Within
Europe there is a proud history of the smaller VAR being able to take
on and implement successfully some enormous and in their own way
historic implementations. Without naming names, I am sure we can all
cite examples of the second biggest sportswear manufacturer in the
world, or the second largest global recorded music company or the
fourth largest worldwide hotel chain.
These
three customers bought Microsoft Dynamics from a ‘small’ consultancy,
however, a significant fact is that none of these customers were the
number one in their field.
In my contracting life I have been fortunate to work for
a large consulting company and much smaller organisations, and they are
both excellent, however I generally found that the smaller consulting
company’s always seem to know their customer better, whereas the larger
consultancies know the vertical, and can produce glowing references
from the customers competitors in the same vertical, these references
tend to be SAP or Oracle implementations, never Dynamics. It still
seems difficult to encourage the CEO’s of those companies at the top to
consider Dynamics.
It appears to be something that has troubled Microsoft for some time now, and they have consistently asked consultancies both large and small to take a more vertical based approach, this makes sense to Microsoft as it has to be the way ahead, however it is more difficult for
a small consultancy of say 10 people to turn down a deal outside their
‘vertical’ and, because they tend not to turn them down, their
experience becomes generalised with a lack of focus on any vertical and so the spiral continues.
I for one am glad that Microsoft has decided to begin courting the larger consultancies, with
the impending introduction of KPMG and PWC to Dynamics and EDS,
McKinsey and Fujitsu all developing existing links and looking to take
the same steps forward as Avanade, Logica and Hitachi have done in the
last 2 years there is certain to be more competition and more chances
of the larger companies finally using Dynamics. Having read the latest
Forbes magazine which ranked the top 100 privately owned companies in
the world, I could see only one that used Dynamics, its a similar story
within the companies of the New York Stock Exchange, Tokyo Stock
Exchange, NASDAQ and of the London Stock Exchange.
For Microsoft to ensure its place at the top table of ERP sales it must break
the barriers, and quickly. SAP recently revealed that the Shell
implementation at a cost of over $2 Billion over 5 years was sold at
cost price to ensure the deal happened, it may seem a bad idea for
SAP to not make a profit on such a large deal, until, you realise that
in the 18 months since the deal was announced 68 of the top 100 Oil
companies are now using SAP.
Yes, the 23 person consultancy I am now contracting for
would struggle to implement the Shell deal, but the subcontracting
opportunities from it or any of the 67 other deals would be very
welcome. So as sure as Microsoft is that aligning themselves and
Dynamics with the big consultancies is the way ahead, the lessons of
the failed 4-5-6 last year in the UK and Des Consult in France have to
be learnt, we all want to go forward and we all want KPMG or McKinsey
to win the install for the largest aeronautical company in the world or
the biggest global construction firm, but only if it this leads to a
trickledown effect for the good of the whole channel, because try as
they may the leading consultancies can’t do it all by themselves, they,
and Microsoft need the smaller consultancies, to drive innovation and
expertise as much as the smaller consultancies need the big presence to
ensure market domination.
