Directions EMEA 2012 25 – 27 April 2011, Rome

The NAV Partner Community www.directionsemea.com

The only NAV focus conference !

What does it take to be a successful Dynamics NAV Partner in 2012/13?

What options do we have ?

What decisions can partners take ?

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Why Singhammer in this session ?

• 35 employees in DE and IT

• 14 partners in 10 countries

• Multiple President’s Clubs

• Partner of the Year Nominee Professional Services

• Regional ISV Nominee Germany

Our product

• SITE NAV: Solution for IT Enterprises

• We just do one vertical solution (since 1994)

• CfMD – Certified for Microsoft Dynamics

• 220 installations worldwide

• Roll-out in 21 countries in localized versions

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The company

What is success ?

4

Success as

Partner

EBIT

Microsoft Recognition

Good Projects

Own IP

Steady growth

Stable business

Fun to work with

What are your success factors ?

Singhammer hierarchy 1. Long term EBIT

2. Fun to work with

3. Own IP

4. Stable business

5. Good projects

6. Microsoft recognition

7. Steady growth

• What is the hierarchy for you ?

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What is the nature of success ?

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Success

Different for

everybody

Not eternal

Not guaranteed

A process

Envied by

others

No 1:1 copy

The stakeholders of your success …

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You as MS NAV Partner

Customer Microsoft

Costs

Time Quality

A successful partner for Microsoft is

• the last mile to the customer – fulfilling its

business plan (licenses, maintenance, growth)

– keeping end customer problems away from Microsoft

– stable and reliable

• a challenge because – partners have their

own head

– we are very different

– do not want to adopt new ideas and products quickly enough

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How does that influence our decisions?

• Fulfilling business plan with Microsoft

– We define our strategy and put our ambitions first (between 5 to 10 % growth per year)

– We try to accelerate implementation (1 € license = 2 € services)

• Keep customer problems away from Microsoft

– many specialists cover whole Microsoft stack (Partners must have a minimum size)

– We control everything that is necessary for our vertical

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A successful partner for customers is

• competent

– transforming requirements into solutions

• professional in every respect

– costs

– long term reliability

– turstworthy

• on eye level

– as an extension of its own resources

– bringing in new ideas

• stable

– economically

– resources

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How does that influence our decisions?

• Competence

– We work with senior consultants and developers mainly

– Customer size is min. 30 to 50 people

– We tell customers when the limit of our competence is reached (and bring in other specialists)

• Reliability

– We publish our long term plans for the product

– We charge enough to be able to be reliable

– We aim at a long term partnership with customers and vendors

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Business Model: Solution Provider

• The character – Deep know-how in

one area or industry

– Complete team around the topic – from sales to support

– Know, what they do not want to do and are not specialists in

• The types – Horizontal solution

developers (Retail, Workflow)

– Vertical solution developers = ISVs (Waste, Tires)

– Vertical solution implementers = VARs

– Special technology (EDI, Biztalk)

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The Solution Providers - Requirements

• Investments

– „Five“ years stamina to build up business

– min. 50 T Euro to represent an ISV solution, incl. Localization > 100 T Euro

– > 1.000 T Euro to build a deep vertical solution for international market

• KPI

– Good MS VARs 8,5 % EBIT

– Good ISV (pure business model) 25 % EBIT

– MS found an ISV EBIT of 1,5 %

– Min. 20 to 30 people; stable from around 80 people upwards

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What decisions did we take (1) ?

• Singhammer – Our area is „Business

Solution for IT Enterprises“

– Mixed model of VAR in DE and ISV worldwide; we failed to be just an ISV

– Multiplying value of IP through partners

– We move our know-how to new platforms (Dynamics AX)

• Our partners – VARs = our local

representatives

– ISVs for travel expenses, Sharepoint integration

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What decisions did we take (2) ?

• Singhammer – Profit centers for

VAR business and ISV

– 4 people just for the development of standard application

– Dedicated support for partners, customers are supported by different team

• Our partners – Qualify partners in

trainings

– Make them use our solution internally

– No exclusivity in contract, but a lived practice as long as they are successful

– The best come to our Quality Board

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Partners with problems

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• Regional focus – „x00 km radius“ allows no thematic focus – Specialists challenge value of neighborhood – International customers break up radius

• Few big customers – Living on services only, no own IP – High degree of individualization = no

migration – Enormous complexity for one partner

• Small partners – Microsoft stack too complicated

Business Models with potential

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• ISV – VAR – VARs looking for

ISV solution before they start individual project

– ISVs fulfilling the requirments of VARs (documentation, quality, methodology)

• Delivery models

– Pay per usage = subscription

– Public Cloud = shared resources

– Our customers do not yet ask for this

So – what would I recommend ?

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• Decide what success is for you

• Analyze what customers you want – have Microsoft help you with it

• Define your strategy and your universe of competence

• Create yourself as a brand with a defined IP as your USP

• Show this to customers and Microsoft