All posts by afoellmi@yahoo.com

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If you’re like most organizations, you’ve probably already invested in data technologies for the express purpose of uncovering actionable insights from your business data. But have you given any thought as to how these technologies can complement one another over time to create a truly agile and responsive data solution–one that not only provides insights today, but can accommodate changing business needs and conditions tomorrow? Subscribe now to learn how Microsoft Power Platform–comprising Power BI, Power Apps, and Microsoft Flow–can help you build the foundation for an end-to-end data analytics solution that’s got you covered in the present and the future.

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From communicating and collaborating with others to simply getting day-to-day tasks completed on your own, there’s no greater tool for productivity than Microsoft Teams. And with Teams as the hub for communication within Office 365, your organization can move closer to realizing the promise of the digital workplace. Subscribe now to stay informed on how Teams, Office 365, and other leading Microsoft solutions can help elevate and transform communication, collaboration, and teamwork throughout your organization.

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Spend a day in the life with retail store manager Alex

Alex is a retail store manager whose day is divided among attending meetings, reviewing store performance metrics, coordinating product refreshes, preparing presentations, and interviewing prospective employees. With so many tasks to do and only a finite number of hours in the day, Alex relies heavily on Microsoft Teams to get everything done–from recruiting and training staff to collaborating with vendors and developing marketing campaigns. View the infographic for a play-by-play account of Alex’s day and how Teams enables him to get things done quickly and efficiently.

View: Spend a day in the life with retail store manager Alex

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Are your customers on a true path to purchase–or are they just ambling along without direction? Subscribe today, and stay informed on how Microsoft Dynamics 365 can help elevate and transform your customers’ journey by creating consistent, personalized experiences along the entire purchase path.

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Airport security officer-turned-developer helps Heathrow book a faster journey to digital transformation


At Heathrow Airport, an airplane takes off every 45 seconds and nearly 80 million passengers are served annually, making it the busiest airport in Europe. As you might imagine, daily activities involved in running the airport–such as baggage handling, security, maintenance, and the like–add up to a staggering volume of paperwork that requires an equally staggering number of hours to complete. Amidst the bustle, one security officer identified a way that Heathrow could save both time and resources by digitizing certain security processes. He researched several Microsoft Power Platform blogs, taught himself how to code, and used Power BI, Power Apps, and Microsoft Flow to create a suite of apps that has not only saved 288 hours in data entry and eliminated 11,000 sheets of paper for security operations, but has also helped Heathrow Airport leap forward on its digital transformation journey. Watch the video to see how airport security officer Samit Saini helped transform Heathrow–and his own career–using Microsoft Power Platform.

Customer Story: Clifton Coffee Recap


From the start, leaders at Clifton Coffee Roasters (CCR) knew they wanted to go beyond just roasting coffee. They wanted to empower other coffee companies to succeed. Now they provide technical support, delivery service, and back-of-house training to coffee shops across the UK, in addition to providing all of the products needed to run a coffee company.

But it wasn’t always that way. In the company’s early days, the team had a difficult time coming together, with employees scattered across the UK and no reliable means to connect them. Once they adopted a teamwork solution to improve internal communication, teamwork became easy and the business took off. The rest is history.

Want to take cues from CCR’s teamwork game? Contact us for help getting started.

Travel Counsellors Upgrade from On-Premise CRM to Microsoft Dynamics 365


Travel Counsellors Ltd. is an independent travel company headquartered in Manchester, England with more than 1,800 travel counselors operating in seven countries around the world. One of the company’s most important strategies for growth is to recruit more travel counselors globally–but to maximize this strategy, the company needed to move from on-premises Microsoft Dynamics to cloud-based Dynamics 365, an implementation spearheaded by Microsoft partner Alithya. But rather than sit on the sidelines while Alithya did all the work, Travel Counsellors tapped into Alithya’s unique methodology to empower a team internally to run the project, and relied on Alithya’s oversight, expertise, and experience to ensure that its internal team was doing things according to best practices to make the implementation as smooth as possible. Watch the video to see how this innovative approach to deploying Dynamics 365 helped Travel Counsellors achieve its strategic goals while learning CRM implementation from an inside, hands-on perspective.

How NASCAR team Hendrick Motorsports uses Microsoft Teams to win races


Unlike any other competition, NASCAR is a sport where just one second of time can mean the difference between first place and a distant tenth. As such, racing teams like Hendrick Motorsports are always searching for ways to squeeze out another fraction of a second in performance. When NASCAR changed its rules to open up access to different data streams from each car–such as speed, brake level, and throttle position, coupled with GPS location–Hendrick needed a solution for generating actionable insights from this real-time telemetry information, and for sharing this information in real time with various stakeholders. To achieve this high-speed collaboration, Hendrick turned to Microsoft Teams for its efficient communication capabilities accessible in a single, convenient location, and for the solution’s enterprise-grade, end-to-end security. Watch the video to see how Hendrick Motorsports is using Microsoft Teams to translate real-time racing telemetry into lightning-fast decisions and faster race car performance.

Investing in a CRM solution? Follow these 7 steps for a successful implementation.

For many organizations and their management teams, the mere mention of customer relationship management (CRM) inspires immediate fear and disillusionment. Far too numerous are the stories from companies across all industries about failed implementations, wasted money and time, and overly frustrated sales executives. But it doesn’t have to be that way, according to a Forbes article entitled “Seven Steps For Successful CRM Implementation.” In the article, author Marc Emmer asserts that past frustrations and failures with CRM implementation have little to do with technology, and more to do with the culture of the organization attempting to implement it. Read the full article to discover what Mr. Emmer feels are the seven keys to successfully deploying and utilizing CRM.

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6 ways you’re getting teamwork wrong

All it takes to put together a winning team is finding the most talented people possible, assigning them to the same project, telling them the requirements and deadline, and then letting them run wild…right? Not so, says Sharon Florentine–in fact, far from it. In her article for CIO magazine entitled “6 ways you’re getting teamwork wrong,” Ms. Florentine draws a clear distinction between assumption and reality when it comes to teamwork, outlining what it really takes to assemble a truly superb group for getting the job done. Check out the full article before you put together your next mission-critical team.

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