Companies and the markets that they operate in – plus the technologies that both rely on – are all fast-paced, moving targets. As a result it is critical for any organisation in today’s world to ensure that their business applications also have the ability to continuously adapt.
With a chosen, standardised technology platform like Microsoft Dynamics, the emphasis on technical development becomes even more important. Microsoft is reinvesting a large portion of the licensing costs paid by customers into developing new and improved standard functionalities, which they are continuously released to users. If your organisation and live application cannot absorb these enhancements and improvements as they happen, you may lose out on cost-saving and revenue-boosting opportunities – and eventually risk being behind your competition. Likewise, if your business changes but your Microsoft Dynamics solution doesn’t adapt to it, its value to the business will steadily decrease.
Putting into perspective
Better scope management
Longer life
Reliability
Reliability stems from creating a degree of trust between the user and their belief in the solution. Depending on the criticality of your Dynamics solution, the impact of any issues and unexpected events arising from it will vary. Having an attentive service desk team that is ready to respond to all queries will increase the overall reliability level.Read More
Accelerate user-adoption
Return-on-investment (ROI) of IT infrastructure is driven by an expectation that end-users are working with the provided solution correctly. As a result, user adoption rates significantly affect how accurate the initial business case was. For example, if you forecasted that Microsoft Dynamics CRM would boost your lead-to-opportunity conversion rate by 20%.Read More
One alternative scenario we recommend is to offer the end-users an attentive and capable support service alongside the solution. This service would be delivered by a team ready to promptly and comprehensively handle all queries or issues experienced by users, as well as help them to take on board any improvements made to the solution. The task of educating your users about the solution and its capabilities is an ongoing one.
Microsoft Updates
Microsoft’s strategy is to heavily invest in and apply innovative developments to their solutions on a continual basis. It sees this strategy as the main differentiator between them and their competitors in the CRM and ERP market and as a result, its roadmap involves four substantial releases for both Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX every year.Read More
Factor to consider in a Support and Maintenance setup
- Helping the end-users overcome unexpected obstacles, so they can finish their task(s);
- Execute and oversee regular tasks, for example imports/exports, monitoring or user administration; and,
- Add or change the functionality of the Dynamics solution to either fix a bug, align with new business requirements or apply a Microsoft upgrade.
The decision about where to place your Dynamics support in this structure is an important one, because those support individuals will need to demonstrate the skills of both business-aware super users and developers. If you intend to outsource your Dynamics support, you should also consider having a level inhouse as well. Microsoft Dynamics is so closely linked to your business and its performance, that anchoring and protecting the knowledge of your own Dynamics solution in-house, is critical for basic business risk management and for vendor flexibility.
Relying on a single individual will limit both the range and availability of competences. That person cannot be an expert in all the above areas, could be sick, on holiday or move on from your company. Equally, relying on a team, for example in a large call-centre, will limit the depth of the competences about your implementation.
The key is to find a balance where some people are dedicated and at- tentive, and maintain the ability to quickly scale support to respond to a fluctuating workload, as a result optimising both delivery and costs.
AlfaPeople AMF
When we discuss all the topics in this whitepaper with potential customers, we often find that despite their best efforts, they do not have the competences, capacity or readiness to deliver the post-go-live Support and Maintenance structure internally. AlfaPeople has a comprehensive Application Maintenance Service tailored for our Microsoft Dynamics customers, called the AlfaPeople AMF (Application Maintenance Framework).
AlfaPeople AMF was initially launched as a local service in Denmark in early 2014. Today, it is a shared offering between AlfaPeople’s European offices in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. It is both a strategically and financially important, independent business unit within AlfaPeople.Read More
Our AMF service can be integrated seamlessly in the customers’ existing IT architecture, enhance existing support and maintenance capabilities. Working with AlfaPeople as a trusted partner and taking advantage of its ‘centre of excel- lence’ capabilities is a significant advantage for any potential client. Our support and maintenance services can be applied as either a CAPEX and OPEX cost, supporting the continuous growth of our customers’ businesses at a compelling low price.