The field of economics broadly classifies the types of goods produced or consumed in a society into three major economic sectors—primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary sector of the economy focuses on extraction, harvesting, and refinement of materials from the earth. Agriculture and mining are primary sector examples. The secondary sector deals with manufacturing and processing these materials into finished goods. Metal working, auto industry, construction, and breweries are all examples of this sector. The tertiary sector of the economy is the service industry, which is about services provided to consumers and businesses. A somewhat related and interesting note is that information technology is typically classified under the quaternary sector of the economy, along with government and education.

The 2010 CP1 release of Sure Step provides coverage for this tertiary sector of the economy, focusing on the solution capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX for the Service industry and sub-industries, and its related verticals. New guidance and artifacts are provided in the CP1 release for positioning, customer due diligence, and solution selling to prospects in the Service industry and related verticals. This guidance is then carried through to the implementation phases as well, to help with a quality solution delivery.

The following sub-industries and verticals of the Service industry are covered in the 2010 CP1 release.

Coverage may be expanded in the future into additional verticals such as IT and Data Services (under Professional Services sub-industry), Commercial Real Estate and Property Management (under Architecture, Engineering and Construction sub-industry), and Publishing and Broadcasting (under Media and Entertainment sub-industry).

The Service industries value chain has been leveraged to help on the solution positioning and capabilities discussions with the prospects. The value chain of the Service industries is depicted as spanning six main pillars or capability groups, Sell, Develop, Resource, Deliver, Maintain, and Manage, as shown in the following diagram:

This value chain is then percolated down to each of the sub-industries and verticals, showing the subset of Microsoft Dynamics AX solution capabilities that correspond to the shared common business processes and practices that make up the value chain. As an example, the value chain for the Media and Entertainment sub-industries is shown in the following screenshot.

Beyond the positioning, templates are provided for key activities in the Diagnostic and implementation phases. Templates can be found under the Decision Accelerator offerings, such as the Role-Tailored Requirements Questionnaires. Templates are also provided for corresponding implementation activities, including Business Process Maps and User Acceptance Test Scripts at the vertical level, either as a fully contained document, or as an addendum in cases where the standard Microsoft Dynamics AX template should also be leveraged.

The Sure Step 2010 CP1 release also includes refreshed Microsoft Dynamics GP content, with the guidance and templates updated to the current GP 2010 release.

To assist with customer due diligence and solution selling, the CP1 release includes templates such as an updated Requirements Questionnaire for new customers and Upgrade Assessment Questionnaire for existing Microsoft Dynamics GP customers looking to upgrade their solution to the GP2010 release.

The following screenshot shows screenshots of these two templates from the corresponding Decision Accelerator offerings.

The Sure Step 2010 CP1 release also provides updated content for solution delivery, which can be found under the implementation phases. An example of this is the Setup Checklist that can be found under the very first activity in the Requirements and Configuration cross phase of the Design phase (activity # 2.4.1). A screenshot of this template is shown next:

The Sure Step 2010 CP1 release includes additional guidance, template, and tool enhancements. These include the Estimator tools for Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which have been updated for ease-of-use, as well as with updated base data. These Estimators are an excellent starting point for service providers who have several years of experience in the AX or CRM field, or those just getting started in this arena. Service Providers should of course, use judgment when using these tools—make sure to consider all external and internal factors that may not necessarily be accounted for. The flexibility of the tools allows the user to adjust up or down the suggested values, or completely override them if they choose to.

Content updates for Microsoft Dynamics NAV are also provided in the CP1 release, including updated business process flows and new go-live checklists. For Microsoft Dynamics AX, additional business process flows for Human Resources (HR), Master Planning, and Quality modules have been included. For Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the CP1 release includes an initial subset of templates to assist with the positioning of the Customer Care Accelerator (CCA), which was recently added to the CRM solution. Plans to enhance these templates in the Sure Step 2010 CP2 release are also underway.

The Sure Step 2010 CP1 release also includes some user experience and client enhancements. A new labeling convention has been applied to the tools and templates, making it especially easier to navigate through on activities that have multiple templates. The Projects functionality has also been enhanced to support SharePoint 2010, allowing companies with the latest release of SharePoint to now be able to automatically generate projects with the Sure Step templates included under the corresponding phases.

With the projected and much anticipated launch of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2011 solutions early next year, Sure Step 2010 is gearing up for updates of all related content with the CP2 release.

For product positioning, customer due diligence, and solution selling, the corresponding guidance and Decision Accelerator templates will be updated from their relevance to the current CRM 4 version to the upcoming CRM2011 version. This is expected to include the Requirements Questionnaires, Fit Gap spreadsheets, and Estimator Tool for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The corresponding Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online artifacts will also be refreshed to the CRM Online 2011 release.

Likewise, on the solution delivery side, the implementation templates including the business process maps, functional requirements and design documents, setup guidance, test scripts, and installation and infrastructure guidance, are being planned for refresh to the latest releases of the solutions.

Also being planned for updates are the Extended CRM (or xRM) guidance and artifacts. Upgrade guidance from CRM4 to CRM2011, including the Upgrade Assessment Questionnaire, is also planned for refresh.

The Sure Step 2010 CP2 release will expand the Industry solutions coverage with the addition of guidance for the Retail industry, sub-industries, and related verticals. The retail industry as an economy sector relates to sales to the end consumers. As such, the scope of this industry is very large. The CP2 release will focus on the Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail solution capabilities for the retail industry. Guidance is expected to cover positioning, customer due diligence, and solution selling in the Diagnostic phase for Specialty Retail, General Merchandise, Health & Personal Care, and Food & Beverage sub-industries, as well as select verticals in these areas. The guidance will also extend to solution delivery encompassing the implementation phases with related templates and workflows.

Projected Diagnostic phase templates would include Role-Tailored Questionnaires and/or addendums to cover specific retail aspects such as pricing and promotions, store configuration, Point-of-Sale (POS) configuration, loyalty, and bank management.

For the implementation phases, business process maps for all the above areas may be incorporated. Project plans referencing specific retail activities may also be provided, as would be configuration checklists, test scripts, and data migration design guidance for key aspects such as migrating data from POS systems to the Microsoft Dynamics AX database.

Key content for other areas is also being planned for the Sure Step 2010 CP2 release, including the positioning and implementing the Role-Tailored Client (RTC) of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This guidance will encompass the standard Role Centers that are provided with the Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution, both in the Diagnostic phase for positioning, and in the implementation phases for solution delivery.

The guidance and artifacts in this area are expected to cover important topics such as mapping of personas to role centers, selection of the appropriate components, layout and design aspects for the user experience, setup checklists, and so on. Also planned for inclusion is guidance on upgrading from the classic NAV client to the RTC.

The Sure Step 2010 CP2 release will also expand the cross-industry solutions coverage with the addition of Integrated Customer Care guidance. As noted in the previous section, the CP1 release introduced a subset of templates to address the Customer Care Accelerator (CCA) addition to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution. The CP2 release will build on that, with additional positioning and delivery guidance for the solution.

The ICC solution encompasses CRM and CCA capabilities to enable enterprise organizations to improve sales and customer service via enhanced customer interaction. ICC addresses the multiple channels available to an organization's customer, by providing a common and consistent platform to aggregate these interactions, thereby helping to reduce costs and increase customer loyalty. ICC coverage may also extend to integration of other Microsoft technologies including SharePoint, Office Communication Server, and SQL.

The Sure Step program is testament to the commitment that the Microsoft Dynamics business group makes to enable its partner ecosystem with appropriate guidance, and to ensure that the customers get the solution that they envision. Sure Step has come a long way since its 2007 beginnings, and it promises to continue evolving as the corresponding Microsoft Dynamics solutions evolve.

Future releases of Sure Step promise to increase the guidance delivered with industry and cross-industry solutions. Special emphasis is expected in the area of positioning of the solutions for a given industry or vertical, so as to help sales teams relate the solutions to customers in a manner that resonates with the way they run their businesses. As has been emphasized on many occasions in this book, successful solution delivery begins with proper selection and envisioning of the solution, which speaks to the added focus on the solution diagnostic area.

One feedback item that is surfaced often is the want for a viable Business Process Modeling tool. The Microsoft Dynamics and Sure Step teams are evaluating options to further the deep guidance provided in the Sure Step business process maps, perhaps moving from the current Microsoft Office Visio maps to a self-contained tool that could allow users to not only model a customer's business process, but potentially also view the corresponding settings needed in the Microsoft Dynamics solution. This evolution will require sustained effort on the part of all the product teams, but it is certainly a worthy goal to shoot for.

Another area that is being investigated is the progression of the current Sure Step client into an online client that may leverage the capabilities of SharePoint to render the content. This does not necessarily mean that the offline client will no longer be available; the online client could be an addition to provide added benefits including faster content refresh, and better tracking of content usage and feedback.

The Microsoft Dynamics solution suite is used by over 317,000 customers worldwide, and based on the strengths of the upcoming solution releases this number promises to increase dramatically in the coming years. The Sure Step users can in turn expect the program to continue serving them with appropriate guidance for the solution enhancements.