Takeaways from Corenote #1 at Microsoft Inspire
AlfaPeople |
Jul 17, 2018

Takeaways from Corenote #1 at Microsoft Inspire

Today Microsoft Inspire 2018 kicked off with the corenote at the very impressive T-mobile Arena – the home of the Vegas Golden Knights. An inspiring 2 hours opened by Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President, One Commercial Partner at Microsoft. Gavriella was followed by an inspiring Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President, Commercial Business at Microsoft showcasing some of the customers that have been empowered by Microsoft eco-system like the Danish company Carlsberg.

“As a long-time partner within the Microsoft Business Applications, my focus was on the directions that Microsoft are setting as well as the potential impacts and opportunities for the Dynamics customers,” says Mads Møgelvang Nielsen, Director of Operations at AlfaPeople.

Judson Althoff was very inspiring delivering the communication of the direction and initiatives, that we will see from Microsoft for the coming fiscal year. Last year Microsoft launched a shift in the paradigm, moving from a very product focused organization to a much more customer-centric focused organization. Microsoft is still product focused, but they are much more fine-tuned and focused this year. Overall the initiatives can be grouped into the following areas:

  • Accelerate our cultural transformation
  • Strategic enterprise accounts
  • Customer acquisition
  • Customer retention and growth
  • Learning and readiness

How are the focus areas affecting the Dynamics partners and customers?

The cultural transformation is already in progress and the re-organization last year in Microsoft addressing more focus on customers and less product as well. This transformation also addresses some of the pains, that Microsoft has had competing with other vendors, where value selling is the approach more than functionalities.

Examples of the strategic enterprise account focus are the new opportunities of co-selling in the One Commercial Partner Programme. Here Microsoft in collaboration with partners are selling and winning together. For customers, this gives them the comfort of knowing, that the software vendor is directly involved and at the same time utilizes the implementation experiences from the partners. Corenote.

With all the new technologies being launched, learning is more important than ever. A new learning portal was announced for the new fiscal year, bringing more focus on the Azure/Cloud technologies and using the latest technologies in learning.

What is Microsoft Inspire?

Microsoft Inspire is a conference held yearly by Microsoft for its partner community. Inspire Partners are taught about Microsoft Roadmap for the upcoming year, network and build connections, share best practices, experience the latest product innovations, and learn new skills and techniques. There are also keynotes from Microsoft executives, featured speakers, business-track specific offerings and hundreds of session on everything Microsoft.

AlfaPeople is, of course, attending this important conference to make sure that our employees are on top of all the new features, functions and roadmaps in order to help our customers to be successful.

Every day during this week, we will keep you updated with all the news and insights – please make sure to follow us at AlfaPeople, so you do not miss out on valuable information. Corenote.