Service Industry Focus: Advertising, marketing & PR, powered by Microsoft Dynamics AX

Just how is Microsoft Dynamics AX, the workhorse for manufacturers and distributors, suited to ad agencies? Or the marketing communications (or marcomm) agencies that flood Twitter and Facebook and issue press releases?

Those are strictly service-industry organizations, offering no durable goods. Their products are web-ads (and click-throughs), viewer impressions during "Modern Family," and press-release pickups and impressions - among dozens of other products.

But each campaign represents a discreet project, and project lifecycle management is one of several strengths of Dynamics AX 2012 and now Dynamics 365 for Operations (formerly AX7). Projects in any services industry (be it advertising, architecture, legal) depend upon the project triad of 1) on-time, 2) on-budget and 3) on-scope. With integrated modules for Accounting, Project Management, Client Relationship Management, and Human Resource Management, Dynamics AX 2012 or Dynamics 365 for Operations can synthesize it all.

With the recent release of Dynamics 365 for Operations (formerly known as AX7), the professional services capabilities of Dynamics AX remain intact. To understand more about the services industry opportunity for Dynamics 365, we spoke with Andy Yeomans, US director of business development at SAGlobal. The company has had a service industry practice that has used Dynamics AX since 2008 and the company serves a range of professional services-based firms.

MSDW: What inspired SAGlobal's establishing this practice? Is it recent or has it grown organically?

Andy Yeomans: This grew out of our industry strategy that dates back to 2008 when we decided as an organization to go into the professional services space. We were looking for verticals within the service industry that Dynamics AX would ...