Deploying and evolving your Microsoft solution risks your operations becoming wedded to Partners and contractors indefinitely and at huge cost. Here’s how to source, train and retain the right inhouse talent at the right cost so you can take back control.
The opportunities offered by Microsoft’s solutions are substantial, even game changing, for your sales, marketing and customer services. It’s why you invested in your Dynamics 365/Power Platform in the first place.
Yet there is a potential ‘catch’ that wasn’t flagged up in the sales literature: Many companies are caught out by the cost of the specialist personnel required. Not only to implement the solution, but to evolve it to remain business relevant.
Why Partners, contractors and ad-hoc hires are not long-term solutions
To combat the issue, you might consider employing a full-time staff member to maintain the solution. The most obvious choice – hiring in a permanent intermediate or senior consultant – is difficult. Almost all consultants prefer to contract their services to multiple organisations. They rarely commit to a single salaried role.
Alternatively, you might choose to rely on your Partner although this is problematic as well. While ideal for setting up your solution, Partners are typically far too expensive in the long-term.
Finally, you could decide to train up an existing or new employee quickly. That route is fraught with risks though. Apart from, which training programmes to use, the employee may decide to go contracting once their training is complete.
These roadblocks represent a genuine challenge to business. It threatens to turn that transformational Microsoft solution into a sponge that drains budgets, resources, employee buy-in, and boardroom support.
The three ‘E’s of Dynamics 365/Power recruitment led problems
To successfully overcome such challenges, companies must step back and rethink their strategy. They are fixed by focusing on the three problems impacting a Dynamics 365/Power Platform solution the most – a lack of expertise, escalating expense, and poor engagement:
1. Expertise
The Problem
A common mistake made by organisations is to overly focus on implementation and neglect how it will run in the future. Here’s what typically happens:
The company looks to a Partner to implement the solution. They expect high costs for the privilege because most deliver an exceptional service and proven results. Once the maintenance and optimisation process begins though, the Partner route becomes hugely expensive.
The company brings in Contractors to do maintenance instead of the Partner in an attempt to reduce the financial burden. Though contractors are still expensive, this does cut down costs. Continuity is the issue. After 1-2 years, the contractor typically leaves for several different reasons. These can include IR35 management headaches, boredom because they want a new challenge, or they don’t feel part of something 'bigger’ (see ‘Engagement’ entry below). This leaves the company needing to source another contractor who must be trained up in the way it does things.
The company turns to recruiting a specialist to work inhouse on a permanent contract. Often the right person cannot be found. If someone is hired, given the pay differential with contracting, the temptation is always there to leave meaning any salaried position needs to offer the same remuneration. No cost saving is made.
Once the penny drops (or several hundred of thousands of them from the annual budget) the organisation is left with what appears to be an insurmountable personnel problem.
The Solution
Ideally, companies address the expertise gap during the Dynamics 365/Power Platform’s planning phase. Solutions are a service that uses technology rather than technology to provide a service. That means a business plan that factors in growth and employee succession. While the business plan includes implementation costs by the Partner and any initial maintenance by contractors, it also needs the costs of permanent personnel.
The key here is to identify people with the right aptitude.
If already an employee, is the candidate a super user who is passionate about working with the solution? If the candidate is expected to run a team, do they already support people within their existing role? By properly vetting candidates, the right person can be identified and enrolled into training courses to build out the knowledge and skill sets they need to eventually take over from Partners and Contractors.
No matter where you are on your Dynamics 365/Power Platform journey, it's never too late to change your recruitment strategy. Sourcing the talent needed to reduce costs is an ongoing business need.
Learn how to identify the right candidate for your Dynamics 365 & Power Platform operations with 365 InHouse's recruitment guide. Request it here.
2. Expense
The Problem
Companies typically spend an average of £1,000 for a Partner consultant per day and £600 for an independent consultant to implement solutions. As SaaS platforms are sold on their flexibility and scalability, costs soon mount up as the solution evolves. The escalating expense creates a dilemma. Either spend more money on contractors with the right skill set to make it work OR cut corners by under-servicing the solution to save on costs.
The Solution
It’s why that candidate – who will cost far less than an existing consultant – is so critical. Yet they need the skill set of contractors to make the solution evolution a success. This is why their training programme is core to future success. The employee’s training should focus on three core areas:
Process
Business Analysis and Project Management skill sets
People
Change Management skill sets
Technology
Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Azure skill sets
Some training courses also offer third party specialist mentors who the employee can liaise with to seek guidance about best practice. While training is a cost, a permanent employee with the expertise of a contractor is a significantly lower expense in the long-term.
Extrapolate that out to an entire team made up of salaried onsite specialists, and the potential for savings of tens – or even hundreds – of thousands a year are achievable.
3. Engagement
The Problem
You have one fully-trained consultant on the payroll. That’s great news. Then the inevitable happens: the employee decides that they can charge more by going contracting and leaves. It means all that money, time and resources have been wasted and the recruitment process must start again. More expense and delays.
The Solution
Keeping valuable staff is one of the hardest jobs in any company. Engagement is actually a business continuity issue. Consequently, we return back to the need for a business plan as personnel is core to a Dynamics 365 & Power Platform service.
The core areas to address here are:
Personal growth: One of the great fears of Dynamics 365 & Power Platform experts is that their skills will atrophy if they stay. Embedding training as part of the employee contract (which reimburses costs if they do leave) is useful to companies. Yet the genuine incentive to remain is investment in continued personal development. Ongoing training and mentoring to ensure knowledge and skill sets are acquired that are difficult to obtain elsewhere.
Remuneration: Everyone likes being paid for the value delivered. As skill sets expand and deepen, salary growth in line with current market rates is potent for retention. From a budgetary point of view, this scaled approach is still far more cost effective than hiring in contractors or Partners.
Belonging: Growth can also come through a sense of community and ownership that comes with roots. These are things that can they never hope to achieve through contracting. Managerial autonomy, including their own team, gives a sense of direct, positive impact made across the entire company.
All three of the areas reinforce each other. Not enough support; people walk. Not enough reward; people walk. Not enough recognition; people walk. It is a balance. Structuring and costing each in a business plan as the Dynamics 365 & Power Platform solution evolves is critical to successful engagement.
Collaborate with a trusted Dynamics 365 Partner to take total control of costs
To help companies struggling with Dynamics 365/Power Platform costs and planning, 365 InHouse, a boutique Microsoft Gold Partner and Microsoft Learning Partner, has created the Consultant Power-Up Course and Accelerator Package. Both have been specifically designed to address the three ‘E’s of education, expense and engagement.
We can help you identify the right candidate for your business before enrolling them in the interactive Consultant Power-Up Course. We also assign them a mentor if required. The course teaches the candidate the business analysis, change management and project management skills they need to transform from a Dynamics 365 & Power Platform newcomer into a Consultant – and beyond.
While the candidate’s training is delivered via our Consultant Power-Up course, 365 InHouse’s Accelerator package ensures your Microsoft solution and in-house team remains fully supported and optimised at all times. This unique combination of offerings ensures you will always have access to the tailored support you need – without ever taking a gamble on the future success of your Microsoft solution.
Take Control
Learn more about how 365 InHouse can help you curb costs while increasing your control over your Dynamics 365 and Power Platform solution by contacting us here.
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