The Townsend Report from the InfoStrat Division of Serenic Software

Microsoft offers several premium support options in addition to standard technical support for Dynamics 365 subscribers.  One of the newest is Professional Direct Support .  This plan is available for customers with 20 or more users. This support plan offers faster (one hour) response time and access to not only break/fix resources but help with " light advisory, upgrade and release readiness, case wellness, enhanced service incident handling, and escalation assistance". For more on Dynamics support options, start here . See also Enhanced Support for Dynamics 365

Choosing a business software package such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, SAP or Oracle is a daunting task, and the process can lead you astray in making the best decision for your organization. There is no shortcut to finding the right product.  Choosing the best selling or fastest growing software product does not guarantee you will be successful in your company with that product. Software categories are complex, and many products are geared toward specific industries or to companies of a certain size.  If a small company tried to implement a product such as SAP enterprise resource planning which is successful with large global companies, it could easily find itself overwhelmed and the implementation price could exceed annual company revenue.  On the other hand, a large company with global subsidiaries, complex tax rules, and high number of users and transactions would not likely be successful with QuickBooks. One of the approaches to choosing software is to create a list

One of the key goals for startups is to release their products quickly, which has lead to a minimum viable product (MVP) approach.  Speed to market is so important that it's better to release a product before all the desired features are present so you can capture market share and use customer feedback to help you prioritize the introduction of new features. The challenge of the MVP approach is to determine what "viable" means.  If you launch without sufficient features, your product may fail to attract any customers, or disappoint your first customers. But if you wait, competitors are likely to step in with their own offerings. The MVP concept is not only applicable to startups and commercial companies that are selling products, but also to internal software projects for companies, government agencies, and non-profits.  Too often I have seen scope creep add to the feature list of a software product and delay launch dates for weeks or months. Using MVP principle

Microsoft offers customers a range of support services, from standard support included with software licenses and subscriptions, to Premier support which can included dedicated onsite staff.  Dynamics 365 customers can also purchase something in-between - Enhanced Support for Dynamics 365, geared toward small businesses who do not purchase Premier support.  This support offering provides many support and training benefits as listed below: The price is only $5/user/month which makes it one of Microsoft's most affordable plans.  You can order Enhanced Support for Dynamics 365 on the Office 365 admin portal.  Full instructions on ordering subscriptions are available here .

InfoStrat has launched a new blog devoted to technical answers and tips.  These will be on software topics including custom development, CRM, Dynamics 365, Azure, Adobe, Sitecore, SharePoint and other products.  Stay tuned for frequent additions to the new InfoStrat blog.  I will continue to post my observations and insights on software and related topics on this blog.