Special message from Project & Visio Director Chris Crane
This morning, Kirk Koenigsbauer – Corporate Vice President of the Office Division Product Management Group – kicked off the Microsoft Project Conference 2012 in sunny Phoenix, Arizona with an opening keynote address. This year’s event celebrates the success of Project 2010 and showcases how it continues to evolve in order to meet the changing collaboration and project management needs within organizations of all sizes. At the heart of that evolution is Microsoft’s focus on an integrated platform wherein customers are better able to respond to industry trends (i.e. devices and the cloud) and have an opportunity to realize the benefits of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) beyond IT and into all areas of a business including Marketing, Finance and Resource & Development (as seen in Revlon’s example below).
Since its launch in May of 2010, Microsoft Project has quietly climbed to the top of the Project Portfolio Management market with over 20 million users of the Microsoft Project desktop to date. That’s one license sold every 20 seconds! And, analysts agree with Gartner giving its highest rating to Microsoft in the latest Marketscope for Project and Portfolio Management.
But, you don’t have to take our word for it! Eighty-two of the Fortune 100 are Microsoft Project customers and Revlon– a global cosmetics company headquartered in New York City – is one such company. With an excess of daily meetings, the company found that the productivity of its employees plummeted and, with 1.3 billion dollars’ worth of sales in 2010 alone, it stood to lose a lot due to inefficiencies. The Revlon IT department was looking for a way to optimize its project planning, reduce the number of meetings and bridge the gap between developers and project managers by improving the transparency of project data.
Enter Microsoft Project Server 2010. Revlon implemented the technology in addition to the Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack. Bringing both into the organization produced a wealth of improved efficiencies including up to 30% less time in meetings, productivity gains of 2-5% and improved risk management through better data. Perhaps Jacqueline Shannon – senior planner in program management for Revlon – said it best, “I think Microsoft Project Server 2010 is an incredible tool because it promotes accountability, timeliness and structure allowing us to focus more on our deliverables rather than reporting on our deliverables.” For more information regarding Revlon’s use of Project 2010 check out this video: http://aka.ms/zdniuj!
Another reason customers, like Revlon, value Project 2010 is for its improved integration and continuous innovation with Microsoft technologies like Exchange and SharePoint providing people with a familiar user interface and connected platform that they can use to manage all their work from the simplest to the most complex projects.
Please check out the Microsoft Project 2010 Customer Success page for more case studies. For more information about the Project Conference and a transcript of today’s keynote, please visit the Project Conference virtual press room.
Enjoy the conference!
Sincerely,
Chris Crane
Director, Project and Visio Product Marketing at Microsoft Corp.
A common ask from customers nowadays is to integrate their Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution with their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions to achieve end to end visibility into portfolios, projects, resources and finance. Microsoft Project Server 2010 offers an extensive and powerful platform that can easily be integrated with leading ERP, including out of the box integration with Microsoft Dynamics AX and SL. A number of PPM partners have built solutions that connects Project Server with other line of business applications, please check Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Solutions for the latest list.
In addition we have released the following white paper recently: Microsoft Project Server 2010 integration with SAP. This white paper, written by Advisicon, outlines the benefits and scenarios for integrating Microsoft Project Server 2010 with SAP’s ERP; in particular integrating the actual time reporting from SAP with the time-phased planning and resource forecasting power of Project Server 2010. This white paper illustrates one of the many options & approach to integrate Project Server with SAP. I also wrote this post on the same topic: Integrating Project Server 2010 with Line Of Business Applications.
Last but not least and to reinforce the points made above, please find below a list of sessions at our upcoming Microsoft Project Conference 2012 that will discuss PPM and ERP integration, don’t forget to register if you have not done so yet!
Need help finding Project Server documentation on TechNet? Watch this video to learn more about where to find Project Server content, what content is available, and how to provide feedback.
The Microsoft Project Conference 2012 has the largest Sponsor and Exhibitor momentum in the history of all Microsoft Project Conferences! We’d like express our gratitude to all sponsors & exhibitors who have committed to make this event a great success!
All sponsors (listed below) and exhibitors will be available in their booths to demonstrate how they contribute to the momentum of Project 2010!
In addition to standard expo hall hours all sponsors and exhibitors will be ready to greet you at the Welcome Reception Monday Evening – make sure to visit the Expo Hall to enjoy the food, drinks and networking!
If you have not registered for the Project Conference yet – check the reasons to attend and register!
The full list of Project conference Sponsors and Exhibitors.
See you in Phoenix!
Jan Kalis http://blogs.msdn.com/jkalis/