The Partner Channel Magazine_Winter 2018

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INTERVIEWEES Claude Watson (CEO) and David Durham (President and CFO) WEBSITE www.mcaconnect.com LOCATIONS Cincinnati, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Houston, Texas VAR PROFILE STRATEGIC VISION M CA Connect began as a charter Partner during the first Axapta training class in the United States back in the day. They continued that journey as Axapta and Navision were Claude Watson acquired by Microsoft. They took a big bet from day one to go all-in with Microsoft products, and that bet, whether good fortune or strategic vision (we’re thinking strategic vision here), has paid off in full. “Over the past four years, Microsoft Dynamics AX plus Microsoft Dynamics CRM have become the flagship business applications products for Microsoft, and we’ve ridden that wave as the two products merged to offer up Microsoft Dynamics 365,” explains Claude Watson, CEO of MCA Connect. MCA Connect has made very good decisions to get where they are today, all of which have been thanks to their approach in taking an industry vertical strategy to market and specializing in discrete manufacturing, energy, and field service. “We’ve always gone to market by industry, and instead of trying to scale by adding other technologies like Oracle or SAP, we have grown by staying true to our Microsoft roots, expanding David Durham our ERP service offerings into CRM/XRM, Power BI, and Azure IoT, plus application hosting offerings on the Azure cloud platform. Going forward, it is likely that we will continue to scale by penetrating adjacent verticals like process manufacturing, distribution, and professional services,” shares David Durham, president and CFO of MCA Connect. In addition to undergoing company acquisitions and a major rebrand the past few years, MCA Connect is bringing in awards left and right. They were named Microsoft Dynamics Services Partner of the Year for the U.S. in July 2017. “We are grateful that Microsoft recognizes us,” Claude shares. “This is our sixth worldwide Partner award, and we’re very proud of it.” 24 WINTER 2018 | THEPARTNERCHANNEL.COM
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES 150 to 200 COMPANY GROWTH RATE 20 to 25 percent year over year “” “If you get too aggressive with growth, quality suffers.” – Claude Watson, CEO of MCA Connect The Partner Channel (TPC): Congratulations on your recent Microsoft Award! Why do you think Microsoft recognizes your company’s greatness? Claude Watson (CW): In addition to our vertical focus, we chase opportunities where we add value and where we can win. We have always focused on what we’re good at and not being everything to all clients. We’ve worked hard to develop that reputation with Microsoft. If we make an investment in a sales pursuit, we do so because we are confident we will win. We even say no to a lot of opportunities, because we don’t feel we’re the right Partner for them. David Durham (DD): That reputation is especially helpful now as Microsoft’s sales organization undergoes a major restructuring. The account executives across Microsoft who are new to selling Microsoft Dynamics are trying to figure out which Partners to align with, and hopefully this recent award will help put us top of mind. TPC: How has Microsoft’s sales reorg affected MCA Connect this year? DD: Microsoft Dynamics used to be a business within a business. All we had to do as a Microsoft Dynamics Partner was interact with the U.S. Dynamics representatives at Microsoft. Now they are mainstreaming Microsoft Dynamics with the reorg so that Dynamics 365 is offered broadly. Instead of us dealing with just a few hundred people at Microsoft, we’re connecting with and dealing with thousands of people. TPC: You’re definitely no stranger to change. What is your motto for staying fresh as a software company? DD: Change or die. We reinvent the business every 12 to 18 months so that we remain relevant to Microsoft. We believe that Microsoft will continue the trend of doing more business with fewer/bigger Partners, and as a private company with no outside investors to please or answer to, we feel like we can be a bit nimbler than some of the larger, global players that are entering the space. CW: Scale matters. TPC: What kind of market opportunities do you focus on at MCA Connect? CW: Our long-term growth strategy is and always has been going to market around industry. We are solely a Microsoft shop, so we try to broaden the types of solutions that we deliver to verticals by leveraging Microsoft products. As Microsoft mainstreams Dynamics, it aligns with our broader strategy to bring all of Microsoft to our clients. DD: Yes, our industry focus has been the catalyst for growth and our success, and we continue to broaden the services we offer those current clients. Historically it was ERP; now we can provide enterprise-wide solutions and leverage all that Microsoft has to offer. We can scale the breadth of our services and logically move into adjacent verticals, like distribution and professional services, without any hiccups. For example, manufacturing helped us branch into energy and then into field service. TPC: What does MCA Connect’s story look like moving into 2018? DD: 2018 will be an extension of our strategy of the past few years. We now have scale in the practice areas that were major investments in 2015 and 2016, namely strategy and managed services, and we intend to capitalize on those investments and accelerate our growth. The success of those investments would not have been possible without Microsoft’s technology roadmap and the success of Dynamics 365 and the Azure intelligent cloud platform. CW: As Microsoft continues to invest in the cloud, we will follow suit, especially around predictive analytics. Power BI users still need more than a dashboard, so we are working to help users gather their data and write some more helpful predictive algorithms. DD: Microsoft has developed a tremendous cloud and digital transformation story. We plan to extend our core capabilities around ERP, CRM, and business analytics and deliver incremental value to our customers leveraging Microsoft’s intelligent cloud platform. TPC: What do you love most about the Microsoft Dynamics channel? CW: I’ve worked with other publishers in the past, and Microsoft has the most Partner-friendly culture. They work with Partners on everything. Other publishers tend to cherry-pick the best opportunities and Partners get the table scraps, but Microsoft has been a true partner to their Partners. THEPARTNERCHANNEL.COM | WINTER 2018 25
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