This week’s sweat to pass the additional accreditation needed to maintain our Gold Partner status has led me back on my favourite topic, how to compare Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions. We have our nice, objective white paper Which Microsoft Dynamics ERP Solution is for me? But here are some more random thoughts that lead to the conclusions that Microsoft is dumbing down all but Dynamics AX and Dynamics NAV and that given the choice, Microsoft would rather customers opted for the most expensive.
Last year when we re-enrolled our Gold partnership, we didn’t need to have the pre-sales or sales accreditations, all the pressure was on the delivery team. This year it is now mandatory to have proven pre-sales and sales capability. I’ve been successfully selling Dynamics NAV for nearly 14 years but just as learning to pass your driving test has only a vague relationship to being a good driver, so the sales exams are about pleasing the examiner, in this case, it means knowing what answer Microsoft would like you to give.
One of the questions on the Sales Accreditation goes something like this: “You are approached by a prospect in the construction industry asking if they should look at NAV. You have two vertical solutions based on NAV that would address the operational needs. The prospect has 1,250 users, what should you advise?” The Microsoft answer is, “You should explain Microsoft’s strategy and advise them that AX is the better solution for them.” I don’t necessarily disagree with this as there are some great vertical solutions for construction built on AX but I don’t think that this is why the Microsoft answer is AX. Two reasons why NAV might be suitable in this case: firstly the vertical fit. In every other question that relates to how to increase sales, improve win ratios, grow market share etc, the Microsoft answer is always “specialise in a vertical”. So on the face of it this construction prospect should have good reason to engage with the partner. We have one other clue to go on, size of opportunity. At 1,250 users this would be a substantial installation and in the past you would have to do some pretty fancy stuff with infrastructure to get good performance from NAV at those numbers (assuming they’re all heavy processors of the system not just looking up the occasional phone number!). However, since NAV 2009 and the introduction of three-tier architecture, there is no technical reason why NAV could not easily support these numbers and more.
Back to our example, they had a vertical solution that fit (the inference is that the prospect must have heard of the partner’s experience in their industry as this was an in-bound query) but with a large number of users. The large number of users hints to this being a sizeable organisation, one that could afford to implement AX, would have the internal team capable of managing an AX project and is probably looking at other big, complex, expensive systems. (There is a point where prospects like to spend more; to steal another brand’s line, it’s as if it becomes “reassuringly expensive”!)
So here is my conclusion. AX licences are the most expensive of all Microsoft ERP = Microsoft make more margin from selling AX = Microsoft would always rather sell AX except where to suggest so would risk losing the deal due to cost = If you look like you can afford AX, Microsoft will tell you that’s what you should invest in regardless of whether it is the right solution for your business. This isn’t just Microsoft’s fault, as mentioned before; at a certain size of company too often boards decide that they must have a big name system. (I lost to Oracle years ago, long before Microsoft acquired Navision ; the reason was that the new FD was preparing the company for floatation and wanted a system that sounded impressive.)
So what would Microsoft like you to buy if you don’t have the budget for AX? Again, Microsoft will claim to be agnostic; they’ll advise you to look for someone who specialises in your industry, they’ll point you to Pinpoint but they will leave you to decide because they are committed to treating all products equally, right? Wrong.
If all products are equal why is it significantly easier to gain Microsoft Gold Partner ERP Competency status as a GP reseller than as an AX or NAV reseller? (Also interesting, the accreditation requirements for Gold based on AX and NAV are essentially the same.) NAV and AX partners who aspire to Gold must demonstrate pre-sales and sales capability across at least two individuals; implementation capability across at least three individuals and product capability (functional and technical) proven by at least six individuals fulfilling four exams for NAV and six exams for AX. We also need to participate in the Customer Satisfaction Survey; prove customer retention and have at least five current customer references. Oh and meet revenue targets; curiously identical revenue targets for all products.
To be Gold on GP you need most of the above, but the key difference is the functional and technical exams, up until May this year, only two product functionality exams required (from May the SQL exam becomes mandatory; for AX and NAV this has been mandatory since the new partner accreditations was introduced in 2010).
This of course makes it easier for multi-product partners to appear Gold so the question remains, what are you Gold for? It’s also tempting for me to think we should register for GP to make staying Gold so much easier. Wish I’d thought of that before passing the exams! (Actually scrap that thought, the questions are all biased to NAV and AX knowledge so must be even more difficult for GP partners.)
TVision remains proudly Gold and 100% Microsoft Dynamics NAV; just as complex as AX, reassuringly delivered to budget.
