Microsoft Business Applications Influencers to Follow

Steve Clayton

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Starting his career at Microsoft as a technical pre-sales engineer, Steve took it upon himself to blog about the story of Microsoft from inside. After a few years and thousands of posts, he was invited to move from London to Seattle and join the communications team to tell his stories in an official capacity. As Chief Storyteller and General Manager of the Innovation, Culture and Stories team, Steve is responsible for communicating Microsoft’s culture and innovation through storytelling. In this recent article from PR Daily, Steve offers five tips to ramp up your storytelling.

As Corporate Vice President of Business Applications & Global Industry, Alysa is leading the product marketing teams that are accelerating digital transformation and customers’ and partners’ success via the adoption of Microsoft Business Applications. In her recent talk at Microsoft Inspire, Alysa highlighted the change that is happening across all industries and that a modern approach is necessary for companies to stay relevant. In fact, 91% of business leaders see digital transformation as a way of sparking innovation and finding efficiencies. 64% say they have less than 4 years to complete a Digital Transformation or they may go out of business. 

As a principal architect at Hitachi Solutions and 12 time Microsoft MVP, Joel has lead hundreds of successful Dynamics 365 deployments. He is one of the founders of CRM Audio a network of podcasts about Dynamics 365, and along with fellow MVPs George Doubinski, Shawn Tabor, Scott Sewell, and productivity expert Matthew C. Anderson, “cover everything from roundtable discussions of all things CRM.” Joel is also co-creator of CRM Tip of the Day where he together with George Doubinski, Derik Bormann, Jerry Weinstock, and Leon Tribe, offer daily advice for navigating the platform.

The author of over 50 books and guides on Microsoft Technologies, Murray is a global black belt for Dynamics 365, supporting national sales of the Dynamics 365 platform and evangelizing all of the Microsoft technologies. In his blog A Tinkerers Notebook, Murray takes you on a journey of practical insight, tips, and experiments in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Whether you are a newbie or veteran Dynamics user, make sure you follow Murray to maximize the potential of your workflow. 

Using his experience in customer success and executing go-to-market strategy, Rob empowers Sales and Business Development teams to reach customers who are on their digital transformation path with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Want to learn how companies are utilizing MSD 365 in their daily operations? Follow Rob to read customer stories and discover strategies that you can implement in your organization. 

As Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, Elisabeth is a great source of updates and new offerings, and how the product is continually evolving to meet the demands of today’s digital customer. Her recent post on the Sales Insights application highlights the latest AI and Relationship selling capabilities that can dramatically impact sales and business outcomes. 

Jason has been voted a Microsoft Dynamics MVP for CRM and is extremely passionate about the platform. His blog Cosmans’ Dynamics 365 Blog and social media feeds offer tons of practical advice on using the platform in various scenarios.

If you want to better understand how Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps organizations align Sales and Marketing, make sure you check in with Anantha Ramachandran. Anantha posts numerous case studies of companies from many industries who are seeing tangible results in their Sales and Marketing efforts.

Donna has been working with Dynamics 365 business applications since the beginning with CRM version 1.2. Her blog is chock full of expert tips, articles, and interviews that help readers get a firm grasp of the platform. She also shares business logic that helps users make the most of their experience with Dynamics 365. Donna is a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), and a decade-long recipient of the Microsoft Business Applications MVP.

Playing a central role in the Dynamics 365 CRM UK user group, Andrew is part of a dedicated team of volunteers that facilitate all-day and evening events focusing on the CRM side of Dynamics 365. These events cover just about every aspect of the platform including technical sessions, the Dynamics 365 roadmap, demonstrations of new functionality, customer and vendor showcases, change management, user adoption advice, and more.  Andrew is also a Microsoft Business Applications MVP and posts tons of helpful insight on his channels.

As Group Program Manager at Microsoft, Satish is the Head of Product for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights. He is part of the founding team and responsible for the overall strategy and vision, engineering roadmap, customer/partner requirements, and business results. Follow his feed if you want to learn how Dynamics 365 Customer Insights can help you increase your sales and improve your business outcomes.

Better known as nz365guy, Microsoft Dynamics 365 MVP, Evangelist and Certified Trainer, Mark Smith has extensive knowledge of the platform and uses his understanding of business and software applications to demonstrate how technology can assist in digitally transforming organizations. As host of the Microsoft Business Applications Podcast, Mark offers weekly interviews, tips, and advice.

As “The CRM Lady,” Anne is on the front line helping businesses stay ahead of the technology curve. She has experience working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM since 2004, and her blog and feed offer insights on Microsoft Dynamics 365 straight from the field. This includes tips on Customer Engagement, project management, field services, customer service, sales, platform and more.

As a Microsoft Business Applications MVP, Steve nurtures his following by talking “the Good the Bad and the Ugly of business applications” in his podcast “Steve Reads his Blog.” Steve helps those who are too busy, or too lazy, to actually read his blog, which is a cornucopia of insight on how Microsoft Business Applications helps solve business problems. Since he can be found at many Microsoft events, make sure to follow his feed to learn where he will be, and maybe pick his brain.

Jukka actively shares the latest Dynamics 365 news, tips and insights on his Surviving CRM blog and social media profiles. He believes that the most important feature of Dynamics 365 is its user community, Working as Product Lead for Microsoft Business Application at Elisa, Jukka started working with Dynamics CRM in 2005. After managing a development team for global CRM system roll-outs and learning the ins & outs of the Dynamics CRM, Jukka joined a Microsoft partner organization to assume a senior CRM consulting role. In over 15 years Jukka has developed skills for viewing the related information systems through the eyes of the end-user and is focused on delivering solutions with high usability to ensure user adoption.