Chancellor George Osborne is confident that Britain has left the recession behind, and that the economy is growing. If we focus in on the Microsoft Dynamics industry here in the UK and US, though, how is it fairing in the post-recession climate? In this post, we take a balanced look to see how the Dynamics industry is doing. 

Microsoft stock is ready to skyrocket

Although it might well be the case that Microsoft’s second-quarter earnings disappointed investors – enough to reduce the share price by 10% in one day on January 26^th (2015), the problems are simply the result of declining Windows sales (13% year on year).

The corporation’s cloud operation, however, is going from strength to strength. Cutting the workforce and refocusing Microsoft on the Azure cloud platform, as well as Microsoft Dynamics, Power BI, Office 365 and more have shown that the company is capable of responding to global technology and consumer trends.

With the share price low, investors are buying up bullishly. For example, Charles W. Scharf, a member on Microsoft’s board, acquired 23,612 shares at an average price of $42.32 per share – totaling just shy of $1 million. We predict more investments of this type, and with investor confidence comes stock price increase. Naturally, this is bound to create more opportunities both within the wider Microsoft group, and specifically in those cloud-oriented areas like Microsoft Dynamics.

Broadening the Dynamics portfolio

The strengthening of Microsoft’s position over the past year has been mostly due to CEO Satya Nadella’s ability to diversify and focus the company’s offerings in crucial areas like Microsoft Dynamics. A focus on “in the cloud and on mobile” has been one of Nadella’s core principles as CEO, and this has guided the corporation to product and service diversification.

This year will see Microsoft Dynamics CRM patch in their Online and On-Premises features, integrate marketing with Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, and Microsoft Parature. In addition, Windows 10 will be released to market for free to Windows 7 and 8 owners, with greater integration with Azure, Cortana, Office 365 and Xbox.

What this means is that these new releases are helping to create a cloud-first, mobile-driven environment, one in which Microsoft has already been extremely profitable. This will naturally increase demand for these services and products, and with demand comes the requirement for jobs.  

New dimensions to Dynamics

As well as adding on to existing products, Microsoft is developing a range of additional technologies – all that feed into Azure, inventing whole new industries for those in the developer and Dynamics communities.

Two excellent examples of this are Microsoft CityNext, and Microsoft Power BI. CityNext uses big data, mobile and social technologies to solve problems like budget restrictions, population expansion and citizen service requirements in cities across the world. Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence suite that allows users to access, share, and collaborate on Excel documents remotely on any device.

This growth in Microsoft’s cloud based services has bared profitable fruit. For 2014, the company saw $10,323,000,000 in the 3 months ending March 31^st, an increase in 3% over the previous year’s figure. Were expecting similar growth this year. 

These technologies are custom developed to the end user, and it takes savvy, creative and intelligent developers to create the bespoke solutions. Therefore, Microsoft is driving the growth in developer and Dynamics jobs through the delivery of new cloud-oriented technologies.

Better opportunity for UK Dynamics professionals

With the future of Microsoft Dynamics looking promising, it seems as though the future prospects of UK and US Dynamics professionals are similarly bright. If you’re a Dynamics professional based in the UK or US and you’d like to keep up with the industry, join us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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