In the previous section, we discussed how service providers can benefit from adopting the Sure Step methodology, as well as the process for adoption itself. We now shift our attention to the Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), who develop solutions to augment the Microsoft Dynamics core solution.
In the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem, the ISVs provide solutions that can be broadly classified into three areas:
- Vertical solutions
- Horizontal solutions
- Complementary solutions
Industry-Vertical and Cross-Industry-Horizontal solutions were introduced in an earlier chapter, and the notion applies to ISVs as well. A vertical is a subcategory of an industry, characterized by enterprises with similar products or services. For example, automotive, chemicals, and electronics are subcategories or verticals of the manufacturing industry. A vertical solution generally covers end-to-end processes, and accordingly, it is designed to meet the specific needs of a vertical-oriented business.
In contrast to a vertical solution, a horizontal solution is designed to meet a broad business process or need, and may need little variation to cover multiple verticals or industries. For example, bookkeeping, payroll, and human resources applications are horizontal solutions.
The third category, complementary solutions, can also be viewed as horizontal solutions because these solutions can also be used in multiple verticals or industries. But while horizontal solutions can address multiple processes for multiple verticals or industries, a complementary solution is a "point solution" that addresses a specific function for a vertical or horizontal market, and as such complements a vertical or horizontal solution. Examples of complementary solutions include credit card validation, address look-up, or barcode solutions.
As an ISV, regardless of which of the three categories you develop solutions in, you can benefit from aligning your solutions documentation to the Sure Step methodology. Due to the inherent scope of the solution, if you are a vertical or horizontal solution provider, this alignment can especially help you. In this section, we will learn how you can benefit.
As you already know, Sure Step is designed to assist with the requirements gathering for the customer's solution, which leads up to a Fit Gap exercise to determine how much of the standard solution fits with the customer's requirements, and whether any gaps exist that must be solved by other means. During the Fit Gap exercise, the Value Added Reseller (VAR) and/or service provider may determine that a subset of requirements can be best met by an ISV solution. If this determination occurs in the diagnostic pre-sales phase, having appropriate documentation such as Requirements Questionnaires and Fit Gap worksheets would assist the VAR or service provider in selecting the right ISV solution. As an ISV provider, this is your primary benefit, as it enables the selection of your ISV solution. Even if the determination occurs only during the implementation, foreseeably during the Functional Requirements and Fit Gap Workshops in the analysis phase, these documents will once again help the service provider ascertain that they are making the right ISV selection.
Obviously making sure that your ISV solution is the one that gets picked is your primary goal. We will talk about other artifacts you can provide to increase the confidence level for the VARs or service providers. But let's continue with the additional benefits that you, as an ISV provider, can gain from aligning to the Sure Step methodology.
The more recognized your ISV solution becomes in the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem, the more demand you are going to have for your product, which, without any doubt, is a good problem to have. But with that also comes organizational scale issues—do you have the resources to assist on multiple sales opportunities, or do you have the resources to support implementation questions as they arise? Having your process and documentation aligned with Sure Step can help you address these questions.
The other inherent benefits from the Sure Step alignment are alleviating project risks and improving solution delivery times. As we have learned in the prior chapters, having a consistent, repeatable, and end-to-end lifecycle method that Sure Step provides helps the service provider decrease the overall risks and issues that may arise during the engagement. This, in turn, can also lead to reduced deployment times, thereby reducing the overall solution delivery costs for the customer. If your ISV application is a component of the overall solution being deployed for the customer, ensuring that it also aligns to Sure Step will only help make life easier for the implementation team. They will not only be able to find artifacts for the appropriate activities, thereby reducing the overall delivery time for this component. They will also be using a single taxonomy in describing and implementing the overall solution, which is not something to overlook—the customer user base goes through enough churn as it is during the course of an ERP or CRM solution implementation that they do need to have to figure out multiple terms thrown at them to describe the same task.
Having good Sure Step-based documentation can also reduce the time taken for a service provider to become an expert on your ISV solution. As these consultants go into other engagements, they become evangelists for your product, resulting in more demand. Also, the documentation can help the consultants deliver quality training for this part of the overall solution to the customer's users.
These are just some of the potential benefits from Sure Step for ISVs. All in all, it is a win-win-win for the ISV, the VAR/service provider, and most importantly, the customer.
We have already discussed Requirements Questionnaires and Fit Gap worksheets as key artifacts that an ISV provider should make available. Other important documents that you may provide are noted below.
Consider the following for the diagnostic phase, to assist with solution selling and the customer's due diligence:
- Product overview: This is self-explanatory! A good product requires a strong overview document that describes the solution capabilities.
- Requirements Questionnaires and Fit Gap Worksheets: Discussed previously, but added here to complete the list, these documents can be used with the Requirements and Process Review Decision Accelerator offering and the Fit Gap and Solution Blueprint DA offering respectively.
- Infrastructure and third-party software requirements: These specifications will be used in the Architecture Assessment DA, by the technical consultants, to determine the infrastructure needs for the add-on solution. The technical consultants will need to ascertain if the existing hardware may be sufficient or additional hardware components are needed for the combined solution for example. If any third-party components are also needed for your ISV application, this should be known upfront, so that the teams can plan in advance for their procurement.
- Cost Estimation Worksheets: Use these worksheets to guide the service provider, during the Scoping Assessment exercise, in developing the budgetary estimates, timelines, and resource needs for the ISV component as part of the overall solution deployment.
- Demonstration data: This is an important need for pre-sales if the sales team, during the Proof of Concept DA, or at any other point in the sales cycle, has to demonstrate the solution add-on to the customer. This dataset should be easily installable, as time is often of the essence in a sales cycle. It may also be noted that demo data can also help during the implementation, for example, during solution overview or for setting up a Sandbox environment for user training purposes.
While the aim of the diagnostic documents is to assist the sales team with the positioning and envisioning the overall solution for the customer, the implementation subset noted below will help the consulting team deliver the promised solution to the customer. The recommended artifacts for ISVs noted next are aligned to each of the nine cross-phase processes in the Sure Step implementation project types.
- Program Management cross phase: If your ISV solution may need additional activities during deployment, consider providing a project plan addendum. You may also consider other documents to describe Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) or Key Performance Indicators (KPI) with your solution.
- Training cross phase: If applicable, include guidance on training for your ISV solution.
- Business Process Analysis cross phase: Use case scenarios provide examples of real-life usage of the product, which can be very helpful to the solution architects developing the overall solution vision. Business Process Maps, especially for the Vertical ISV solutions and, to an extent, for the Horizontal ISV solutions, can also help in this aspect. These may also be leveraged during the sales cycle.
- Requirements and Configuration cross phase: Providing templates for setup/configuration will be of great help to the implementation team in areas such as parameter setting, so that the consultants can correctly configure the solution specific to the customer's needs.
- Custom Coding cross phase: Templates such as Functional Design Document for Customizations and Technical Design Documents may help the development resources on the consulting team with designing and documenting any required customizations of the solution.
- Quality and Testing cross phase: Scripts for User Acceptance Testing and other related tests for testing your ISV solution are very important. These will help ensure quality delivery of the combined solution. As feasible, you may also consider other templates such as technical review and project governance compliance checklists.
- Infrastructure cross phase: Key documentation in this area are Installation Guides describing how the ISV application should be installed in tandem with the core Microsoft Dynamics solution. Remember to include uninstall procedures in these guides, which may help when switching environments, among other things.
- Integration and Interfaces cross phase: Use this area to explain how your product integrates with the core solution. If applicable, you can also include guidance on how your product integrates to other third-party solutions that are typically used in the customer's industry or vertical.
- Data Migration cross phase: If applicable, provide guidance on data migration scripting and specific mapping templates for migrating data from other third-party solutions into your product.
Sure Step provides you with starting templates, including Requirements Gathering Template, Costing Worksheet Template, User Acceptance Test Script Template, and so on that can help you get started in your journey to alignment with Sure Step! The following screenshot shows some of these templates:
The list of ISV artifacts shown in the preceding screenshot may seem overwhelming at first, so it is very important to remember that you do not need to develop all of these documents in one fell swoop. This list should help you think about areas that will help the sales and implementation teams that represent and deploy your product. Use judgment to decide which areas need to be worked upon immediately, and which ones you can develop and provide as your business evolves. In the next section, you can also find a table with recommendations of templates for the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics program, which may also help you determine which ones to start with and which ones to build over time.
The Certified for Microsoft Dynamics (CfMD) program introduced by Microsoft applies high quality and testing rigor to partner-developed business management solutions. CfMD solutions are tested by an independent company, and also go through verification by customers. By committing to the quality requirements of the CfMD program, the ISV solutions are provided higher visibility and afforded increased marketability to the resellers and customers. These solutions offer customers and resellers a lower risk profile in that they are used and recommended by other companies in the industry, are thoroughly tested and proven to meet Microsoft's highest standards for partner solutions, and very importantly, are tested as being compatible and integrated with Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft technology solutions.
One of the main objectives of the certified solutions is to provide trusted, lower-risk solutions that can be implemented faster and maintained easier when the solution is in production. As such, in conjunction with the Sure Step 2010 release, the CfMD program introduced best practice guidance on Sure Step artifacts to be developed by Microsoft Dynamics ISV solution providers. The CfMD program also instituted a requirement for the ISV organization to have one or more resources with Sure Step methodology certification, to ensure alignment to Sure Step.
The following table illustrates the documentation requirements of the ISV provider from a CfMD perspective. The documents noted with a check mark under the ISV Software Test column are required for the CfMD test process, while the others are recommended.
|
Proposed Document |
ISV Software Test |
CfMD |
|---|---|---|
|
Diagnostic Phase | ||
|
Product Overview |
√ | |
|
Questionnaires for Requirements gathering |
√ | |
|
Fit Gap Analysis worksheet with specific considerations for the ISV solution |
√ | |
|
Augmentation of the Fit Gap and Solution Blueprint for ISV considerations |
√ | |
|
ISV Infrastructure and third-party software requirements |
√ | |
|
Guidelines for the VAR on how to accurately scope, determine resources, and cost the respective ISV solution |
√ | |
|
Short Demonstration Video |
√ | |
|
Medium Demonstration Video |
√ | |
|
Product Positioning and USPs |
√ | |
|
Case Studies |
√ | |
|
Analysis through Operations Phases | ||
|
Installation, configuration, and uninstall procedures |
√ | |
|
ISV Sample Project plans and guidance on how these can be incorporated into standard Sure Step Plans, such as providing examples |
√ | |
|
Integration Guide |
√ | |
|
Operations Guide |
√ | |
|
Installable demonstration data |
√ | |
|
Training Plans |
√ | |
|
ISV-specific Business use case scenarios |
√ | |
|
Setup/Configuration requirements for ISV |
√ | |
|
Functional Design Document and Technical Design considerations, including Security requirements |
√ | |
|
User Acceptance tests |
√ | |
|
Testing scripts for all relevant testing, unit, functional, performance, data, or integration testing as examples |
√ | |
|
Delivery Audit Checklists |
√ | |
|
Additions to Environment Definition and Deployment Plans for ISV infrastructure requirements |
√ | |
|
Guidance on specific Dynamic solution and ISV integration |
√ | |
|
ISV Data Migration guidance |
√ |
The CfMD program also created a "Certified for Microsoft Dynamics Partner-to-Partner Connections" site as an added benefit, allowing resellers to directly contact the certified solution provider. This provides the ISV an additional forum to showcase their solutions, and an opportunity to recruit the best reselling partners.
As an ISV solution provider, consider the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics program, and take advantage of the benefits to grow your business.
Note
Use case of Sure Step adoption by a small Dynamics partner
In this case study, we look at the journey undertaken by a small Dynamics partner (let's call them Partner1) to adopt the Sure Step methodology. The clientele of Partner1 is predominantly in the Small-to-Medium Enterprise (SME) space. Partner1 is a VAR and solution implementer whose main focus is not only on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions, but that also undertakes smaller ERP engagements. Partner1 has 24 employees, including six in sales, fifteen in consulting, and three in administrative/accounting/infrastructure roles.
Partner1 was struggling in two areas, a spotty win-loss ratio on the opportunities it was chasing, and inconsistency in its solution delivery resulting in less-than satisfied customers. In a way, the two issues were tied together—the lack of good customer references was causing it to lose out to the competition more often than not.
Partner1's CEO first learned of Sure Step at a Partner Conference, where he was also able to see a demo of the methodology. He came away impressed at the capabilities, and also felt that it could help his organization in both of its current struggles. But before embarking on the evaluation exercise, he wanted to get affirmation from others in his organization that this was worthwhile to pursue, and accordingly he asked his Consulting Director to evaluate whether Sure Step would be a good fit for them.
Partner1's Consulting Director and a Senior Project Manager reviewed the 100-level online training course on Sure Step, accessible through PartnerSource. They were also convinced that the time and effort to further evaluate Sure Step would be money well spent, with the Consulting Director going as far as feeling that it was essential to their survival as an organization.
As the first step, they downloaded Sure Step from Microsoft's PartnerSource website to get a better grasp on the guidance, artifacts, and tools available to them. The second step was to institute a Train-the-Trainer model, where the Senior Project Manager would undertake deep-dive instructor-led classroom training on Sure Step, then come back and educate the rest of the organization on Sure Step. After other key consulting resources received training on Sure Step, the company would evaluate if and how the methodology needed to be customized to fit their processes. They would also select a project and use Sure Step on a trial basis.
While the plan was fairly logical, the execution did not quite pan out as Partner1 had intended. First, while the training that Project Manager attended delivered the Sure Step knowledge, Partner1 still needed to go through an exercise of mapping their processes and deliverables to the Sure Step methodology. This required dedicated resources and time—a task that Project Manager, whose primary job was to keep her current customer project on the right track, did not have the luxury to carry out. Partner1 also felt a bit overwhelmed by the documentation that they thought was needed in Sure Step, and also struggled with aligning their internal taxonomies between sales and delivery. Finally, as the sales team was not involved in this exercise, the selling motions, and more importantly, the deliverables promised by the sales teams were not aligned with the new approach that the delivery team wanted to take. The project stayed mired on the shelf, and it was business as usual for Partner1. The problem was that their sales and delivery struggles continued as well.
At this juncture, the CEO was able to meet with a Microsoft executive and another partner at an event. The discussion and follow-up notes exchanged affirmed his belief that Sure Step could help alleviate his company's struggles, and also led him to go after a more sound adoption approach.
Partner1 decided to use the Sure Step Adoption Roadmap as guidance. Having already identified a compelling reason to adopt Sure Step, the first step for Partner1 was to assign a Sure Step Champion for the project. The Project Manager was designated as the Sure Step Champion, and she was also relieved of some of her day-to-day pressures so as to be able to focus on the adoption. Partner1 nominated a V-team that comprised of a Sales Manager, the Consulting Director, and other consultants. The team availed of the Sure Step Online Self Assessments, to analyze where they were as an organization and the steps they needed to take to improve their processes.
After the CEO signed off on the plan, the team went about redesigning their processes to align them to Sure Step. Partner1 decided to begin with a subset of the documents that were important to the sales and delivery processes—the "Key Documents" designated by Sure Step, as shown in the next screenshot:
For their CRM implementations, Partner1 decided to build their templates around the Agile project type, while they selected the Standard project type for their ERP implementations. Using Sure Step's Projects functionality, the teams adapted the Sure Step templates and created Partner1-centric deliverable documents for their CRM and ERP solutions. The Statement of Work template provided to the customers at the end of the sales cycle was also recreated and aligned to the new Sure Step deliverables.
Partner1 piloted these documents for a CRM and ERP project, and fine tuned them as needed before requiring their usage on all projects. They also instituted periodic reviews of their projects and processes to ensure that their lessons learned were being transferred to future engagements.
Partner1 has been able to streamline their processes, and have also leveraged Sure Step to show their customers that they have a viable approach to deliver the promised solutions. Not only are they closing more opportunities, but customer satisfaction is high, as is employee morale and retention rates.