Day 2 Keynote Speaker for Directions EMEA

The latest Announcements from Directions EMEA

As you will have seen from our Blog, there are a lot of announcements happening at Directions EMEA, and the morning keynote speakers are a great way to find out an overview of all of the latest. Here we will recap all of the key points covered.

The Marketplace

There was a lot of interesting information about the shifting and jostling between the big players in the market, with Sage linking with Salesforce and Oracle buying Net Suite. However, Microsoft remain strong with the interesting fact that a massive 14% of all chips that are produced by Intel are put into their Azure datacentres.

Dynamics 365

The product that we are all waiting to hear about! Whether you are an end user looking to purchase an ERP system, a Microsoft Dynamics partner nervous about what the future holds or just like us, people who are excited about the latest technologies, this has been the major talking point with regard to Microsoft Business software. This morning new information was put out on to the marketplace that we are now pleased to share with you:

Functionality

Dynamics 365 is starting as a lightweight financial package with CRM to be added very soon. With a release date of November 1st in the US and a release in the UK expected in 2017, this will start off as the low cost, easy implementation option for small businesses. However, today it was announced that all of the Dynamics NAV starter pack functionality will eventually be added to Dynamics 365, with an expectation that extended pack modules such as Manufacturing will be added, putting the full functionality of Dynamics NAV into Dynamics 365.

Pricing

Moving forward, Microsoft are holding strong onto the future timelines for the other Dynamics products such as Dynamics NAV and GL, with Dynamics 365 being another product in the range. However it must be noted that when customers move from an on premise license to Dynamics 365 they will get 40% discount off monthly costs in perpetuity.

Dynamics 365 is being sold completely on a SAAS based model, meaning that it will be licenced by different user types on a monthly subscription basis. The pricing of this has been released, however with various discount structures and user types, please contact us to discuss this fully.

Getting Started

The whole premise behind Dynamics 365 is the ease and speed of getting started. When we explained what Dynamics 365 is back in August, we discussed how NAV is aimed at being a flexible solution that can fit any business. Dynamics 365 however is aimed to be the first step into ERP, and so the benefits of getting started are key:

• A fast sales time with low cost
• Quick sign up with just an email address
• Wizards to walk through the setup of data, with import tools to bring in data from accounting software
• An app store – “AppSource” – allows simple added features for end users

AppSource – the Business App Store

Microsoft are pushing the idea of extensions rather than in-software development. Although the days of add-on solutions are not over, the new world of business apps are aimed at providing low cost and easy to implement solutions for all of the business software on the market. With a new Visual Studio environment for developing extensions, as well as in-client development, Microsoft aim for partners to develop a plethora of solutions for end users. These will be available globally via Microsoft AppSource, the online store aimed purely at solutions for the business apps.

The new PowerApps and Flow apps in Office 365 are also integral components to building extensions for the Dynamics and Office 365 products.

Business Software Showcase

We have the UK Dynamics NAV Channel Manager from Microsoft, Robert Pope, as our keynote speaker for the very popular Business Software Showcase. This is a free event held in our offices in Southampton, UK, where all of the latest updates for the Microsoft business software are announced and demonstrated.

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Stuart Hardman

Stuart is an experienced Dynamics Consultant having worked with Microsoft Dynamics Navision, NAV and Business Central for over 20 years, 18 of those as a lead consultant on numerous projects with various Microsoft Dynamics partners. He also has experience working and implementing solutions with major companies and groups in retail, distribution, and service management, as well as smaller companies looking to implement their first integrated ERP solution. In early 2020 Stuart took up his new role as Commercial Manager responsible for products and partnerships at Dynamics Consultants.