Over the past decade, Dynamics 365 (D365) has evolved from a CRM and ERP solution for small to medium-sized businesses, to an enterprise product challenging brands such as Salesforce, Oracle, SAP and others. Encompassing cloud-based business applications for on-the-go sales teams and back-office workers, D365 improves lead tracking, automates financial operations, and optimizes business processes to boost sales and enhance marketing efforts. Seamlessly integrated with popular Microsoft applications such as Office, OneNote, and SharePoint, it enables rapid onboarding, saving time and money.
However, Microsoft’s success and the rapid adoption of Dynamics 365 by customers is hampered by a shortage of skilled resources. Whether it’s Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement (CRM), Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations or Dynamics 365 Business Central, there just aren’t enough D365 experts to fill all the open jobs.
The result?
Customers, Microsoft partners, and Microsoft are all fighting over a limited pool of skilled resources that aren’t growing fast enough to meet demand. One of the most common complaints we hear from Microsoft’s channel partners is “the lack of D365 resources is our biggest bottleneck. Our business would be booming if we could only find people with the right skills to meet the needs of our customers.”
Differentiate yourself as a Dynamics 365 system integrator
While other CRM and ERP vendors have tightly controlled ecosystems, Microsoft’s hands-off approach to Dynamics partners creates unique challenges. With so many system integrators and resellers to choose from, customers have a hard time selecting the best Dynamics 365 system integrator for their project. Historically focusing on one of the original products that comprise D365— Axapta, Great Plains, Navision, or others—many partners strive to replicate their competencies in these legacy products in the D365 space—often with mixed results.
Whatever your legacy, your success as a Dynamics 365 system integrator lies in your ability to acquire and retain the competencies your customers demand. Your challenge is to decide what resources you need to support your pipeline without overworking your employees, jeopardizing their job satisfaction, or exposing them to the lure of a well-paid position from a competitor—or even Microsoft.
With diversified customer requirements, Dynamics 365 consultants need to step outside the boundaries of the product to understand each customers’ line of business applications. And with frequent platform updates, staying on top of the latest D365 features and functions is time-consuming. Since it’s unrealistic for your team to develop all of the skills you need to plan, implement, train, and support multiple Dynamics 365 deployments, you need to carefully choose the areas you’re going to specialize in and find a reliable partner to do the rest.
Invest up front where it counts the most
To create competitive differentiation, you need to align your knowledge with Microsoft’s vision for Dynamics 365, making insightful decisions for customer projects. Once accomplished, you need to develop the in-house expertise required to convince current and prospective customers you’re the best value proposition for their organization.
That means investing in the upfront skills needed to strategize, plan, and implement your customers’ project. Since implementing a CRM or ERP solution is challenging, an essential way to differentiate yourself is leveraging your experience to highlight the importance of indepth planning before embarking on a transformation project. Unfortunately, most organizations don’t commit enough time or effort to that phase of the project. However, laying the groundwork is proven to ensure a higher success rate in terms of return on investment and long term growth.
So invest in pre-sales, solution and technical architects, and implementation resources who understand both the customer business and how Dynamics 365 can be used to support it. Doing so builds trust and confidence, providing a platform for ongoing engagement, project success, and excellent customer references resulting in new sales opportunities, projects, and profits.
Partner for success
With the Dynamics 365 ecosystem fast-paced and exciting, the last thing your skilled—and expensive—consultants want to get involved in is training and support. But that’s an essential part of your services portfolio! So how do you balance investing in securing the projects upfront, implementing them successfully, and ensuring customer satisfaction with expert training and ongoing support?
You guessed it! Near Contact has a team of skilled, highly-trained Dynamics 365 consultants waiting in the wings as a resource complement for your organization.
While you focus on implementing their CRM or ERP solution to enable your customers’ business, we’ll center our efforts on maintaining a robust platform upon which they can rely. Partnering with us allows you to make the necessary investment in the skilled resources you need—to close deals and successfully implement solutions—without having to worry about maintaining a support infrastructure. With that in hand, you’ll quickly be on your way to nurturing new opportunities and increasing revenue.
Reduce risk and costs
With an experienced team and a growing—and talented—resource pool to draw from, Near Contact will look after all your training, onboarding, and maintenance requirements. Leveraging extensive D365 experience and industry best practices for optimized, essential core services, our rigorous, preventative measures increase platform availability and performance by proactively mitigating bottlenecks and eliminating roadblocks.
Moreover, embracing a managed services approach reduces risk around user adoption, ensuring the user community always feels supported instead of abandoned. It also provides predictable spending with a fixed monthly cost aligned to your customers’ needs and budget.
Partnering with Near Contact provides your customers with peace of mind, enables you to focus on growing your business, and allows us to expand our skills—and value adds—through ongoing training and increased exposure to a variety of clients and industries.
For more information on how Near Contact can help you access the pool of IT skills you need, email us at info@nearcontact.com
About Near Contact
Specializing in digital transformation, software development, and mobile apps, Near Contact attracts and retains the top talent from across Mexico to support US enterprises and service providers. With over 20 years’ experience matching the right talent for each client and project, Near Contact’s flexible, hybrid outsourcing model offers fast access to a highly-skilled, scalable resource pool—delivering your project, your way. www.nearcontact.com
