Barhead Solutions announced its Finance & Operations (F&O) team has achieved the Microsoft Silver Competency for Cloud Business Applications Unified Operations option, showcasing the results of a growth strategy for its F&O business unit that was built from the ground up only a year ago.
The Silver Competency demonstrates Barhead’s expertise in Microsoft’s cloud business applications. To qualify, consultants and developers must have acquired a combination of Core Finance and Operations and Microsoft Dynamics certifications that serve as proof a Microsoft partner can harness the full capabilities of Microsoft’s suite of business applications. This is in addition to completing new large-scale deployments with a minimum number of monthly active users as well as facilitating functional consultants’ growth.
Jennifer Maritz, the General Manager of Barhead’s F&O business unit, says the Silver Competency is a direct result of the F&O team achieving the goals Barhead set for its newly established business unit. She says, ‘When Barhead established the F&O team, we wanted to do two things: build a customer base, and create a team with the right skills to deliver projects for clients. We managed to achieve both in a short amount of time.’
Investing in the right people and creating a culture that fosters innovation were key to the F&O team achieving the Silver Competency within a year. Barhead has been focusing on hiring and training accountants for its F&O team to build trust with customers. In a show of commitment to its customers, the F&O team started training hired accountants during office hours, something not usually done even in the largest of companies. With their background in accounting and extensive training in advanced Microsoft technology solutions, Barhead F&O consultants have a deep understanding of customers’ needs and deliver results for their businesses.
“The trust our customers place in us and our commitment to helping them achieve the outcomes they’re after played a significant role in the F&O team’s growth and success.”
The Barhead F&O team’s achievement is made all the more notable by the fact the team is a little over a year old. Just a year after being established, the F&O team was able to deploy large-scale implementations for major players in the digital media, healthcare and employment service sectors, successfully meeting the Microsoft Silver Competency’s requirement of completing at least three new large-scale implementations and initiating at least one new large-scale implementation.
Maritz attributes the F&O team’s success to Barhead’s approach to enterprise resource planning implementations. She says, ‘The Barhead F&O team’s competitive edge is that we adopt an account ownership approach – we don’t focus on tasks; we focus on achieving business outcomes.’
In line with its outcomes-focused approach, the Barhead F&O team uses a ‘land and expand strategy’ when implementing solutions, so clients have a wider range of options when implementing Microsoft solutions in their workspace. Barhead’s F&O team also offers advisory services as part of its continuous support improvement services to help customers achieve their business goals, and to date, Barhead is one of the few consulting firms in Australia that offers this service.
These strategies have paid dividends for Barhead’s F&O team, and it plans on capitalising on the progress the team has made. In the first 12 months, the team has grown from almost nothing to 15% of Barhead’s total business. Maritz’s team is aiming to triple those numbers in the next two years.
