Intelligent Business Applications to Transform Finance, Operations and Talent
After having been at Microsoft for 13 years and with Dynamics since the Axapta 3.0 days, I recently took on the General Manager of Engineering role for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. One of the most enjoyable parts of my new job is meeting with customers and partners, and these past few weeks have provided ample opportunities to do just that at our Ignite/Envision and Dynamics User Group conferences.
Two weeks ago, I was at Ignite and Envision in Orlando, which was attended by over 30,000 attendees most of them focused around how to either start or continue to push their organizations forward in their digital transformation journeys. At the event, I had the distinct honor to present a general session with Mike Ehrenberg, Microsoft Technical Fellow, for our Ignite audience on the topic of how organizations can empower themselves to digitally transform their operations faster — from finance and HR to retail, manufacturing, and supply chain to their sales and service operations. We also had Eric Reading (EVP, Chemonics), Bill Smith (SVP& CIO, JMT) and Andre Vargas (VP of Business Technology Solutions, CAA) join us on stage to tell their own digital transformation stories and how they are using Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations to reimagine and accelerate the transformation of their business. At Envision, I hosted a panel session on the same topic to share best practices from customers, business leaders and analysts.
Last week, I was at our UG Summit event in Nashville where we had more than 7,000 attendees across many industries and disciplines. I presented a 90-minute general session with Kees Hertogh (Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Dynamics) that was one-part presentation and demo, and second part of townhall Q/A session where the audience asked questions from a panel of customers and business leaders. Highlight for me was having Jacob Pat (SVP, Canada Goose) and Camilla Torno (Head of Finance and Business Systems, Maersk Container Industries) join this session to both talk about how they are driving digital initiatives aggressively leveraging Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations in their respective businesses.
I returned from these conferences excited and energized by the various conversations I had with the business leaders, technical decision makers, and our product users. Their feedback validates our Microsoft Dynamics 365 vision and strategy of delivering next-generation, intelligent cloud applications that not only aligns with the existing needs and plans our customers have for their digital transformation but also secures their aspirations and opportunities for future growth. To recap, with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Talent, and Retail solutions, we are focused on the following key priorities to enable businesses to re-imagine the next frontier of their digital transformation:
- Continue to deliver innovations across the applications in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Dynamics 365 for Retail and Dynamics 365 for Talent, including those planned for our Fall update later this calendar year.
- Provide deeper in-application insights and analytics with visual drill-down capabilities all the way to source transactions, powered by embedded Microsoft Power BI.
- Infuse intelligence and analytics, within business process context in the application, to drive more value back to their business.
- Continue to offer an array of differentiated deployment choices to our customers from a complete cloud offering, to hybrid solutions and Local Business Data (LBD)/on-premises options.
- Deliver standalone, easy to adopt, high value, modular intelligent business applications – starting with our Attract and Onboard applications in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Talent that will be available later this calendar year as standalone applications.
- Enable our customers to start their digital transformation journey from wherever it makes sense for them, as opposed to only providing a full rip and replace option of core functions.
- Continue to innovate and invest in the privacy and security of our solutions, and enabling our customers to meet various compliance and legal/statutory needs (like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and in country locations where available).
Many thanks to the customers, partners, and analysts who joined us on stage at Ignite, Envision, and AXUG Summit to help deliver great content and experience. Access the on-demand Ignite sessions recordings for our Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Dynamics 365 for Talent, and Dynamics 365 for Retail offerings.
