A Review of 2019

DC Staff

Due to the growth in the business, we have taken on a lot of new staff! To make sure that we not only continue to give a great service, but increase the quality of the work that we do, we have new talent across every area of the business, including support, admin, consultancy and development.

With the growth of the team, making sure that we have the same core values in the business is of the utmost importance. From staff training to team socials, we are investing heavily in our people so that they can deliver the quality that our staff have come to expect. We are also implementing new schemes to help our staff grow, with our mentoring scheme ramping up in the new year.

Microsoft Dynamics^® 365 Business Central

Business Central has brought a big change to the Dynamics world, with new methodologies in play over development, the demise of the windows client and a the rise of the web client. 2019 has seen a lot of upgrades from Dynamics NAV to Dynamics 365 Business Central, and although the changes can seem like an annoyance, it is clear that Microsoft are pushing things in the right direction. Now moving to a twice a year release, Wave 1 in April and Wave 2 in October saw a massive jump forward and is giving us a lot of confidence in the product for the future.

Making Tax Digital

In April, the first phase of Making Tax Digital came into place across the UK. As a solution that is recognised by HMRC, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central was updated to meet the requirements. However, the work often required cumulative updates and a fair bit of setup. Unlike many partners, we offered this service for free to our customers. For those on group VAT, we have been working with a number of our customers on a solution which will soon be delivered.

"I was really dreading the whole Making Tax Digital but Dynamics made the process less onerous and were extremely helpful in assisting me with any queries"

- Financial Director, Allied Tooling

Future Tech has arrived

Those that frequent our website and blogs will have seen a big step change in the discussion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other future technologies. Future tech is already here to use today. Currently, this is largely as parts of the base solutions, such as stock forecasting in Business Central. However, tools such as Power Automate and PowerApps are bringing AI capability to bespoke tools. Although Microsoft is not such a powerful name in the household, with Alexa, Siri and OK Google being everyday tools at home, however Microsoft are certainly leading the way with bringing useable tools to businesses.

Microsoft AI for Business

Accountex

For the second year in a row, Dynamics Consultants have been a large part of representing Microsoft Dynamics and Office 365 at the country’s biggest accountancy exhibition – Accountex. In a world filled with XERO, Sage and Quickbooks, there is a big gap between the basic finance packages and the huge enterprise solutions. With the accessibility of Business Central, there is a very clear path for smaller businesses to move from a basic finance package to a professional business software solution that will grow with them.

Directions EMEA

Directions EMEA is the big partner event for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, formerly NAV. Thousands of Microsoft partners from around the region descend on a conference filled with seminars, lectures and discussion panels, for everything from product updates to discussing the future of the technology. There are also sessions based around the operation of partner, such as sales and marketing sessions, or business management. Our MD, Tom Jenkins was invited to be a part of one of these discussions. He brought expertise on ideas surrounding project success, to help other partners understand many of the aspects that are involved.

Partnership

The core focus of Dynamics Consultants is around the word partnership – we look to build long term relationships with our customers, our suppliers and our staff. We truly value what our customers have to say – we have made it easier than ever for them to leave feedback on every piece of work that we do.

"Tom(Tombo) understood the urgency of the request and helped to have it resolved quickly. He communicated well and followed through until the case was closed."

- Senior Financial Controller, Teleste

Customer Reward Scheme

There are a lot of services that we offer that we see as extremely useful, such as scheduled training, database health checks and user shadowing. However, because they are not necessarily operationally critical, these services that will help you to get the most out of your systems and your people are often too far down the priority list to ever get a budget. With our customer reward scheme, our customers will get rewarded based on the money that they spend with us. These rewards can then be used towards many of these services.

Customer Reward Scheme

Launch of The365Crowd

The Microsoft product space is evolving from lots of siloed products to an integrated eco-system. This means that it is becoming ever more relevant to consider the various products in the marketplace. However, it is a fairly impossible task for partners to provide the same level of expertise in all of the products as they do with their core solutions. This has led to Microsoft pushing partnerships, something that we already preach!

The365Crowd is the coming together of three businesses to provide complimentary services around ERP, CRM and cloud productivity. Having already worked together for years, we have formalised our relationship together, providing a greater synergy and a cohesive offering to our customers.

The365Crowd

Microsoft Gold Partner

We are extremely proud to have become a Microsoft Gold Partner. The Gold standard supports us with a closer partnership with Microsoft. This relationship bolsters their quest for providing the best advice and service, through helping businesses to:

• Ensure that IT is a positive part of the strategy, not just an overhead
• Make the move to modern software solutions an achievable reality
• Make informed financial and operational decisions to increase the bottom line

What is a Partner

Christmas and New Year closure dates

After all of this, we are looking forward to a little bit of a break this Christmas! Although we do have many staff on holiday, we have ensured that we remain open to continue supporting our customers. As such, our week-day closures will only be on National holidays:

• 25^th December
• 26^th December
• 1^st January

Have a fantastic Christmas, we look forward to helping you to have a successful 2020.