The Business of Digital Transformation – WPC and Beyond
WPC 2016 Recap – Event focused on digital transformation, automation, new Microsoft product announcements
In case you missed the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Toronto, the theme of the event was digital transformation. Whether through adoption of the cloud, the type of Microsoft partnership your company maintains or increasing productivity through process automation for your business and your customers’ – it was clear that from Microsoft’s perspective, and mine, the future of business requires transformation.
It was also apparent that WPC attendees were there to do business.
The thing that struck me most, as a first-time attendee, was that unlike many events that I’ve participated in throughout my career, WPC attendees came with a purpose and desire to learn. They wanted to learn from Microsoft, of course, but also from other partners, sponsors, regional peers as well as those from countries other than their own. It was incredible to explore the partner-to-partner opportunities.
The biggest news from the show was the announcement of Dynamics 365. This packaging of Microsoft’s business software came as a surprise to some in the Microsoft community. Dynamics 365 is the next step in Microsoft’s plan to create unified, cloud-based business services for its customers.
Dynamics 365 is more than an ERP system, more than a CRM system and more than a series of bolt-on applications. It’s a cloud-based business management software platform with a foundation of office productivity, business intelligence, ERP, CRM and voice/text assistance. Dynamics 365 is a role-based, purpose-built SaaS application suite that integrates Microsoft Office 365, Power BI, Cortana and Azure, as well as third-party applications that make the experience tailored to each customers’ business needs.
To be clear, Dynamics 365 does not replace the current ERP systems offered by Microsoft (GP, NAV, AX and SL). They each maintain their own product roadmaps and will likely continue to be the systems of choice for companies not ready to move to the cloud.
At ImageTag, we will continue to maintain the integration between KwikTag and the Dynamics suite, and Dynamics 365 is no exception. While Dynamics 365 includes the ability to manually create an ad-hoc, transaction-based workflow, KwikTag manages any document in any department or system and provides complete business process automation across the organization.
