Unlock your potential: Mastering Business Central

You're listening to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro, a place to learn about how to grow your business and stay ahead of technological advances before they've become mainstream. This episode is sponsored by ingram Micro's Expantage, the next level way to transform your business's potential and reshape how customers see you through advanced transactional data. Let's get into it. Welcome to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro.

I'm your host, Shelby Skirhawk, and our guest today is Pam Johnson, director of Partner Marketing for Business Applications for Microsoft. Pam, welcome back. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be back.

Yeah. So we're doing these episodes kind of back to back. We just had you on and we were talking about, you know, first the business Central and some of the trends that SMBs are seeing. And so for today's episode where talking about really unlocking that potential for partners and mastering those business central opportunities.

So again, recapping business Central is an EERP solution that can kind of a single pane of glass and it's it's the way to modernize to bring everything of cloud and all of these things within one Central ERP. Is there anything else that I guess you would add to understand what business Central is. I love the fact that you use modernize because that's kind of a word that we use sometimes, like modernize your ERP and make that transition to business central, And I think you got it right.

It's like a comprehensive solution that I don't think everyone understands that combines the ERP. So it connects your finance, your sales, your service, and your operations. And the best part is it integrates with M three sixty five and it's got copilot built into it already. So we are the first d peace solution out there that's already got that call pilot functionality built into it.

Excellent, excellent. Okay, So if we're in the mindset of a partner, I want to start unlocking those opportunities with my existing customer base. So how do I get started with that? How what should I understand?

I guess specifically within business Central, I understand there's cloud ascent data that is correct, Tell me what those things, what that is, and then how that relates to getting started. Yeah, so cloud Ascent data is actually your existing customers. Then that Microsoft takes and applies a set of machine learning modules, and what those modules are providing is propensity for customers that potentially have the likelihood to purchase a solutionary And in this particular situation, we're going to talk about business applications.

It goes across solutions, so you already have this for your Modern work and Azure as well, but in this one we're going to talk about how it looks from a business applications perspective. So this is qualifying the customer. This is looking at instead of you just thinking about your customer base and thinking, well, I need to check in on them. They're probably ready for this, They're probably ready for that.

This is actually a machine learning model that can give you the likelihood of this is a good customer to target, or this isn't right. Yeah. So what it does is it actually looks at some Microsoft Windlass data. It looks at the customer profile, the firmographics, the technology, and what they have installed.

And then what we do is we categorize them into sales stages that we recommend based on what the machine learning kicks back to us for each client. And what we're finding is customers the first stage is what we consider act now, which is more of a sale stage ready, and that's where we would recommend and that the partner any customers should be put in a marketing campaign. All customers should. But in addition to that marketing campaign, this is where we would have if they have a tell a team that can call out or account managers can call out to these clients and start driving the conversation.

Like it looks like you might be interested in business central, here's what business central is, and what we're finding is prospects that are in that act now sales stage, they're doing a conversion three times faster than any other sale stage, and so it's super important to make sure that you're targeting the act now to help qualify that top of funnel for sure, got it? Got it? So what are some of those other stages then? Yeah, great, So the next one of what we can center is evaluate and that's where customers are really ready for marketing, and I would do multi channel marketing.

Some of those who've actually gotten to switch relatively fast too. So depending on the volume of customers you have, you might want to think about adding that to where the account reps or the tele team would actually be calling into those accounts. And then the last two is really the nurture and the educate, and that's really helping customers give visibility, you know, what is the solution, how it can help address the pains that they might be having that they haven't even thought deeply about in upgrading to a different solution.

So the act now they evaluate. That's that's the ones that are that might be right on the verge of ready to discuss, you know, an ERP like this, but it still needs some marketing some of I guess awareness for. Them agree because the customer might not know what business central is. So that's why it might take the phone call less time depending on when that marketing campaign gets out versus the rep picking up the phone.

And so that's why our recommendation is it's not going to probably cost you anymore to throw everyone into that marketing campaign. Got it, Got it? And then the nurture that is it's not the least I guess if you're rating them one, two, three, and four, educate is number one because they're the furthest away from it correct and for being act now, so understanding these that first and second level, they're really just starting their process or for the partner, they're still learning about what the customer needs that right.

Yeah, So I would think about it. If the partner has customers that fit into that category, they're the ones that are showing the most interest and potentially a new solution based on the machine learning that we've done by again looking at the demographics, the installs, the size of the customer. So those are the ones that are going to be more receptive to it. They might not necessarily understand what business central is, but they are evaluating potentially a different ARP solution.

Let me ask you a tough question, Pam, and tell me if you don't really have the answer for this. But especially for very small businesses, I would imagine that all of this customer data, what do you do when that customer data is basically in the CEO's head. They're not sophisticated enough that you know, basically a lot of this isn't isn't documented. How do you balance or I guess counteract something like that.

I guess you're That's the probably the toughest scenario of all. It is hard, and I think the biggest thing is that's when it's super important for the partner to demonstrate the power within the Microsoft solution and how it's going to help the CEO because they don't necessarily have time to be thinking about all the details around that. And knowing that it integrates so well, I think is another critical point that's super relevant. Now you bring up a good point depending on the size of the organization, Like if it's an organization and it's got a couple of employees, business central is too powerful for them.

They're probably just going to be leveraging, you know, a different solution. But organizations that even have ten employees we've seen do business Central. They just don't need a lot of users because depending on what you purchase, you can have one or two individuals that have access to it to run the books and it'll work that way. So I think it's important for the customer to understand what are the pains that they're experiencing, how will the solution fix it?

And then what are my productivity gains going to be? And then the other thing keeping so top of mind is that security. And then from a cost perspective, like if you have servers, you have to think you're going to have to upgrade your servers every so often. So when it's in the cloud, you don't have to upgrade your servers.

And then the other thing I think that's important for the partners to understand is we consider ERPA sticky solution because customers aren't going to buy a new ARP solution every couple of years. Based on our data, we say it's like every seven to ten years. And so what that means is you get the customer on business Central, then they're going to be more inclined potentially to purchase other solutions as well and expand the portfolio for incremental revenue for you got it? Got it?

Okay, So I want to kind of skip ahead to talking about again the opportunity and understanding the value of and it's the full title Microsoft Dynamics through sixty five business Central, but we call it Business Central for sure, correct, Okay, So weighing into what those advantages are, you know, I guess I wonder if we can kind of talk through some of the functionality and elements here, because I if this is a new product area, and as a partner, I'm not that comfortable talking about this this ERP and how it's different and how it integrates copilot.

Why that you know, why this is such a powerful solution. So I wonder if we can kind of maybe talk through some of those customer conversations or scenarios that we've come up, and I guess before we talk about maybe those very specific conversations that partners would be having with their customers, if we're looking at those those four different groups and assembling a marketing campaign, I wonder if just a high level we could talk about the competitive advantages that Microsoft brings.

I mean, what are some of the messaging that would go into a marketing campaign like that. Yeah, so if you want the easy ticket, you can totally leverage what we consider your digital marketing content. So it's called DMC. You can actually access it at aka dot ms slash DMC, so pretty easy to remember.

We already have a pre built campaign out there for Business Central it's six weeks, but if you want to get creative, you have some marketing time and resources. There's kind of three messaging pillars that we really feel is a differentiation for us, and the first one is really adapting faster, the second one is really on working smarter, and the third one is really on perform better. So I know it's six words, they're pretty powerful. If you want to, we can go a little bit deeper into each area and kind of what that means, and some messaging as well as some products stuff that really helped make it pop.

Well. So yeah, okay, so these campaigns, they are six week campaigns, they're already built out. You can customize those as you need for your business and for your industry. But the big messages that they give you mentioned first, adapt faster.

What does that mean? Yeah, So there's probably like six to eight things underneath each one of these. I've kind of picked out three of my favorite that I think really resonate with the customers, And the first one is being ready for growth, Like as you think about customer organizations or even your self partners, like the software that you're using today, is it really ready to support your growth? Can it scale?

And is it in the Microsoft Cloud? So that would be one underneath the adapt Faster. The second one is what about that world class security and protection that we talked about, So we're going to protect your data, plus we're going to maintain the regulatory compliance that's needed with world class identity protection, role based access and encryption. And the third one, my favorite is connecting with existing systems.

Again, this is like taking advantage of the open architect that we have that combines business central or systems that you already use today. So adapting faster, being ready for growth, having the world class security with Microsoft, and I guess the performance of Microsoft Cloud. All of those are some of the messages that go into the adapt faster. I guess chain of or campaign for email, right, yep, pillar, yep, all right.

So that second one you mentioned work smarter, I imagine this involves AI and copilot. Tell me more about that one. Yeah, so redefining how work gets done with copilot, like using that next generation of AI to speed up those repetitive tasks potentially sparks some creativity and really improving business processes. Then the second one is one of my favorites, in addition to the copilot, is boosting productivity within M three sixty five and it does seriously work seamlessly with the M three sixty five applications that you're already used to today, and that's Outlook Excel teams, and it reduces a data entry in switching between applications.

And the third one is collaborating in Microsoft Teams. And this is actually improved collaboration with read only access to business central data with an M three sixty five license at no additional charge. Huge functionality and benefit to the end client. Got it all right?

So then the third pillar, the third campaign, the messaging behind that is perform better. What does that mean? So this is the one that make data driven decisions and this is where we talked in the other episode about removing those data silos, having access to the business intelligence that's going to have real time dashboards, flexible reporting and KPIs for each role. You've also got improved financial performance and this is really about the accelerating the financial clothes, improving the forecasting, managing the cash flows, and then getting timely performance metrics that is really going to enhance the financial performance, which is critical for everybody's bottom line.

And then this one, I think is super cool. It's deliver those extraordinary customer experiperiences. And this is where you're empowering the sales and service teams or tools that are going to efficiently manage inquiries, close more deals, and strengthen those customer relationships. Okay, so this is a pretty well thought out and powerful marketing campaign email campaign that is really already ready to go and ready to personalize.

So again, so that takes care of the marketing the messaging that we're trying to do. But that's digitally. What about the conversations, you know, when you're sitting need to me with that customer. How do you start those conversations and discuss what those recommendations are.

Yeah, it's a great question, and so we can go through like a couple different scenarios, like if you want to ask me a question, I can kind of come up with a scenario that you should be having with your customer at the end of the day. Yeah, because I know from a partner perspective, it can be uncomfortable because this isn't necessarily your area of expertise, This isn't even a product that you potentially have thought about. But we can help guide you with that. So Shelby, I'm happy if you come up with a few questions, like, let's do some role playing and I'll see if I can answer your question.

Right right, Okay, Well, so I'm the partner, I'm talking to my customer. Something that the customer might be concerned about is their financial data. How accurate is all of the reporting in there? And is the.

Reporting all their period that can help inform those top level executive decisions. Yeah, and this is where we feel pretty bullish that if the customer doesn't have trusted information, it's super hard to actually make those good decisions. Yeah, and we believe this is where business Central can improve the decision making because it's going to provide the end to end visibility across the business that includes real time performance metrics with flexible reporting, and those AI powered insights such as cash flow forecasting.

And then if you use Copilot inside a business Central to transform those raw data into insights, it can be prompted by a single sentence, and then Copilot can actually identify trends and anomalies, enabling data driven decisions that can actually propel a customer's business forward. So it'll see anomalies, things that maybe just don't seem quite right, and I'll highlight those correct for you. Okay. Another challenge that I think customers would have would be the well we mentioned it earlier, manual workarounds, the old fashioned spreadsheet or you know, really pen and paper.

What does that partner say to the customer that's probably facing those workarounds? What are some examples. Yeah, and I think if we think about ourselves, I think we can all get stuck where I'm just going to make do with what I have. I don't have time to make, you know, an investment in another technology.

And I think that's where we have to really message and somewhat challenge the customer to ask the question about what if you could automate repetitive tasks or activities like bank reconciliation using the powerful AI or Microsoft Copilot, You're going to actually minimize the tedious task, You're going to improve accuracy, you're going to drive productivity, and I like all those but in my opinion, you're actually going to allow teams to focus on those higher value activities and make more informed decisions.

So okay, So thinking about again, these these are the questions that the partner may be asking the customer correct kind of I don't want to say poking around for what their their problems are, but just highlighting on you know, are you are you having problems with this or are you struggling with that? So I guess another one, what about different systems, having multiple systems that don't talk to each other, and the inefficiency of bouncing around all of these these these different programs, what would the partner maybe ask or say to the customer?

Yeah, and this is where I think we shine because business Center, like we talked earlier, it works seamlessly with the M three sixty five application that you use every day, the customer uses every day teams Outlook, Word and Excel. And what it's going to do is it's going to help the team actually collaborate effectively as well as improving that efficiency because it's going to make the information readily available within the flow of work for them. All right, thinking again about these questions, I imagine the partner would be asking the customer, what about your growth plan?

What do you the next one, two, or you know, three years look like for your technology set up? What are going to be some of those so the challenges that you can see coming down the pike. Yeah, and I think that's good because I don't think we always take that step back and think about how do we want to grow? Where's our business going to go?

And oftentimes I think software that was good enough when a business is small can necessarily support it when a business grows. And so having the right technical infrastructure in place, it's going to be key to be able to scale customers businesses, and I'm pretty proud to say that we have over forty thousand businesses today that are using Microsoft Dynamics through sixty five Business Central. So it's a massive stat that we have countries or countries customers on this globally, all.

Right, So you know there's there's a lot of thought and support for one. Again, I'm impressed with the marketing campaign and how detailed and elaborate that is. So I imagine it's making it a little bit easier for or the partner to think about having those conversations with their customers. But taking a step back in general, when a customer is considering a new ERP solution, whether it's Business Central or any ERP from your experience, so, what are some of the big things that they should be aware of or they should be considering when making that decision.

Yeah, so I narrow this one down to six because there's a lot that goes into the decision making for sure. And the first one I'll talk about is core functionality. And this is where you might even think about just like a finance solution is what they're looking for. And so a few questions there would be does it have the key capabilities that we need or can it easily be customized to support a unique process?

Does it offer the reporting that we need? So when we think core, that's one of the areas platform, which I think is a no brainer for anybody on the phone with the Azure side of the house, because again, it's the performance, it's the security, it's the compliance, it's in the cloud, it can scale like all that's super relevant for individuals AI. I think that's the new buzzword that everyone can get on the train with, like how does it use AI to really improve productivity and efficiency and surface insights and provide guidance to improve the decision making and business performance.

So again, huge benefit within our solution, you've got connectivity, So how does it work with other apps? We talked very extensively in every podcast we've been on about the integration within M three sixty five because I think that is a huge benefit because customers are already using that software, they are familiar with the software. It makes it an easier transition, ease and speed of implementation. And so this is like how quick is it to learn, how is it easy to use?

How long does it deploy The deployment is what Ingrim can help you with, so U as a partner don't have to become the expert. And then pricing is pricing affordable and easy to understand. And I would say our pricing is very competitive in the market there and depending on there are some customer offers out there. If the customer has business premium, as an example, they get a ten percent discount.

And so make sure that when you think about the holistic approach, this is a solution that can bride it to the end customer at a great price. Excellent. Well, we've gone over a lot today and covered a lot. But if we start to wind things down with all that information that we've given Pam, what are some of the I guess the key takeaways, the things that you would hope that listeners if they learned anything from this episode, it would be what, So, there's.

So much I'm like, how do I summarize these? And just a few bullets I know top of mind for me, I would say, you are the strategic advisor to your clients. You need to make sure that you're listening and showing up and be able to provide other solutions to them aka business Central. First, identify the opportunities you know, ask some of the questions that we ask to make sure that you can uncover those opportunities within your own client base.

And then leverage our free tool of aka dot m slash DMC digital marketing content. You can automate a six week campaign, put it in market and go out to your clients and engage with Ingram. Once you identify opportunities, contact the Dynamics three sixty five at Ingram for support. They can help you with the sales and they can do the deployment for you, so you don't have to become the expert.

And the third is think about the increased value providing to the customer and also the increased revenue to your organization. And this is a way I think that you will be able to differentiate your organization because there's a lot of modern workplace partners out there today, but are they adding business Central to their existing customers to really make a difference in the market for themselves as well as their clients. Excellent, well, Pam, I appreciate all of the time insight.

Today we've gone really detailed into the marketing mindsets and how to have those conversations. But I think there's a lot of information that hopefully our listeners have taken notes on and learned. What was the contact like, how would they reach out to find more information if they have questions? Yeah, so at ingram you can go out to Dynamics three sixty five at ingrammicro dot com and there are individuals waiting ready to help you.

Excellent. Well, Pam, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me, Thank. You so much for having me.

I'm excited to see how US partners will help expand your portfolio and help enable your customers with this solution. Definitely well, and thank you listeners for tuning in subscribing to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro. If you haven't subscribed, be sure to do so and don't forget. You can find all of these episodes on the ingram Micro Expantage platform.

Next time, I'm Shelby Skirrehawk. You've been listening to B to B Tech Talk by Ingram Micro. This episode was sponsored by Ingram Micro Exvantage. B to B Tech Talk is a joint production between Sweetfish Media and Ingram Micro.