On the 23rd of May 2019, m-hance was delighted to host our very own exclusive Microsoft Dynamics GP customer business briefing event at the Royal National Hotel, London. As the largest Dynamics GP provider in Europe, we are always keen to take the opportunity to reinforce our commitment to the many customers successfully running their businesses supported by this well-established and functionally-rich ERP solution. The day consisted of many descriptive sessions outlining ways of adding value for Dynamics GP users and also presenting the future roadmap. There were presentations from m-hance’s own experts as well as from our 3rd party partners such as SAP Concur, Jet Global, eOne and Draycir. We were also delighted to be joined by a special guest from Microsoft, Errol Schoenfish, whose session was a highlight of the day.
The morning schedule consisted of several engaging presentations, kicked off by our CEO Alan Moody who presented an m-hance company update, underlined the mission statement and values of the organisation, and highlighted areas of investment and future direction. After this introduction, it was straight over to Errol Schoenfish who dived into a Microsoft update. Microsoft’s Director of Product Marketing explained that Dynamics 365 Business Central is leading the way in technology and exceeding expectations for all customers. Initially, users of this cloud-based solution were more focused on core capabilities but latterly, he stated, Microsoft is seeing larger user counts and broader usage of the functionality. Following Errol’s entertaining discussion, it was over to m-hance’s Steve Macdonald (Pre-Sales Consultant) who outlined the Dynamics GP roadmap and Microsoft’s commitment to 2021 and beyond.
Steve MacDonald, along with James Glover (Solutions Architect), then introduced the Power Platform and how Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and Business Central together can provide a total SaaS-based business solution. They explored PowerApps, Flow and PowerBI and finished up explaining what benefits customers could gain from the truly integrated and joined-up nature of these solutions and common facilities.
Concluding the morning session was a fascinating insight from Jamie Falconer, Group Financial Controller from Graphcore, who kindly agreed to share the experience of his organisation’s digital journey from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 Business Central. The engaged audience listened intently as he explained how important it was for Graphcore to have a modern, cloud-based ERP System flexible enough to support the cutting-edge nature of the marketplace in which they operate producing chips for AI. Having a full SaaS offering, hosted in Azure, supporting scale growth in transactions, coupled with a modern user experience and ease of deployment were key factors in Graphcore’s decision to choose Business Central. Jamie was also complimentary about the excellent implementation support he received from the m-hance consultancy team, allowing them to go live from January 1st to support their new Financial Year.
The pre-cursor to lunch was a short elevator pitch given by each of our 3rd party partners who used a variety of media and interactive approaches to great and amusing effect to give the audience a quick flavour of their particular specialised offerings.
The second half of the day saw the agenda break off into parallel sessions, offering the audience the opportunity to explore particular areas of interest. First up was m-hance’s Dan Booth (ERP Product Manager) with an introduction to Power BI, which proved to be a very popular session. Dan discussed some of the more common reporting problems organisations face and how Power BI can address these. He went on to further explain the Reporting Packs m-hance has produced for both GP and Business Central and the help and support m-hance is able to provide to accommodate individual requirements. This was obviously an area of significant interest with a high level of engagement and many attendees keen to follow up and learn more.
Over in the other suite we heard from Ger Dayman (ERP Product Director) introducing our brand new GDPR Assist solution which allows organisations to anonymize personal information stored within Dynamics GP, meeting the requirement to discard data under GDPR, a facility which was met with great interest.
Exciting sessions followed with James Glover presenting an overview of NfP365, m-hance’s market-leading Dynamics solution for the charity sector; Sunita Chandnani presenting a highly interactive session on Making Tax Digital for VAT, the legislative requirements and timetable for implementation. Sunita described the options available both in the core Dynamics GP and Business Central offerings from Microsoft and also the additional complementary product solution m-hance has developed to address more complex requirements, such as Group VAT and also to accommodate customers on older releases of software. Further sessions were available from Joe Deally, Technical Services Manager at m-hance, on GP Hosting, Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, Azure & Data Integrity, and Senior Consultant Sharon Keegan delivered an excellent and well-received presentation sharing some GP tips and techniques from her experience gained from many years of implementing successful projects.
The final part of the day saw ERP Consultants Adam Carey and Mansoor Ahmed present GP2018 R2 functions and features in one suite, while in the other room Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) was hosted by John Odell (CRM & SharePoint Solution Specialist). These were the last sessions of the day before everyone enjoyed a drinks reception and networking before their journey home. This was a great way to finish off a successful day; the first of many such business briefings m-hance hopes to host.
m-hance’s CEO Alan Moody had this to say on the day: “The Business Briefing was a tremendous success bringing together customers, partners, and m-hance, sharing experiences and exploring new ideas & options to add further value to Microsoft Dynamics solutions. I was delighted to see so much engagement and share the evident enthusiasm for the future direction.”
Overall, the day was a great success for all that attended with excellent feedback on the interesting and informative Microsoft Dynamics GP and Dynamics Business Central sessions provided. Great support was provided by Microsoft and our partners to bring together something exceptional signposting the bright future for Microsoft Dynamics, its technology and its users.