It was announced today that Doug Burgum is stepping down as head of Microsoft Business Sollutions, and will leave Microsoft next June. (See the story on the Seattle Times Microsoft page today.) Replacing him in the top spot is Satya Nadella, the corporate vice president formerly heading up the Microsoft Dynamics global development teams around the world. (If you don’t know, the MBS group develops and markets the line of Microsoft Dynamics products that manage financial, customer relationship and supply chain management functions for small and midsize businesses, large organizations and divisions of global enterprises.)
Doug Burgum is well known for running the Stampede partner conferences at what was Great Plains: when they started the Stampede 10 years ago, they hosted just over 100 customers and almost two dozen partners. In 2006, attendance was somewhere around 7,000. This from an interview done just a few months after Microsoft acquired Great Plains:
PressPass: The annual Stampede event brings together the entire family of partners — companies that sell, implement and support Microsoft Great Plains solutions. What impressions do you want them to come away with this year?
Burgum: “Stampede has been going for 16 years, and people who have had a chance to attend Stampede describe it as different from every other industry event. They always say it feels more like a family reunion than a conference. There’s a great sense of community within the broader Microsoft Great Plains ecosystem, partly because we are 100-percent dependent upon our partners for local sales, marketing and service. And they have great dependencies on us. Many of these partner organizations have built substantial businesses in their own right, so at Stampede you have 1,500 or more entrepreneurs who have a shared experience of growing up together, growing their businesses and dealing with all the challenges of being entrepreneurs. There’s a lot of esprit de corps and tightness in that community.
“Our longstanding mission is to improve the lives and business success of our partners and customers. That has not changed, and will not change.”
Doug is well-know as being dedicated to improving and providing the highest customer and partner experience. Satya follows that same lead. As I have said previously, just about everyone in the MBS/Dynamics business group is super involved and dedicated to ensuring that our customers and partners are satisfied. It’s hard to find a more dedicated group than MBS anywhere that is as interested and passionate about providing the best product and business experience for our customers.
Tags: microsoft, customer satisfaction, Doug Burgum, Satya Nadella, MBS.