COUNT ON Your User Group for boosted confidence, competence, and connections

Summit 2016 kicked off today with over 6,500 Dynamics users, partners, and Microsoft employees in attendance. It’s our largest Summit event ever and the excitement/buzz is palpable. I’m leaving the Keynote completely energized and ready for the week ahead.

Dynamic Communities CEO, Andy Hafer, welcomed the User Group Board chairs to the stage to highlight the successes and growth each of the user groups have experienced this year in membership, Chapters and Summit attendance; these numbers are phenomenal. Overall, membership growth this year has been 22%. We are now more than 108,000 members strong across 19,500 organizations. This is one powerful community!

GPUG Chapters have seen a 22% increase in the average number of Chapter attendees at meetings and they added 24 new leaders and 5 new Chapters this year. NAVUG saw a Chapter growth of 57% in the last year. NAVUG has 4 chapters in Canada alone, but there are also Chapters across the globe, from the UK to Sweden, Denmark, and Italy. CRMUG has reached 84 Chapters globally now, which includes 6 Chapters in Australia. AXUG’s biggest Chapter meeting is the annual Midwest meeting in Fargo, ND with more than 150 attendees over 2 days.

And speaking of Summit growth, GPUG Summit attendance grew 48% compared to last year in Reno and 160% compared to last time we were in Tampa, FL. CRMUG Summit grew 70% compared to last year and 155% compared to last time in Tampa, FL. NAVUG grew 24% from last year and 130% compared to last time we were in Tampa, FL. AXUG attendance has always been big, but it did grow significantly again by more than 500 attendees. This year marks an exciting milestone for attendance. With the help of our User Group Boards, planning committees, and speakers, we are able to deliver unmatched training experiences for the growing base of Microsoft Dynamics users, so that you can leave Summit empowered as a better Dynamics user.

It was exciting to welcome Scott Guthrie, Microsoft Executive Vice President, Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group, to Summit this year. Guthrie shared the future direction of Microsoft Dynamics with Summit attendees and provided a first-look at Dynamics 365, which will be released in November.

Guthrie shared how Microsoft is enabling businesses to transform digitally and unveiled the next generation of intelligent business applications from Microsoft. Guthrie gave Summit attendees their first look at how these applications are helping businesses engage with their customers, empower employees, optimize operations and transform products.

We were also fortunate to hear an exciting message from Ray Wang, Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Constellation Research, Inc. Wang encouraged businesses to take advantage of data and intelligence and showed the impact on digital disruption trends.

Building off the excitement from the Opening Keynote, the opening Expo Reception was even bigger than in year’s past, featuring 230 sponsors, a marching band, fireworks, food, music, and networking. Summit attendees will have dedicated Expo hours throughout the week to network with our 230 sponsors and discuss ways to enhance their current system implementations with add-on products. We’re very grateful for the continued support of our sponsors and for their dedication to Dynamics users.

Tomorrow, bright and early, we kick off this exciting week with general sessions and the start of our 800+ breakout sessions. We look forward to hosting our Dynamics users and partners in Tampa, FL this week and can’t wait to share in these experiences and new successes with them.