Directions Day 1 - So far... So amazing

Okay, wow what a day so far. I’ve had to take myself away for a little bit from the hustle and bustle of #DirectionsEMEA2022, little bit of fresh air and just really take in what I’ve listened to so far today, all incredible. I’ve got 20 minutes or so before a meeting so let’s see what I can get writing. So many amazing updates, new releases and just great insights that I can really take into what I’m doing with Pax8 and help more partners grow and add even more value to their customers.

Where do I even start? Suppose first thing this morning with the keynote right? I’ll start with one of the first things James said this morning which got me feeling like “YES LET’S DO THIS”, and the term “Power Up” was used, fits nicely with the Power Platform, very clever. But yes, everyone here is all about powering up, getting more knowledge, more insights, and gaining more opportunities. And I’ll just say, that in the spirit of powering up, why not go beyond what you thought possible with your Cloud Business and attend Beyond in Denver June 2023 – more information on that HERE.

One of the first sessions this morning about Women in Cloud, great job Vicky as always, but some interesting statistics presented about diversity in Dynamics. One thing that really caught my eye was the Young People in Dynamics sessions that will be happening, really glad to see this. I have nothing to do with this but it was at last years Directions that I did a video talking about this very topic and have since been presenting in schools for the last 12 months in my very limited spare time, so it’s amazing that they’re doing something. On the Women in Dynamics topic though, great to see in ONE YEAR we’ve gone from 4% female speakers to 32% female speakers, that’s some impact!!! There are still some things that need to happen, we’re still in a position where there are only around 3% of people in C level roles are women and 68% of women are stuck in mid level roles with no progression. So work to be done but the right direction for sure, and as an ally I’m here for it. I’m here for the whole diversity piece that’s for sure.

A great session from Continia on the main stage. Coming out with some interesting statistics as they’re all about time, and in particular saving time!!! With around 8000 customers and on average around 850 invoices per month the need for automation is definitely there. Saving around 12 minutes per invoice is very realistic but they gave an example saving just 6 minutes per invoice, doesn’t sound like a lot right? Well role that up to the 6.8 million or so invoices we’re talking about here and the benefit now becomes huge!!! This solution with Business Central is amazing. And one thing that really caught my eye is their expense management updated, the gap was their and they’ve filled it. Now using their solution you can take a picture of the receipt you’re wanting to expense and using AI and automation it simply fills in the form for you saving time on expensing. I LOVE THIS, because expenses are just so time consuming!!!

On to the Microsoft stuff, and there’s some great stuff. Really cool that it’s now been 20 years since Microsoft acquired Navision. And I really appreciated the fun videos showing what work was like 20 years ago with Navision and in general, considering I looked something like this when that acquisition took place:

Adorable I  know (just kidding I was a the terror of the family). Maybe in the comments of this blog you reading this should post a photo of you 20 years ago.

Some interesting information called out as part of Mike’s session. Remote implementations have sky rocketed with most implementations now being remote. Security is top of mind within Microsoft, ensuring SMB customers of Microsoft Cloud are fully protected, you’re never too small to be targeted as a business, and a surprising amount of the attacks are phishing attacks, highest percentage. On top of this another key thing for Microsoft now is to protect the customers business when it comes to disaster recovery and business continuity – really ensuring SMBs are protected, up and running, looking after their customers and growing their business with the right technology.

Some cool Business Central stats:

·      Business Central is now one of the two fastest growing products in Microsoft Business Applications.

·      100+ countries available now worldwide with the ambition being that it will be available globally.

·      There are more apps in AppSource for Business Central than any other Microsoft solution, not just Biz Apps!!!

·      Business Central is now also used as the model within Microsoft for SMB success – other units wanting the “secret source” that’s caused Business Central to sky rocket and not stop.

·      And there are more Business Central partners than any other Biz Apps product.

The above is just awesome, I remember coming into this Dynamics 365 cloud space and it was… I don’t want to say struggling, but it just wasn’t at the rate it is now. So to see that journey and be part of it, very cool and very proud. Some of the best partners in the world are in this community and it really shows when you see these statistics.

But now we’re in this time of uncertainty, inflation, global conflict and a potential recession with companies cutting back on spends, so now’s the time for the partners of this community to step up, what are WE going to do? The great thing here is there are plans (I won’t go into detail) but at Pax8 and some things we’re working on to really help this message and support SMB customers through tough times, save costs, increase ROI and also ensure they’re purchasing all their cloud tech from the same partner, and we’re enabling this like nobody else. Very much aligned with Microsoft’s “do more with less” messaging I’ve heard so many times today. Microsoft are really supporting with more efficient implementations, tools to enable lower and more predictable costs for customers, supply chain resiliency, agility to scale solutions up and down (seasonality etc.), automate business tasks and so much more. Again with the, let’s call it secret project, I’m working on with Pax8 and my colleagues we’re really going to enable this with our Partners. It’s not just about Dynamics here anymore. Business Solutions are more important than ever, and enabling Partners to help customers with SOLUTIONS to solve their problems and concerns right now is going to be key to a Partners success, not just in new business but holding on to existing. We can help customers cut costs, but let’s do it in a way that enables them to run their business more productive, with better insights they can actually use in action and help them grow their business. Working with all clouds you can enable the customer to not only reduce their total cost of ownership but increase their ROI for their investment, the investment they’ll be making more with you!!! (if you work with the right people to help you do that like Pax8)

As with all the Business Central release waves this one has some key themes: Adapt Faster, Perform Better and Work Smarter.

Some of this was really highlighted with the messaging around faster app implementations, an amazing example was shown, again by Continia, taking their implementation from 3 – 5 days to 5 minutes, that’s just crazy but it’s being made possible!!! A cool website was shown if you need support in doing this with your solutions: aka.ms/bconboarding – but then there was another shown for just EVERYTHING to do with Business Central: aka.ms/bcall , so a good one for you to know about if you have anything to do with Business Central.

Some great demos were shown for example changing the action bar in Business Central with simple drag and drop functionality, really easy to use (even looked like I could do it and that’s saying something), easy to personalize for the users and again more information is on the above links. New capabilities in Power Pages building site easily and quickly that are synced with Business Central. The demo highlighted taking information from a form in the Power Pages site, with Power Automate kicking in to automatically send an email for approval, which then once approved Power Automate again kicks in sending an alert in Teams that it’s been approved and next steps. And now you’ll be able to build these work flows actually in Business Central, so no need to jump from one solution/tab to another, it’s all in one space. Again making it so easy to be productive, build out work flows and make life easy for users. You can now create, manage and run flows right from within Business Central.

Anyone that watches my content knows I love the cross sell message. I see so much value in the Microsoft Cloud as 1 solution. And more was shown with regards to Teams and Business Central together, as well as Dynamics 365 Sales. For example being able to use Teams right from within Dynamics, on a call with a client and then using chat also to collaborate with someone else whilst on a call, notes automatically taken, call summary automatically typed out. The flow from the sales order being processed to Business Central, everything is about being more productive and doing things easier…. Or do more with less!!!

And a huge announcement that you can now access data from Business Central with a Microsoft 365 license, read only. You can pull up data right in Microsoft Teams to make life easier, again – do more with less (have I repeated that, because they sure did!!!) but it’s so true, that’s what Microsoft are enabling and to an SMB this is so key!!!

Now for some photos but so you can see what licenses have access from Microsoft 365:

The benefits really will empower entire departments that don’t use Business Central to sef-serve and view valuable data to help them. The customer can remain within budget while delivering insights to more workers. And with data governance peace of mind as data assets remain in the database.

And the 7 key facts you really need to know about this update:

Some different visuals based on your license type – continued in the below two images then we’ll go to fact 4.

With 3 simple steps to deploy:

This presents a huge opportunity for partners to complete with a compelling story of collaboration with Microsoft’s Cloud for SMB. It will enable Partners to build collaboration into their solutions automated for one-time setup or repeatable customers. Get a foothold into the rest of each customer organization and prepare their license upsell strategy to increase and monetize their footprint at each customer – that upsell opportunity is amazing and I know we at Pax8 are all here for it and working together to really enable partners like nobody else.

Right, 20 minutes up, meeting starting soon so that’s my day 1 blog and we’re not even finished yet, more sessions after my meeting and the incredible Women in Dynamics event – let’s do this. Hope everyone here is enjoying themselves. And I hope the guy sat opposite me didn’t mind me frantically bashing my keyboard writing this whilst he was on a call.

Have a good one folks!!!

Mat Batterbee

Global GTM Solutions Director

Pax8