Aug 30, 2018
Sometimes people ask me where I come up with post ideas, here's one
way. I saw a LinkedIn post today from a recruiter, suggesting the
use of "freelancers" for Dynamics 365, and presumably other
Microsoft Business Applications. While freelancers may have a place
in the process, there are some very good reasons, that you should
seriously consider an actual Microsoft Business Applications
Partner instead.
Freelancers
I don't have anything against someone looking to make a buck. We're
all in business to do that. But, whether a freelancer is a true
"hired gun", or someone who is simply moonlighting on the side,
they are, by their nature, an individual person. There is no
requirement to pass any certification, or get any license, to post
out there that you are available as a freelancer. There is no
government, or other body, ensuring that you have any idea of what
you are doing. It is a classic "Buyer Beware" situation. As a
partner, we engage freelancers from time to time, and we have found
it to be a mixed bag. If a partner, who knows exactly what a true
skill-set looks like, can end up with mixed results, end customers
must rely on pure luck. Last year we engaged a freelancer for
something outside of our wheelhouse. We reviewed his list of great
customer recommendations, since that is really all we had to
analyze, and moved forward with this project. Fortunately, this was
an internal project, as the freelancer did a shit job across the
board. I gave him an unsatisfactory review on the site where we
found him, wondering how he had so many good ones. Immediately he
called me, begging me to remove the negative review, even promising
to work for free for as long as I needed, and even offered to
refund what we had paid, to get me to change the review. Of course
he sucked, so more sucky work for free did not persuade me to
change the review, but I guess this must have worked with all of
his other customers in the past.
Why Freelancers?
We, like most customers, will sometimes have a need for skills that
we do not possess. Freelancers are one path, if you are lucky, to
obtain those skills. The customers in the past that I have seen
turn to freelancers for Microsoft Business Applications, are the
same ones that try to avoid engaging partners at all. In most of
these cases, I am fairly sure that the customer does not even
understand what a Microsoft Partner does, and simply thinks they
are some kind of middle-man. These are the same customers who buy
their licenses directly, with no understanding of what licenses
they actually need, and always end paying way too much for them.
They also have no grasp of how all of the Microsoft Cloud pieces
fit together, and hire some freelancer who only understands a
narrow slice, and then wonder why the end up with a mess.
Bail outs
I, and many of my partner peers, have been asked to bail out many
failed self-deployments, often where freelancers were used to plug
gaps. In almost every case, the first thing that we discover is the
customer is on the wrong licensing matrix. They are either paying
way more than they need to be, or they are using licenses in the
wrong way, and are significantly out of compliance with license
terms (Team Member anyone). Turning to the actual work that was
done, even if the freelancer was good at one thing, they seldom
took advantage of everything else the customer had in place. Often,
their methods were simply out-of-date, since they are not
up-to-speed on everything that Partners are made aware of. In
many cases, they built a house of cards, that ended up costing
twice as much to dismantle, as it would have to do it right in the
first place. When the customer found themselves in a mess, the
freelancer had no channel for advanced Microsoft support, nor did
the customer, and they found themselves on the other end of the
line with a person, with an incomprehensible accent, asking them if
their machine was turned on. I have difficult time feeling
sympathetic to this customer, and really lose my shit if they start
saying the product is bad.
Why Partner?
To be fair, not every Microsoft Partner is stellar either. In the
Microsoft Business Applications space, we have our share of
unqualified partners, who instead of referring a customer to a
qualified partner, will attempt to learn on the customer's nickel.
Fortunately, they are easy to spot thanks to Microsoft. Microsoft
has long used a system of "Competencies", a certification from
Microsoft that a partner knows what they are doing. Obtaining a
competency requires having people in your partner organization pass
multiple proctored certification exams, as well as having a
significant number of successful deployments. By the way, there is
no such thing as a Freelancer with a Competency, these are awarded
to Partner organizations, not individuals. You should also be aware
that there are many Microsoft "competencies", and just because you
are talking to a partner who has their "Microsoft Gold Competency
for Licensing" for example, does not mean they know anything more
than you do, about Business Applications. Most of the partners I
know, that have their Business Applications competency, really know
the product well. In addition, as Business Applications are so
central to what Microsoft is doing in the cloud, they also
understand all of the surrounding parts, and how they work
together. The Partner licensing guide for Business Applications is
over 140 pages, that only a Business Applications partner could
even understand. Most importantly, if something does go wrong,
Business Applications partners have access to advanced Microsoft
support resources to get things fixed quickly.
The Top Level
If you really want to insure success, there is one more step you
can take beyond making sure the partner organization has their
Business Applications Competency, and that is MVP status. The
Microsoft
Most Valuable
Professional (MVP) designation is an individual award. It is
given to individuals who are at the top of their game in whatever
category they are awarded. One of those categories is "Business
Applications MVP". I am humbled to be a part of this exclusive
group of the true "brain trust" for Microsoft Business
Applications, along with 161 other exceptional individuals from
around the globe. MVPs are the people who are really on the
forefront, as Microsoft continuously consults directly with them on
the products. In fact, for anything you might want to do with any
Microsoft product, including Business Applications, you might want
to save some steps, and just start your search
here.