Khaleej Times

Businesses get boost with Microsoft Dynamics suite

- Rohma Sadaqat — rohma@khaleejtim­es.com

dubai — Microsoft is paving the way for productivi­ty in the Middle East with the launch of the new Microsoft Dynamics AX and CRM Online 2016.

Speaking about the launch of the new suite, Karim Talhouk, Microsoft Business Solutions director for the Gulf region, said: “It will enable people and empower individual­s inside any organisati­on to redefine their business processes faster, and make smarter decisions based on insight and intelligen­ce. The result of this would be delivering an amazing customer experience in order to retain and win new customers.”

Christian Pedersen, Microsoft general manager — Enterprise ERP for the United States, added: “There are two core products on our customer engagement platform which is very much centered around what we do on Dynamics CRM, and then there are the operationa­l capabiliti­es, that is where we have Dynamics AX targeting the upper mid-market enterprise level organisati­ons. We have SMEs that are more targeted with Dynamics NAV and Dynamics GP. But we look at upper mid-market enterprise level customers and that is what we are targeting with our Dynamics AX.”

Speaking on how cloud solutions are helping businesses in the region today, Pedersen said that users are transition­ing into a world, where we do not think about individual products anymore. Companies are increasing­ly focusing on how businesses can today run their operations on the Microsoft cloud.

“We refer to it as the Microsoft cloud for businesses. That cloud now includes integratio­n and out of the box embedded technologi­es across Office 365, Power BI, Cortana Analytics, customer engagement with Dynamics CRM and the entire business operations platform with Dynamics AX. So now it’s possible to run your entire business on the Microsoft cloud with this set of offerings. And we believe that we

The most important thing with the value of the cloud is that it can scale according to need Karim Talhouk, Microsoft Business

Solutions director for the Gulf region

are uniquely persistent to provide that,” he explained.

He also noted that the new Dynamics AX is coming to the market with a very simple price per user per month, and it’s a price point that includes beyond the line of cloud components including Azure, Power BI, high availabili­ty, and disaster recovery. Lots of things that companies had to think about separately are now just included in the price.

Talhouk added: “The key thing with our cloud offering and the value it adds is that it gives analysing the market sentiment, for any brand, company or product. It has the social listener factor which can help you find keywords that help you track and grow your business. The most important thing with the value of the cloud is that it can scale according to need. Cloud can allow an organisati­on to scale locally and globally to any market within days. This is the value customers are seeing around the cloud. Of course we are to see the impact of Dynamics AX coming soon but definitely on the CRM Online front and the customer engagement front we have already started it.”

Asked how many organisati­ons have adopted such technology in the UAE and GCC region, Talhouk said: “What I can say is that we are growing this business with a yearon growth of 380 per cent so there is a big appetite in the market for the customer engagement platform.”

 ?? — Supplied photo ?? Karim talhouk at the launch of the new Microsoft dynamics aX and CrM Online 2016.
— Supplied photo Karim talhouk at the launch of the new Microsoft dynamics aX and CrM Online 2016.

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