum as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to fade into the rearview mirror. During the event, he focused on some of the breakout sessions focused around AI themes and technology, he said.
Microsoft made news by announcing the end of life for Dynamics GP just before the conference. May believed the decision to set distinct dates for the end of GP support was accepted quite well by the community:
In terms of the end-of-life announcement, there are always people, both customers and partners, who don’t like that pressure, but there is overall positive [energy around] Business Central and AI rather than negative energy. I didn’t hear much around the negative side, perhaps because we’ve got [Business Central] with over 40,000 installs. We’re six or seven years into this thing in the upper right quadrant for Gartner, seeing 30 percent year-on-year growth rate.
For her part, Johnson admitted that she understands the passion some feel for Dynamics GP. She began her career working at Great Plains Software in the 1990s and has worked with GP partners since 2000. She described going to one migration session at the event which was “packed.”
“I think the vibe I got was that everyone is leaning into how to drive this customer conversation, being proactive. How do I make sure we’re ahead of the game there? Engagement with other partners and customers [is the theme] I truly appreciated,” she said.
Fowler agreed with the theme of positive energy. He noted the growing number of ISV solutions for Business Central, which he described as “exponentially” better than two years ago when BC was still “fledgling.” Stratos has seen a growing number of ISVs joining its focus on BC and able to move their GP and SL customers over.
In other sessions, speakers touched on practical tools to address boost user engagement in business applications. There was significant emphasis on AI throughout the event, with discussion of how to use Microsoft’s latest tools to open doors and spark interest in migrations.
Johnson offered an in-depth explanation of incentives offered by Microsoft and Stratos Cloud Alliance. She explained:
You can get up to $18,000 off deployment costs. [It’s important to] understand the true power of Business Central. We have invested so much to get customers to move over. [For instance the] Bridge to Cloud option for customers focuses on moving from on-prem to cloud. You can take advantage of deployment offers, and leverage them together. In prior years, you couldn’t combine them.
In one example of potential savings, Johnson described a hypothetical GP customer migrating 15 seats to Business Central. Totaled up, potential incentives could be as much as 34.75% between Microsoft co-op and rebate, and benefits offered by Stratos Cloud Alliance.
Speaking of the partner opportunity to engage on-prem ERP customers, Edwards said:
In all my time at Microsoft and now as a partner, I’ve never seen more incentives and money rolled out to make this happen. From a Stratos Cloud perspective, it’s more of a challenge figuring out how to spend it than how to get it. It’s a big bet for Microsoft. I think the end-of-life announcement combined with the BREP reduction really shows where Microsoft is putting their money. You can more than make it up on the BREP side by migrating customers.
In Edwards’s view, Microsoft is offering a “dual message” which emphasizes the importance of partner solution designations for getting paid. Increasingly, solution designations are important for accessing back-end assessments and for prospecting. Public statements from Microsoft suggest that it wants more trained on the newest technology.
Getting that solution designation to gain experience is critical to maximizing the value of a partner business. From a migration and end-of-life perspective, people are seeing the momentum of the product in a way they probably didn’t see three or four years ago.
In terms of training and incentives, Fowler sees solution designations and solution specializations as “table stakes.” Partners who fail to capitalize on them are potentially losing 40% of their potential revenue from incentives. Around 40% of Microsoft co-op funding is for marketing. Other areas of focus include MS Learn and Ambassador programs to reskill workers. He explained:
If you’re onboarding with us, expect to answer [a few] questions: First, have you identified the customers in your group that are ready or potentially ready to talk about migrations? If yes, fabulous, how did you get there and if no, why not. Can you go in and find your customer data? We can help you with that and your Microsoft team can help. Second, can you help [your customers], are you ready to go into your skilling and sales conversations? If yes, fabulous, but that’s generally not the answer partners were giving us at Summit. “Not yet,” was more often the answer.
According to Edwards, it’s time to have a conversation with customers about AI. New capabilities mean new ways to harness the business data in ERP and CRM systems. When it comes to AI conversations, Johnson describes the buzz as strong. She added:
Copilot [is capable of recommending what] one on one conversation to have with my manager based on recent IMs. The increase in productivity is amazing. Copilot Studio [allows you to] increase productivity for only $200 a month, not per user, per usage. This is one way that we can differentiate ourselves today that our competitors cannot. Leading with AI messaging is super critical…I can tell you the advances we’re making are coming fast and furious. When we think about roadmap we have, we’ve seen [that partners and customers need to] get on the ride now so you aren’t feeling left-behind.
FREE Membership Required to View Full Content:
Joining MSDynamicsWorld.com gives you free, unlimited access to news, analysis, white papers, case studies, product brochures, and more. You can also receive periodic email newsletters with the latest relevant articles and content updates.
Learn more about us hereor login