Steve reads his Blog

Steve has a Chat with Jukka

I had the pleasure of having a chat with a Power Platform industry leader, Jukka Niiranen. Listen or Watch below. Enjoy!

The Works Services-as-a-Subscription Model Update

Back in May, I wrote a post describing a completely new Services model we call "The Works from Forceworks". It is a Services-as-a-Subscription model that is unique in the industry. I also promised to follow up with our learnings from this new model, so today I will do just that. The Works First, I'll remind you of what the offer is. Thanks to advances in low-code/no-code for Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform we decided it was finally time to launch a completely new services model. An all-inclusive, unlimited service that included not just support, but also deployments and customizations, along with several other things. You can see what we included here. Based on our analysis of recent customer history, "The Works" will cover 100% of the requirements for about 90% of the customers. How's it Going? Customers are eating it up. Almost all of our existing customers have converted. I am thinking we may have left some money on the table. But now is not the time to maximize the revenue, rather now is the time to flesh this out. We wanted this to be as "turn-key" as possible starting with getting a quote that can be done right on the website. This meant "standardizing" the pricing. Today there is a Fixed Base cost, plus an additional fixed cost for certain combinations, like Dynamics for Marketing for example, and then a Per User cost. Part of the thinking was that the number of users would be a good measure of the work our team would need to perform. But in reality, while a good general rule, there are exceptions. For example, a simple deployment with basic needs, but a large number of users, versus a highly complex deployment with only a handful of users. For the former, the price is too high and for the latter, the price is too low. We are still thinking about the best solution to this. Pro-Active Almost all services offered by Partners to Customers are "reactive", responding to customer requests. This makes sense in an hourly model as it is not the Partner's job to decide how to spend the customer's money. But in an unlimited subscription model, we are able to be "pro-active" since it does not affect the customers' cost. A simple example may be once a week checking to see if all Flows are running properly or checking capacity. One of the primary differences in a Subscription model is that it is very important that the customer renews at the end of the term. Customers will scrutinize that monthly charge and compare the value they received each month. If at renewal time, they didn't see the value, they will not renew. Over a twelve-month term there will be months that are more active than others. But you cannot allow a month to go by with no activity, and this is where pro-active services fill the gaps. We are continuing to add to the list of things that we can do pro-actively to bring value and building tools to try and automate that as much as possible. User Support We were initially thinking this might be a big item, and for some it is. We had this idea that all users would be added to a Team or Distribution List that our team were also members of to communicate and resolve issues. Some customers loved the idea and added all users. Others preferred to keep that group small. We built a solution that we install on each customer environment that adds a life ring icon in the top navigation. This opens a form modal where a user can report an error, ask a question or suggest an improvement which via Flow is added to the Team or Distribution list. I am pretty happy with the result having seen many improvement ideas coming directly from the trenches. Deployments The service includes unlimited deployments. This was a dicey one, but I insisted that we include it. The easiest thing to do is to specifically exclude things from an unlimited service to reduce your risk. But you would quickly get to a point were "Unlimited" did not mean anything. This is also a key point at which an unlimited service makes extra sense. For a deployment month, you know your needs will be higher than usual. When comparing to hours you could easily spend as much in a deployment month than the entire annual subscription cost. We have not been doing this that long, but I can already see that we will go underwater during deployment months for a customer. Fortunately, deployments do not happen very often. Customizations This service also includes unlimited customizations, and by extension, to do those properly, unlimited Solution Architecting. If low-code/no-code were not where it is today, this would not be feasible. Where deployments are typically a one-time big bang, customizations are continuous. Although the amount varies from month to month. So far this is averaging out okay. Exclusions We tried really hard to include as much as possible on an unlimited basis, but developers are expensive, and development can often take a lot of time. So "development" is excluded and offered on our traditional hours model. This is the one area that some customers get suspicious about. Looking for the "gotcha" they expect that every time they ask for anything we will cry "development". But again, tracking with our earlier research, many customers never hear the word "development". It does seem that the more sophisticated the customer the more they look for sophisticated solutions which can often require some development. There is some grey area here and we are likely to do something one-off that might meet the technical definition of development within the service rather than bring up the need for development hours, because again the goal is renewal. Are We Making Money Yet? It is still too early to tell, but probably not. However, this is not unusual for a new subscription service as it builds scale. We are also still building the tooling to make this more efficient. As of now, we do have one customer that I can see we will consistently lose money on every month. This is the reason I added the right for us to terminate for any reason in our Terms and Conditions. We still need to figure out the best way to handle that. Summary Was this a good idea? I was not sure when we launched this, but now I can see it was indeed a good idea. There is a tipping point of profitability based on the number of subscribers that we have not reached yet, but I am confident that we will. My next update will be when we reach that tipping point, hopefully in the not too distant future.

Power Platform Blind Spots

Power Platform Outside the Bubble

In my recent conversations with Charles Lamanna here and Jason Gumpert here, we discussed the explosive growth of the Power Platform. Then while listening to Jukka Niiranen on yet another podcast here, I was reminded that we are all inside the Power Platform bubble. From the outside, however, this bubble is tiny. Expanding Bubble There is no denying that the Power Platform's growth is impressive, but who is growing it? Microsoft has a fist-full of enterprise-sized customers who went all-in and sang the praises. But of all the enterprise-sized customers worldwide, I doubt this has touched even 1%. Sure, we have a ton of new "citizens" making things, but a "ton" does not even register on the scale. In an imaginary global IT heatmap, the Power Platform is still invisible. Popping the Bubble The Microsoft bubble is our constraint. Microsoft people are talking to Microsoft Customers and Microsoft Partners about Microsoft stuff. Obviously, "Microsoft" is quite visible in that imaginary heatmap, but the Power Platform is still largely unknown. While organizations may be starting to hear about components, like Power Automate, for example, too many are oblivious to the other components that make up the Power Platform whole. Many think the ability to create a reminder Flow in Power Automate is the limit. Mistakes Were Made I spend much of my time with customers today trying to work around go-to-market mistakes Microsoft made and continues to make. Seeded Power Apps is one. This should have been called Power Apps Lite or Basic, so people would be aware that there is something more, like Power Apps Pro. This alone would not have solved the invisibility issue, but it could be a start. I think too many feel that the seeded capabilities are the extent of it. There are undoubtedly many widget-type apps that have been built with these seeded toys, but if a customer were to inquire about more, they would reach another GTM mistake. If they want more than a simple Laptop Checkout app, the next logical step must be "Dynamics 365". I recall clearly jumping straight into a Jet cockpit after mastering my tricycle at three years old. But that was me. Too Small Those who somehow accidently discovered that there is more available than just the seeded capabilities realize quickly that Microsoft just gave them a toy to play with. Looking back over their shoulder, they see mostly broken toys now. Many wondering why Microsoft let them waste so much time and energy before they tripped through the curtain of awareness. Too Big I am not knocking Dynamics 365; Microsoft has built a colossal Power App aimed squarely at enterprise organizations. It is indeed a "step up" from the seeded toy builder. But, among the zillion features coming soon to add to the existing gabillion features are the abilities to "Create sequences with looping of repeated steps" or "Assignment by segment priority" WTF is that? I just want to sell my stuff! You will need a team of internal and external resources just to sift through the capabilities and understand what they are and whether they can do anything for you. Just Right? There is a space between the seeded toys and Dynamics 365, which is actually the biggest hidden space. Obviously, Microsoft would prefer that you drop half of your annual revenue subscribing to their big solutions; it is not "bad"; it is their business, no different from any other enterprise software company. In my recent chat with Charles, he said, "we have some great data about every user who adopts Power Platform is significantly more likely to adopt Dynamics within the next year or two." Maybe these users were unaware of what the Power Platform could actually do? Low-Code/No-Code "LCNC" This "is" the movement of this decade. The movement of the last decade was getting all but the genuinely paranoid to the cloud. But once there, many realized it wasn't cheaper; it was quite a bit more expensive, and subscriptions are like waves in the ocean; they never stop. Where can you save? Development expenses. Chipping away at that 5, 6, or 7-figure albatross. This is what LCNC is about. It may be subscription protection at the developers' expense, but it is still a big win for customers. From Win to Win-Win LCNC will save customers a lot of money on their Dynamics 365 deployments. Some development may still be required for some things, but not nearly as much as in the last decade. And we are only in 2022! That is indeed a massive Win for customers. But a Win-Win is achievable for those who take the time to understand the Power Platform, the same thing that Dynamics 365 runs on, and what they can build with LCNC directly on there. Not only will they save massive development costs, even if they still engage an LCNC partner, but they could also save +/- 90% on Microsoft Licensing costs. This is not highly promoted for apparent reasons, but we are helping customers build sophisticated business applications with advanced logic and automation, solving complex business problems on $5 Microsoft licenses daily! Summary LCNC, while still in its infancy, is already very powerful and growing more so every month. To see an example of what I am talking about, you can check out our Free RapidStart CRM app and our addons. All of which were built using LCNC on the Power Platform. Microsoft tells a "No Cliffs" story, meaning that you can start with the seeded capabilities, and once you hit a limit, you can advance to the Platform Platform, and once you hit a limit there, you can advance to Dynamics 365. What they don't emphasize is that the Power Platform doesn't have any limits you will hit. Many, starting with RapidStart CRM as a head start, used LCNC to build massively complex mission-critical solutions, with and without our help. LCNC and the Power Platform is a movement you cannot afford not to explore!

The Microsoft Partner Dilemma

Steve has yet another Chat with Charles

I have had my head down working on some big things since RapidStart CRM growth exploded, and it has been a while since you heard from me. Well, I'm getting back to it with a follow-up chat with Charles Lamanna who recently took over for James Phillips as head of Business Applications for Microsoft. This was my fourth chat with Charles, and it was interesting to back listen to them in order. It really gives you a sense of where Microsoft has come. I managed to catch him in his office having just wrapped up their year-end. Enjoy!
 
Transcript Below:
 
Charles:Hey, this is Charles Lamanna.
Steve:Charles. Steve Mordue. How are you doing?
Charles:Good. Great to hear from you, Steve. It's been a long time.
Steve:It has been a while. Have you got some time for a chat?
Charles:For you, anytime.
Steve:I appreciate it. Well, I guess the big news for you obviously is putting on the big boy hat, huh?
Charles:Yes. I moved up an extra floor in the Advanta building in the Microsoft Campus.
Steve:Oh did you?
Charles:No, I'm just kidding. But metaphorically speaking at least. Because for folks that don't know, James Phillips leaving in March of this year, I kinda stepped in across all aspects of business applications of Microsoft. And, over the last four years, I've gotten to know the place, know the people, know the business and I'm super excited about the opportunity. And I think the future has never been brighter for business at Microsoft.
Steve:Well, I never got the feeling that James held you back, or any of the folks on your team back, but he certainly, we have to give him a lot of credit for really taking this thing to a whole nother level. You weren't here before, I don't think, at least with the business apps, but it was really run by morons before he took over. And he completely turned that thing around and turned it in a whole nother business. And now with you taking over, I'm expecting that to continue. I don't know if there's been some things that have been in your bag that you've wanted to do that James was keeping you from, that you're going to pull out, or if you're just going to continue the path, or what's your thinking now that you've got that gavel?
Charles:So definitely not held back. I would say I was super fortunate I worked for James for, I think seven, eight years in total. So I was able to learn a bunch and he was without a doubt, the most supportive manager I've ever had in my career, in terms of both enabling and clearing paths for what we wanted to do from a vision and dreaming perspective. And if it weren't for his support, things like Power Apps would have never gotten off the ground. So, definitely. And I think as we go to the future, we have this amazing foundation. I mean, BizApps is a major and key component and pillar of the Microsoft Cloud.
Charles:10 years ago, you probably would've thought that impossible. Right. To have Dynamics and Power Platform alongside Azure and Office. Now that we're here, let's go take it to the next level. And that's the push, and it's continuing a lot of the great innovation we've already done from a data-first, AI-first approach. Kind of sprinkling in some more collaboration with teams, and really revisiting the end-user experience, the platform, to go increasingly modernize and scale it and make sure that all our components from CRM, to ERP, to Power Platform work great together.
Steve:I don't think it could have achieved that status with Dynamics 365 alone. It really took the Power Platform coming into being, I think, to give it the breadth that it needed to be able to get there. With Dynamics 365, we didn't have apps for users to do small things, there was no way it was going to permeate an organization the way the Power Apps do.
Charles:Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I say two things are interesting. The first is, Power Platform has allowed us to help more users and more customers with business process transformation, which is what BizApps are all about. Right?
Steve:Yeah.
Charles:How do you make your sales processes better, your financial processes better, and Power Platform really turbocharged that. And that earned us credibility in a lot of those departments and with a lot of those users, and we have some great data about every user who adopts Power Platform is significantly more likely to adopt Dynamics within the next year or two. So we see that symbiosis working in a way which is incredibly customer-friendly, and it helps our business. Second thing is Power Platform has even helped us reimagine parts of the Dynamics apps themselves. And I think probably two of the best examples are the connectors, which are key to the Power Platform.
Charles:You see the connectors starting to show up inside all these Dynamics apps, like Customer Insights uses Power Query for data ingestion, or Viva Sales even connects to Salesforce. So there's this amazing interoperability that we have, and also enabling the end-user. Our team built Viva Sales, even though it's not in the Dynamics or Power Platform brand. But it's this idea of having an integrated experience in Office for sellers, built on connectors and built on the Office integration. So it's changed the way you think about some products, and it's also helped us go expand our user base.
Steve:Yeah. I saw I was on a PGI call with that yesterday. Very, very cool stuff. At the last PAC meeting, I was supposed to be on the Viva Sales round table, but I'm like, "Yeah, that sounds boring. I think I'm going to go to this one." And I really, I went to the wrong one, I missed a good one. But you know where I am, right? I'm on the platform.
Charles:Yep.
Steve:And we're exploding. Our app is continuing to grow on the platform as a low-cost simpler alternative to Dynamics 365 for companies that aren't ready for that. And I'm always bugging you about, "Hey, that cool new feature you guys got in the first-party. When are we going to get that at the platform level? So ISVs, and people that are just building their own stuff from scratch, could take advantage of some of the syncs." We got the Outlook app a while ago, we've been getting some things. And when I saw Viva Sales, that was probably my only disappointment was that, at least as I understand it, it's hardwired to Dynamics or hardwired to Salesforce. And I get that trying to play those two against each other, but it's leaving guys like me out in the cold.
Charles:Well, I'd say for Viva Sales, the intent is to support any CRM, and I really do mean that generally. And even customers, because there are customers out there that we talked to today who have homegrown CRMs, they coded 15 years ago. They have a whole dev team still working on it. The idea is to support interoperability with your account records, your lead records, your opportunity records, standard pipeline data. And to do that in a way which works through the connector. So today it'll earn V1, it'll only be Dynamics in Salesforce, but the intent is to make that be a general purpose adapter. And you could have a RapidStart CRM connector, which shows up and supports the contacts the way we want, and it would be connectable. That's not going to happen in the next three months, but that's the ambition.
Steve:I can call you in four.
Charles:I go down and said... What was that, in four Months?
Steve:I can call you in four months.
Charles:Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I might not pick up the phone then in four months, no I'm just kidding. Because even talking about, if people are even on Seibal. We should be able to support them with their sales. Because the idea is, you shouldn't have to transform the seller experience at the same pace that you transform your core CRM, your core system of record, and that's just the way the world's moving.
Steve:Well, I love the idea that one of the challenges that CRM has always had, of course, is user adoption. It's one more place they need to go to do something. Outlook app helped with that, getting data into CRM without them having to actually go to it. It seems like yet another way for people to engage with their CRM without actually realizing they're engaging with their CRM.
Charles:Exactly. Yeah. It's almost like ambient... Yeah for sure. Sorry. Yeah. I say it's almost like ambient CRM basically. How do you make it so that, instead of the user goes to your CRM, the CRM goes to the user where they are. And the outlook app was the beginnings of that. Some of the Team's integrations we've done are the beginnings of that. And that Viva Sales and that whole Viva idea is how do you elevate it? So anywhere you go, your CRM data is accessible without you having to go to a different user interface.
Steve:Very cool. Very cool. So I ask you every time we get on a call about exciting features that are coming up. And in particular, maybe even some features that have launched, that didn't take off the way you thought they would and people are just missing something. We have this problem with our app sometimes, people don't understand and so they don't move forward, and it would be perfect for them. And I'm sure there's lots of features and capabilities that you guys broke a sweat building, and know in your heart, this would be awesome, but people don't seem to be getting that. What's a good example of one of those?
Charles:I'd say a product which we've had a capability, where we've had a lot of customer usage from a small number of customers, but very deeply and with huge impact, and we wish were with more customers, is probably Conversation Intelligence. I'm not sure if you've seen that around the Sales app, and where that actually will sit in inside of say a phone call or a meeting and help you generate action items, and summaries, and coaching, and help you understand sentiment, and listening and talk ratio. We've used that internally at Microsoft with great success. So our digital sales reps and the folks who work our phones, they are diehard fans. We have this amazing video we released a couple months ago where we actually went out and interviewed these digital sales reps and their managers, and they just were going on and on about how great it is.
Charles:And that's rare where you hear that about a piece of technology for a seller. And we have a few other external customers that have gone through that same journey, where they have a thousand digital reps, 2000 digital reps using this and just in love with it. But it's not as pervasive as we thought it would be at this point. And it's one of those things where, it's a product discovery, and easing people into the capability, because then you got to go out of your way to enable it and configure it. So we're doing work now to simplify it, and make it more accessible to more users. And we're doing that partly through Viva Sales, like conversation intelligence, the major capability of Viva Sales.
Charles:And the second thing is also, there's even some culture aspects to it. Because if you use it, it's generating transcripts and recordings of a call, and not everyone's necessarily super comfortable with that. So we're even working about how do you enable more features without having to record the call, and how do you enable capabilities without having to get a transcript? Or how do you make it more natural to say, "Hey, I have a sales co-pilot thing. Are you okay if I enable it?" So there's a lot of interesting things, it's never just a technology problem. It's also a discovery and a, I'd say, change culture management problem.
Steve:Yeah. I think that's been the challenge with anything AI really. A lot of people, it seem to think it might be a little too futuristic. They look at the benefit and think that's really cool, but they have no idea how to get it. And AI just in general, doesn't feel that approachable to people, even though in certain cases, it's extremely approachable. You don't have to do anything, it's approaching you. So it's a learning curve, you got to wait until my generation dies off and then you guys will see.
Charles:I don't have as myopic of you, as you Steve. But I would say that, the big thing that we have to do is, there's been this evolution of AI where the AI is going to be something that automates away what humans do. And what we've realized is, AI is not even remotely close to being able to do that. But what AI can do, is it can turbocharge the people that use it. And so what we're trying to do is, how do we go expose these AI capabilities in a way where you or anyone else who uses them feels so much more productive. And just like when you first got the ability to use PC or a spreadsheet, you're like, "How did I exist before?" We're hoping we'll get to the point where, once you start using some of these AI assistive capabilities, like we've done in Conversation Intelligence, you'll be like, "How did I ever do a customer call before? And I had to take notes on paper while listening as opposed to having the AI take notes for me?" Yeah, exactly.
Steve:I'm terrible about that. I'll be chicken scratching over here while I'm talking to people, and then we get off the phone I look at and I can't understand a word I wrote.
Charles:Yeah. I like post-it notes next to my desk where I'm always writing stuff down.
Steve:Yeah. So what else cool's coming on the horizon that we should be... That sounds like the Conversational Intelligence has been around. Sounds like Viva Sales is going to really bring that to the masses, so that one's on a path. What are some other new things that we should pay attention to that you're able to talk about?
Charles:Yeah. Another one of my favorite things, which we've started to reveal some capabilities going back to last Ignite, so November of 2021. And we have some big announcements planned for the second half of 2022, is the new Contact Center related capabilities inside of Dynamics Customer Service. We have Omnichannel, we announced integrated voice, the Nuance acquisition closed, and the Nuance contact center AI team joined my group to align with customer service and contact center. So there's a lot of really exciting innovation happening there. And I'm really excited about the potential to make it super easy to get a comprehensive customer engagement story, without having to wire up eight different pieces of technology and do a ton of different complex integrations. So that's a place where there's a lot of innovation, there's new capabilities, Omnichannel, Power Virtual Agent, even the same type of conversation intelligence applied to support cases, Nuance for their Gatekeeper, which is identity and authentication verification based on voice and biometrics.
Charles:There's a lot of cool stuff in that space. And that's one of the places where so many of the customers we work with are trying to improve the customer experience, and to go reduce costs. So I say that's a place where we've had a lot of exciting announcements over the last six to nine months, and we have a whole bunch more planned for the next six to nine months. So I say, stay tuned. And I won't say more than that to avoid getting in trouble by leaking information. But I just say, that's a place to really pay close attention.
Steve:Who knew call centers could be cool?
Charles:Yeah, exactly. Who would have thought that I'd be talking about contact centers, and how it's the next generation or next frontier of AI applications in 2022.
Steve:Oh, well. Well I do have to thank you guys for the low-code advances you've continued to make in that platform. It actually allowed us to launch a, I think we're the first ones to try this, a new Service as a Subscription. Which includes awesome includes deployment, customization, training, everything except development code, which as you know today in so many of these projects, there's so little, if any of that.
Charles:Yeah.
Steve:Just a few years ago, if you tried to offer something like this, it really would be little more than a support agreement. But now, we're deploying, we're building, we're customizing, we're building entire things for customers all on a monthly subscription. It's an interesting concept, and hopefully I don't go broke, but...
Charles:But you know what, it's fascinating. I literally was talking about this with the Power Platform team this morning. About a future where we'll have more partners who are able to sell a comprehensive service agreement, which includes the cloud hosting licenses, but also some incremental custom development and also ongoing maintenance and support. And it'll be almost this whole new industry, which will push a lot of innovation to the edges of the ecosystem, right?
Steve:Yep.
Charles:Not built by Microsoft, built by partners who really understand particular regions, particular industries, or particular segments. Like y'all are targeting a space where we're not trying to go take Dynamics, CRM, and go bring it down there. You can go build a world-class experience on top of our platform and provide a very much all-in-one, which exactly serves the needs of that audience and that market. And we can stay focused on building the super horizontal platform, which has great performance, great usability, incredible power, those types of things.
Steve:Yeah, it sounds great. I'm glad that we had the same idea you guys did. I'll let you know, in a few months, if it was a smart one. Time will tell.
Charles:Yes. Yeah.
Steve:So, how are the rest of the team doing? It seems like some folks have moved around a little bit in the org, who's moved where?
Charles:Yeah. So one of the big things we've been really focused on the engineering side, for the engineering organization, is bringing together strength from a product perspective that target the same type of user. And for example, we have a new customer experience platform team underneath Lori Lamkin, who leads all of our Dynamic Sales apps. So the Core Sales and Viva Sales, as well as commerce, as well as marketing, as well as customer insights. And it's very much focused on revenue generation, customer journeys, customer experiences. And what's great is by bringing those assets together, we have a great answer for B2B customers, as well as B2C. Like if you want to have self service, no touch eCommerce experience with lightweight telesales, you can do that all with those sets of applications. If you want to do a high relationship, high touch B2B sales process, you can do all of that. You're not going to use commerce, but you're probably going to use customer insights and sales, and maybe a little bit of account-based marketing.
So we brought together these things, which are solving similar problems under a single leader. And that way the engineering teams can go back and forth between these different places to finish out full end-to-end customer journeys. And so that's a big area that we've spent a lot of time on, and that's a place where it's really the biggest and fastest growing category for us in the Dynamics 365 application portfolio. So that's one interesting example. Jeff Comstock, folks may know him. He's been around Dynamics 365 for a while. He continues customer service, he leads omnichannel, he's done some of this great expansion around the contact center for us. Ray Smith leads our supply chain team. So that includes things like more supply chain.
Steve:So Ray moved?
Charles:Yeah, yeah, yeah. He by way of acquisition to SAP then moved. He worked in Dynamic Sales for a bit, where people may have known him. And now the supply chain, and really helping us be this new data driven, AI powered, supply chain story for core supply chain execution. Then we also had some exciting announcements around process advisor and the minor acquisition to help turbocharge that. Or Georg Glantschnig who leads our finance room of the house. And basically we call the room of the house, is the collection of products which focus on serving the CFO and the finance department. And that includes the Suplari acquisition, which we had done a couple years ago, as well as the Core Dynamics, 365 finance, HR, and project operations products.
Charles:So you can see how we started to build these critical paths around particular departments and particular lines of businesses with our products. And in addition to that, we also of course have Power Platform to support all of it. So it's amazing to see these things come together and converge. And we've been on this incredible run of innovation around Dynamics. I was counting it earlier this year, 29 different products in Dynamics, and really coalesced around these specific areas where we have a lot of energy, and also very well understood. I'd say synergies between the products that we have. So I'd say exciting times. Very exciting times.
Steve:Customers are starting to understand it better also. Business Applications was the same thing for a long time. Then it spent the last five years reinventing itself every month, and new things exploding out of Advanta. And I think a lot of customers were having trouble just keeping up with... It's like little whackamole for them. And it takes a little time for customers to absorb what's happening, and what it's for, or what it does, and then to adopt it. And we're seeing that now. We used to have to go out and promote Power Apps to people who didn't understand what this was, or why it was. And now it's the opposite. They always come to us, looking for Power Apps, looking at those sorts of things. So that understanding seems to have finally permeated down to the customer level. But boy, it took a while.
Charles:Yeah. It warms my heart. And I would say one of my favorite books is by Jim Collins, 'Good to great.' I always recommend it to folks on my team to read it. And he talks about this idea of the flywheel. It takes time to get a flywheel spinning, for the first period of time it looks like it's barely moving, but then eventually it's going super fast and it's just a blur. And you need to be consistent, and convicted, and believe in the strategy and the approach. And what's amazing about BizApps is for the last four years, we've been on the same mission, the same vision, the same ambition. And we just spend all the folks in advance at turning that flywheel, turning that flywheel. And it's started to reach that blur phase where it's spinning so fast, you can't even see it.
Charles:And this, this all started years and years ago with a ton of work, but we're really at that magical moment where customers know what Power Platform is. Customers know that Microsoft gets customer experience and customer engagement. They know that Microsoft can help them optimize their supply chain. And what the good news is once that thing is going, it really builds upon itself, and I think it'll only continue that momentum further. And my favorite story is, I used to always do these executive briefings at Microsoft where we have executives come in from our customers to Redmond and we have a briefing center. It's very nice. And I would always say, let me talk about Power Apps and low-code.
Charles:And everybody gives me a blank stare like, "What the heck is Power Apps? What the heck is low-code?" I go in those meetings now, and people know what Power Apps is, and they know the low-code strategy. And the only question is, "how?". Not, "should I?" Or "if?" "How do I do it with you, Microsoft?" And so different from three years ago. So anyway, so you're exactly right. A long winded answer, but I'd say it's exciting to see all of these things come together, and the benefits of just consistently repeating a message that resonates with customers.
Steve:I would say at least three quarters of my customer calls today, they're bringing up right out of the gate, "We don't want any development. We want to do everything low-code, no code." So this is coming from the customer side where we used to have to explain to them what low-code, no code meant. Now they're coming demanding, "I only want low-code, no code." I think that they've come to this realization that, while low-code, no code might not be easy enough for your mom to do, it doesn't require a developer, and code does require developer. And once you've got this little blob of code in your environment, it's a black box for you. And so they don't want any of these black boxes. They want everything to be accessible.
Steve:Use your knowledge to build us something complex out of low-code, but then I can still go back in there later and manipulate it, adjust it myself, or our team. So they have absolutely bought into that. And I know we originally, a lot of us partners were concerned early on that this was going to reduce the workload for partners, while our workload is more than it has ever been. Although the developers on the bench don't stay as busy as they used to. We've completely pivoted the team from developer heavy to now, we haven't even got a good title for them. A citizen developer doesn't sound right. We tell customers that, but citizen developers is what we've got so...
Charles:This guy we found on the street, or gal found on the street, we just asked them to start building out. But no, it makes sense. There is almost this new role which is, it's not just pure coding expertise, it's technical development concept expertise. But even more importantly is business process and solution expertise. And that fusion of those two skill sets, that's the magic. That's what makes it special, because you understand it.
Steve:Yeah. The challenge that we have with this brand new model that we just launched, because, first of all, being the first one out there is not always good because people have no idea what you're talking about. They're trying to compare it to other things. But we've got this little caveat that it's all you can eat, everything, except development code. And trying to define what that is hasn't been easy, and you get these customers coming in, "Oh, we're going to need a lot of customization. So this isn't going to work for us." And so you may need a lot of customizations, but you don't need any "development code".
Charles:Yeah.
Steve:And getting them to grasp that development code and customization are not synonymous, not even close.
Charles:Exactly.
Steve:Development code is a very small component today of customization. And once I think that they understand that, then we'll probably see more partners coming into a model like this. Because it makes a lot of sense for customers, makes a lot of sense for partners.
Charles:Yeah. And if you go look at building solutions that last a decade, this is to your point, code is this little black box opaque thing, which is hard to maintain over time. If it's no code, low-code, it's easy to open it up and reconfigure as business requirements change. And it's how you build solutions that last. And I think we're getting to the phase with business software where customers are expecting to make long term technology bets. You're not going to replace your CRM every five years from now on. It's like building manufacturing plants and warehouses. These are big investments that you need to be able to amortize over a long time, to justify. And so I think to your point, no code doesn't mean no flexibility, no customization, also doesn't mean no agility. It just means you're doing it in a different way. Couldn't say it better myself.
Steve:All right. Cool. Hey, listen, I'm going to let you go. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day here when I caught you, to chat with me about this stuff, always fun talking to you Charles. I'm going to call you in four months and ask you about Viva Sales for the platform.
Charles:Sounds good. Sounds good.
Steve:I've got you on record there.
Charles:So really appreciate you taking the time, giving me a ring, Steve. Hope you have a great rest of the summer.
Steve:All right, man. Have a good one.
Charles:Yep. You too.

Let’s Talk About Funnels

In my 20-plus years in this CRM business, I have seen my share of "Funnels". Lead Funnels, Sales Funnels, Delivery Funnels, every kind of business-related funnel you can think of, I have probably seen it. From what I have witnessed, most businesses have no idea how to use them effectively. So, let's talk about Funnels. The Numbers Game One of the most significant areas I see where customers are consistently missing the mark is in their Sales Funnels. While at the same time tripling their investment in Lead Funnels. The logic seems to go like this; if we currently convert 5% of our Leads into Sales, we just need 10X more Leads. As if somehow, by dramatically increasing the size of a pile of crap, the smell will improve. But, logical as their argument may be, the math does not hold up in execution. If your sales process is working as hard as possible to convert 5% of your Leads, multiplying what gets thrown into that process by ten will not result in a 10X sales increase; more likely, your conversion rate will plummet. And, by the way, multiplying your leads by ten is not cheap or easy to do either. Fixing the Right Problem Don't get me wrong; Leads are vitally important to any business. But creating a waterfall that you are only capturing a bucket from is more than a waste of money and energy; it could actually be hurting you. If 95% of your Leads are not buying, then something is broken, and shoving more people down a broken path is like shooting a bullet into the head of each of those missed opportunities because they are now dead forever. Today you seldom get a second chance. What is a Healthy Conversion Rate? That depends on many factors, varies widely by industry, and actually starts with your Lead Funnel. Wide funnels will capture a large number of non-prospects. Why do they click or call when they are not valid candidates? Who knows, boredom, bots, etc.? Either way, they are a waste of your resources. This is a common technique employed by many marketing/SEO agencies, creating a wide funnel so they can point to how many leads they generated to justify the continuation of their services. But the number is not important if you only convert a small percentage of them. There are three possible reasons that you are not converting more. Either a) your value proposition is crap, b) your leads are the wrong people, c) your sales funnel sucks, or a combination of these. Your Value Proposition Your perception of your Value Proposition is irrelevant, it is something seen through the eyes of your Prospects, and even highly qualified Prospects will each view it differently. How hard is it to sell your product or services to a qualified lead? If it is too hard, there is something wrong with your value proposition. If it is too easy... there is also something wrong with your value proposition. I am not a buyer of whatever you sell, so having the right value proposition is on you to figure out. Your Leads are the Wrong People Congratulations, if how much money you throw away was the measure... you're winning! Unfortunately, no amount of unqualified Leads will fix a Conversion problem; instead, it compounds it. This leads us to the real issue. Your Sales Funnel Sucks The good news is that you are not alone; the bad news is that you are failing to convert 95% of your leads. Effective Sales Funnels are elusive things. This is probably why so much money is shoveled into increasingly wider lead funnels in an attempt to overcome the real problem, but it just masks it at best. Too many people think that their Lead Funnel IS their Sales Funnel, which means they are missing a Funnel. In most businesses, Marketing, whose job is to create leads, and Sales, whose job is to close them, are related but completely different things. Sure, one thing "should" feed into the other, but the skill to get someone to click on a Google ad, for example, is a different skill than getting that someone to buy. But they are directly related in that the person creating the leads can make the conversion of that lead easier or harder depending on their skill. For most B2B and many B2C organizations, a seller will take over at some point, and a "Sales Funnel" will ensue even if it does not actually exist. Suppose you don't have an official Sales Funnel that has been thoughtfully developed. In that case, you actually have a unique unofficial funnel for each salesperson based on their personal knowledge, skill, and history. This is also why you see such a wide disparity of close ratios across your sales team. Building a Sales Funnel First, do you need a CRM to have a Sales Funnel? A Sales Funnel, like a Lead Funnel, will need some steps. Too many people try and skip having any steps other than "get the prospect on the phone a close them!". But the 1960s are ancient history, and selling today requires more sophistication and finesse. Just getting that prospect on the phone is no easy task now. A logical, systematic process will generate much higher success, and modern CRM solutions are purpose-built for this. If you feel like CRM solutions are too expensive or complicated, you can check out RapidStart CRM to build your Sales Funnel. It is possible to build a Sales Funnel by mirroring the steps and process of your star sellers unless all you have are mediocre sellers. Either way, a good Sales Funnel should start before the Lead Funnel ends. To be proactive, you have to know what is coming, what context they are coming in from, and what they have already been informed of before their arrival in your Sales Funnel. CRM solutions can also be utilized to build and track Lead Funnels, making this visibility much easier. Reactive Sales Funnels always have lower success. A good Sales Funnel can make both your stars and your mediocre sellers better. Automation You may have heard the terms "Sales Enablement" or "Sales Automation"; they are popping up a lot lately. A Sales Funnel is also at the center of these, and varying "Automation" is layered over the Funnel. Applying "Automation" to steps where it makes sense throughout your Sales process can accomplish many things. Among these is a consistency of process. Once you have a working Funnel that generates successful outcomes, you will want to replicate that motion consistently, and nothing is more consistent than automation. Automation is also "instant", so your process commences immediately when triggered, which is something many customers seem to like. Automation can also multiply the capacity of an existing team, meaning you may not need to hire, and you may be able to shed some dead weight. You have to be certain that your Sales Funnel works before you automate it, or you could automate yourself right out of business. Summary Funnels are not generic, although my advice here is. Effective Funnels will be unique to every business, so, unfortunately, I can't provide a step-by-step guide in a blog post that would do much good for you. If I tried, it would not be the proper Funnel for you and could cause more harm than good. But, a firm that builds Sales Funnels all the time, like my company, Forceworks, can help you if you need it.  

It’s Time for a New Services Model for Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform

About seven years ago we pioneered the "Support by Blocks" model, and it has served our Forceworks clients and us well. But thanks to Microsoft, it is time for a whole new model for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Support and Services. Let's unpack this one. The Challenge Let's be honest, no business application you can buy will serve your needs as delivered. Any of them will require some modifications to fit your goals. Fortunately, you have many Microsoft Business Applications partners to assist you with this, including my company Forceworks. This is not new; customizing business applications has been around as long as business applications have been around. For a small organization, you may only have to invest a few bucks to get things where you want; enterprise customers often invest six or seven figures to get things right. It is not a small industry that I am in. It is precisely this high cost that has led Microsoft to invest so much into low-no-code technologies. How many more customers could Microsoft have if this "startup cost" was significantly reduced? More on that in a minute. Models There are quite a few engagement models available from different partners. The old "Fixed-Price based on your Requirements" has fallen out of favor, and for good reasons. Scope creep is a common one, but customers, thinking that competitive bidding got them the best price were often surprised at how much the bids came in at—typically ranging from 25-50% higher than what Time and Materials may have cost. Partner risk padding has probably run off many customers, But as I said, few partners even offer this model today. The most prevalent model is the Time and Materials model, which may be based on an estimate. But Scope Creep rears its head just as often there, the difference being that the customer assumes the risk. Still, this usually works out cheaper than what a "Risk-Adjusted" Fixed Price would have been. Blocks Several years ago, we pioneered a variation on the Time and Materials model called "Support by Blocks". In that model, the customer pre-purchased blocks of time, like 80 hours, for example, for a single blended rate that was discounted for their pre-payment. These hours would be consumed by anyone on our team, developers, analysts, consultants, etc., to meet customer requests until the block was depleted. It was a better model for both the customer and us than traditional Time and Materials and has served us well for many years. The downside was that some customers became too focused on the hours, often hoarding them to stave off having to buy more. This also meant that they would never reach the full potential of what these solutions could achieve for them. It was understandable but frustrating for me to know what "could be". It often triggered their "we'll take it from here" reflex when a block was depleted. This always meant the end of the line for any hope of exploiting the full potential for their business. They were obliviously missing out on dollars to save pennies. Is it Time? I have had this idea in my head for many years about an "All-You-Can-Eat" subscription model to eliminate scope and hours from the equation. But to not go broke, you would have to either charge an astronomical amount or exclude the development work. And each time I had looked in the past, there was still way too much development work, relegating any Subscription to just Support. But in the meantime, Microsoft has continued to advance the low-no-code platform, and I was noticing the utilization of our code-writing developers was falling, and developers are some of the highest paid people in a partner organization. To confirm my thinking, we analyzed our customers over the last 18 months, and sure enough, the level of actual code development had continued to drop. In fact, in the previous 12 months, less than five percent of our customers needed any actual code development at all. Bingo! "The Works from Forceworks" I could not wait to take this new information and finally build the model I had been thinking about for years... so I did. "The Works" is that all-inclusive model with unlimited everything except code. One challenge is making sure a prospective customer understands what "Code" means. They seem to feel that anything they could not figure out themselves must be "Code" and fear that anytime they open their mouth, the "Code Alarm" will go off. But our analysis says that is not the case. And frankly, the way you make money on a "Service as a Subscription" is over time, so renewals are far more important than some quick buck made from the code alarm. If that "Code Alarm" goes off too often, or possibly even once, the renewal is at risk. Again, this model would not have been viable even two years ago, so I have to give Microsoft a big hug. The Big Gulp A model like this is not without its risks for us. For one thing, our primary competition was not other partners but rather customers thinking about hiring someone internally. While these people are not easy to find, the thought that they could be found limits what a customer would pay, and it would have to be less than an internal salary. We went with an extensive list of unlimited services, starting from and including deployment(s). There were some heated conversations internally about what could be realistically offered on an unlimited basis for a fixed monthly cost. Still, I pushed for the max, and I happen to own the company. The service does have a one-year term to prevent someone from maxing out capacity in the first month and then canceling. Resellers To work financially, we need scale in both customers and people for a model like this. We had dabbled with some resellers with our "Support by Blocks" model, but I was not happy with the results, both for us and the end customers. Adding a third party in the middle created conflicts. But this new model is perfect for resellers, who are all looking for a recurring revenue component that they can bolt onto their existing billing arrangements with their customers. And since it is "scopeless" and "unlimited", there really is no reason for conflicts. Summary It is early days, but we have already transitioned most of our current customers to this new model and have started onboarding new ones. So, the customer verdict seems to be in on the value proposition. I expect to be underwater for a while financially as we scale up, but I was prepared for that. I am "Betting the Farm" as they say. We are firmly planted in the battle for the limited talent, but even those folks seem to like this model, so I am not too worried about that. In fact, I have another idea for that, but I will let you in on that a little later :) Those of you who know me know that I am not afraid to try new business models, and so far, each one has been better than the last, and I feel stronger about this one than any other. Wish me luck!  

Are you over-paying for Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 business applications are fantastic products. Unrivaled power and features and priced accordingly. Are they over-priced? No! Are you over-paying? Maybe. So, let's unpack this one. My Cable Bill Several years ago, I moved into a new home, and shortly afterwards the local cable company salesperson was on the phone. I was easily talked into the "Gold" package because it "included everything" and I suffer from FOMO. After a few months I realized that I only watched about 10 channels out of the 500+ that I was paying for.  Maybe there are other people who watch all 500? Anyway, I was able to slash my cost by about 80% and not miss a thing. But I digress... What can you do Dynamics 365? Out-of-the-box, Dynamics 365 apps bring a ton of features and capabilities. The Enterprise Sales app for example, at $95/pupm, allows you to create and manage Leads, Contacts, Accounts and Opportunities, but it doesn't stop there. Since it is built on Dataverse, it also integrates with Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Office and the entire Power Platform. You can create Product catalogs and multiple pricelists, along with quotes, orders and invoices. It also includes A.I. capabilities to help you predict sales risks and next best actions to take. For your sales team you can enable guided selling to quicky onboard new sellers and implement best sales practices across your team. With your Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise license, you can set up and experience Sales Premium features such as Sales accelerator, conversation intelligence, and predictive scoring. There are many more features to explore also. And you can add Dynamics 365 Enterprise Service to this for an additional $20/pupm. But wait a minute... will you use all of these capabilities, or even many of them? If not, maybe Dynamics 365 Sales Professional is a better option. Professional Microsoft also offers Dynamics 365 "Professional" for Sales or Service at $65/pupm. Or you can get both Sales and Service for an additional $20/pupm (total of $85/pupm).  In this "scaled down" version, they have changed a few things. For Sales Professional for example, the following are not included: Competitor tracking, Customization or extending out-of-the-box reports, charts and dashboards, Knowledge base, Embedded AI, Forecasting, Sales Goals, Product families/hierarchies, Product relationships, Business card scanning, Sales Literature, Territories, Sales Teams, Email Engagement, Predictive Forecasting and Relationship analytics. There are also some limitations in place including: a maximum of 15 custom tables, maximum of 5 Business Processes, maximum of 5 custom reports or charts or dashboards, maximum of 2 custom forms or views. Similar limitations apply to Service. But wait a minute... does this still include things you may not use? Are the customization limitations too great for you? Customization Even though Microsoft Dynamics 365, particularly the Enterprise apps, include a boatload of features and capabilities, we still find ourselves working with customers to configure and extend the apps. Adding custom tables and fields, adding new relationships, building new forms and views as well as workflows. We often end up modifying much of what is provided out-of-the-box. All of this in effort to make Dynamics 365 "fit" an individual business' needs. Most of the time these customizations become the priority elements, and much of what was provided out-of-the-box is never used. Every Customer is Different For some customers many of the provided features and capabilities will be utilized. For others, they may just use the basics. For others still, their customization needs are so great that Dynamics 365 really ends up serving as more of a platform to build on.  If you are in the first group, then you are probably not over-paying as you will get the benefit of the features that the price incudes. But if you are in either of the other two groups, you are absolutely over-paying! RapidStartCRM Okay, here's my pitch. Some readers complain when I promote my business, but I gotta eat too. We created RapidStartCRM to address the very issues I described above. RapidStartCRM is a basic Sales and Service app built on the same platform as Dynamics 365. What does that mean? Well, first it means that many of the things that are available for Dynamics 365 are also available for RapidStartCRM, like integration with Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Office and the entire Power Platform. While the enterprise apps obviously come with many more features, even though they look similar side-by-side, RapidStartCRM will manage your basic Sales and Service needs, which even at the lower Dynamics 365 "Professional" level would cost you $85/pupm.  If you foresee a lot of customizations in your future, RapidStartCRM shines even brighter. Since RapidStartCRM is built on the same Dataverse platform as Dynamics 365 the customization capabilities are the same. RapidStartCRM also has over 70,000 users, about half of which came from either Dynamics 365 or Salesforce.com! Oh, I almost forgot to mention, RapidStartCRM itself is free and runs on a Microsoft Power Apps license will cost you $5/pupm. Why Stop There? Yes, we are exploiting the fact that Dynamics 365 is very expensive and too complex for many users. And yes, we built a low-cost alternative on the same platform right next to Dynamics 365. But then Microsoft gave us a clear path to continue our exploitation with their Dynamics 365 Field Service application at $95/pupm and their Dynamics 365 Project Operations app at $120/pupm. The exact same issues described above apply to both of these apps as well. So, we thank Microsoft for the inspiration and went ahead and built our RapidStartCRM Field Service addon and RapidStartCRM Project Management addon, both priced at $10/pupm. Why so Cheap? Microsoft has basically taken over the business world with their Microsoft 365 products (formerly called Office 365). They offer a very robust set of features for your productivity needs starting at $5/pupm. As a result, many SMB customers and enterprise departments have gravitated to them. When it comes to adding business applications however, too many of these same customers choke when they see the costs. The expected result is that they seek business solutions elsewhere, from other vendors who, while they don't integrate or share the security model of Microsoft 365, they do meet the price criteria! We intentionally priced our top-rated apps, which run completely within your Microsoft cloud environment, to make it easy for you to decide to maximize your Microsoft 365 investment and security. Also, full truth be told, we know that many of you will reach out to us to assist with your support, integration and customization work. If you want to learn more about RapidStartCRM, go here, or hit me up!

The Myth of Single Version of the Truth

I've heard this term bandied about for many years now, "Single Version of the Truth". As Jack Nicholson once said, "You can't handle the Truth!" I would paraphrase that as, "You can't afford a Single version of the Truth, and you wouldn't want it anyway!". So, let's see how many of you I can get to agree on this one :). What is Implied? From a business standpoint, "Single Version of the Truth" or SVT, is often pimped as this utopian idea that all of your data, about everything to do with your customers and your business is in one place. providing the coveted 360-degree customer view. First, no such Utopian application can be subscribed to from anyone on this planet today. However, you can subscribe to several applications and potentially spend an enormous sum of money and time to wire them all together, giving the illusion of a SVT. While some of you might be sad to hear that SVT is not "push-button", I will try to cheer you up by saying you would not want it anyway. Silos are Bad! Yes, if you read back on my blog, you will see me also preaching that data silos are bad. In fact, I used the same post image for this post. But that was then, and this is now. Back in the days before the Power Platform, when all we had was Dynamics 365, we also sang Microsoft's tune of the time that "You want all of your data in one place", meaning in a Dynamics 365 database. This was a strong argument for a customer who was considering multiple point solutions made by vendors other than Microsoft. And we had a great deal of success consolidating those multiple point solutions under a single Dynamics 365 umbrella. But to call that a SVT was a stretch. Maybe "Fewer Versions of the Truth" with a 245-degree view of the customer was a more realistic goal, as that was typically the outcome. Dynamics Silos Even under the Dynamics 365 brand there were, and still are, silos. Dynamics 365 Sales runs on top of Dataverse, while Dynamics 365 Business Central or Dynamics 365 Finance run on their own databases. Dual-write is an ongoing effort to create the SVT illusion. Power Platform The Power Platform arrived and blew up the whole concept of SVT. Even Microsoft started singing a different tune, promoting their Center of Excellence "COE", so you could more easily manage the possibly thousands of environments (aka Data Silos) that users could now create in your enterprise tenant. So, is SVT dead? The problem was never with "Point Solutions" and their siloed data, it was with "Point Solutions" and silos from other vendors. With the Power Platform, Microsoft created a rocket engine to crank out "Point Solutions"... but these would be "inside the wall". Silos are Good! So now let me be my own devil's advocate. I will take our own organization, Forceworks for example. The Sales side of our business watches over AppSource prospects and website prospects etc. You can probably imagine that with over 50K users of our RapidStartCRM app, that means there were way more prospects than that, who did not move forward. So, we have thousands of prospects and most of these will never amount to anything, of course. Not unlike any other business where the number of prospects is typically exponentially higher than the number of actual customers. The Services side of our business works with our actual customers, not every RapidStartCRM user becomes a customer. Our customers are organizations who have engaged us to support or customize not only RapidStartCRM, but also Dynamics 365 or anything Power Platform related. So, our Service database is a fraction of the size of our Sales database. In our case, Sales runs on a customized version of RapidStartCRM in one environment, and Service runs on another customized version of RapidStartCRM in another environment. The rationale? Why should the service team have to navigate around thousands of irrelevant records?  If they are not customers, they don't need to be in the Service silo. But what about Synchronization! Much of "Synchronization" is unnecessary hype. Yet many organizations pay us tons of money to try to achieve it. Flow can handle 90% of what is actually useful. For example, when a prospect in our Sales solution becomes a customer, a simple flow creates the record in the Service solution. If a service customer asks about a new app or service, a simple flow in the service app updates the record in the Sales solution. Unintended Consequences If you have not yet built a flow that acted beyond the scope of what you intended... you have not bult enough flows. Both of our environments have multiple flows, many quite complex, automating a bunch of things. Were all of these in a single environment, the chances of a Service flow accidently scooping in some Sales records for example is much higher. So, flow development becomes much more complex. But what about my 360-degree view of the Customer? Let's face it, you are not going to get around the fact that you will have multiple sources of data. At least with Microsoft, it is possible to have all of those data sources under one roof, which I do not believe can be provided by any other company today. If you really want that 360-degree view, yet another application can give you that, Power BI (Microsoft's Business Intelligence app). Power BI can not only connect, munge together and regurgitate beautiful charts and graphs using data from all of your Microsoft sources, it can bring in most of your external data sources as well. I would still argue that the "360-Degree view" is over-rated, the only positions that might actually need that are very high senior management, and we all know they don't look at data anyway... unless it supports a personal agenda. So that's my take on this. If you are looking to shovel money to someone in pursuit of this dream, hit me up. Or if you just want business applications that "work" for your business, you can also hit me up. Feel free to leave any comment you like, as long as it supports my personal agenda, I am a CEO after all :)