As Microsoft Dynamics 365 presales solution architect at Hitachi Solutions Europe Ltd in the UK, first-time Microsoft MVP Kyle Hill's day-to-day job is all about winning the hearts and minds of customers by crafting solutions to meet their needs.

In this role, Hill uses his expertise and knowledge of business processes and the Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement product suite to address his clients' business challenges.

"My focus is very much around customer engagement and a lot of the Azure components that support it, such as Internet of Things, the Microsoft Bot Framework and the data platform," says Hill, who received the award in November.

Adoption of IoT with Dynamics slow in EMEA

However, the adoption of IoT solutions crossing over with Dynamics has been particularly slow – so slow, in fact, that there's not even one referenceable client in all of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA),  he says.

One of the reasons for this is the large variety of hardware out in the field from different suppliers and manufacturers – all with different protocols.