Barcelona is one of the places in the world that is definitely on my travel list. Unfortunately, this year was not the year for me so I wasn’t able to attend Microsoft Convergence EMEA in person.
For those like me, who were not able to make the trek to Spain this year, we do have Virtual Convergence. Granted, it is not quite as good as being there because we don’t get to hang out will all our friends, meet new people, break bread and catch up, but at least we don’t miss out on any of the great Microsoft Dynamics content and information. So, let’s see what we have for the lineup this year.
We get things started with the Keynote session given by Microsoft Business Solutions, Executive Vice President, Kirill Tatarinov who was joined by Microsoft International, President, Jean-Philippe Courtois.
The Key note included discussion around the key drivers of change, Dynamics business momentum, value strategy, how the Dynamics line addresses and integrates to meet business needs, gets business connected, manages cost while growing revenue, compliance and more.
Following the keynote is a comprehensive list of sessions covering a variety of topics to include product deep dives, integration, social, and business leadership. The speaker line-up is just as impressive and includes individuals like Reuben Krippner (Principal Program Manager), Eric Boocock (Sr Technical Product Manager), Matthew Barbour (Program Manager), John Straumann (Dynamics CRM Product Marketing Manager), Richard Dickinson (Program Manager), Param Kahlon, (Product Management, Enterprise Software), Stephanie Dart (Sr. Product Marketing Manager) and many more.
Below is a brief overview of the session categories and content:
Business Leadership included several Dale Carnegie sessions to include; Developing Personal Leadership, Effective Communications, How to create Employee Engagement, Leading Across Generations, Managing Organizational Changes and Talent Management.
Cross Product placed emphasis on using the Connector to integrate Dynamics CRM with the other Dynamics Product line like Dynamics AX, and Dynamics NAV. There is also an overview of the Connector, using mobile with Dynamics AX and CRM and wraps up with strategies for managing complex Dynamics implementations.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes all things CRM:
- Integrating CRM into your business eco-system to include Cloud and On-Premise
- Business Process Management (Portable Business Logic, Business Process Flow) and a look at those in relationship to mobile CRM
- Learn how to leverage the application to improve sales effectiveness
- Tips & Tricks for out-of-the-box configuration that will help make your application powerful and effective and turn you into a CRM super hero
- Building & customizing mobile applications
- Understand social strategies, related best practices and tips and tricks for getting started
- Dive deeper into social technologies like Yammer, Twitter, Facebook, NetBreeze and learn how to use them in the context of “social listening”
- Get to know MarketingPilot
- Workflows, Dialogs and Processes
- Key Platform Enhancements
- Bob Stutz and Fred Studer explore ways of delivering amazing customer experiences
- First-hand experience of customers who are driving true business value from Dynamics CRM (operational efficiency and customer profitability)
- Microsoft’s CRM cloud vision for building the most secure and reliable cloud service offering for European customers.
- Mobility options
- Learn about the tools available to plan, monitor, analyze and optimize your deployment
- Understand the analytic options available like charting, dashboards, Power Pivot, Power View and others
- All things CRM Online pricing
- Server-side synchronization & the CRM Outlook Client
- Web client enhancements, support matrix, new controls, editable grid and extensibility options
- Top 10 solutions from the Dynamics CRM Marketplace
- Upgrade considerations
Given the combination of the content and speaker knowledge, I can honestly say that there is not one of the above sessions that I want to miss. I plan to carve out time over the next couple of weeks to view each one. How about you?
Cheers
Donna Edwards 