The MS Dynamic Academic Alliance conference in Barcelona focused this year from November, 30th to December, 2nd 2015 on new versions of the Microsoft products Dynamics CRM 2016 and Dynamics Navision 2016 that are now available as fully “cloud-based” versions. So enterprises do not need to have their own server infrastructure anymore. Rather, they can now fully base on application-services provided in the MS Azure Cloud. While MS CRM was already available in previous versions (since CRM v2013) as a cloud-based solutions, the availability of MS Dynamics Navision 2016 as a “Cloud-based” ERP-solution is a new variation of business-software offered by MS in the Azure-cloud.
Representatives from about 15 different European universities gathered for 3 days in Barcelona to discuss the use of MS Dynamics software for education in higher education study programs. ZHAW is using MS Dynamics Navision since 6 years in an ‘on-premise configuration’ for it’s course “CRM- and ERP-Systems in practical use”. Due to the specialized training exercises that are conducted during the lab-sessions, the use of a “cloud-based” solution was so far not considered “a suitable option”.
However, the transition to a new collaborative, CRM-based training solution for certain business-exercise-sessions and integrated courses was discussed amongst the conference-participants. By using a cloud-based version of MS Dynamics CRM 2016, multiple European universities could share efforts, exercise materials and even student-teams could cooperate cross-university for some type of “business-game” between different participants and study programs.
Currently a team of designated professors from different EU-universities are discussing/elaborating requirements, exercise-programs and training options and teaching goals to come up with a suitable solution that would allow different student teams to share a common MS CRM-infrastructure for a dedicated “business-game” with participants from different universities. ZHAW is collaborating in that project with Avans Hogeschool (Applied University; Netherlands), Hamk University (Applied University; Finland) and possible potential other candidates from Spain, Belgium, England and Romania. The initiative is open to welcome other university-members as well.
For further details and questions in relation with this initiative, please contact Pietro Brossi at ZHAW.