A Christmas Story – Past, Present and Future

Christmas Past:

“Bother!” said Father Christmas, his spirits sinking. “It’s that time of year again.” And with each passing year, it seemed, the challenges grew.

More children to buy and manufacture presents for. More children’s letters to process. More children for him to remember what he’d given them last year, so as to not give them the same things again. And more children to deliver presents to—taxing the increasingly weary reindeer ever further.

Plus of course, the workforce. More pesky elves to hire as seasonal helpers—and to make sure that they did actually get on with the job, and help, and not slope off to play with the toys.

He was getting too old for this, he sighed. But that was always the problem with businesses such as his: nothing ever got easier, and each year the challenges became greater. 

Suddenly, there was a flash of green light, and a tiny elf-like creature materialised in front of him.

“Good heavens!” said Father Christmas. “Who on earth are you?”

“I’m the Good elfer from eBECS,” came the cheerful reply. “And I’ve come to help.”

The elf turned away for a moment, and blew loudly on a bugle.

“OK team! Time for action! Let’s get moving.”

Nothing happened for a moment, and then the shimmering haze reappeared, this time in the form of a tunnel, out of which trooped a dozen or so elves. The final elf, his pockets jangling with gold coins, was called Ballmer, and towed behind him on a trolley what looked suspiciously like a computer.

Christmas Present:

 “This is his last delivery, as it happens,” said the elf. “He’s retiring after this job, to spend more time with his money.”

“Good lord!” exclaimed Father Christmas. “But what job is that? What are you going to do?”

The elf patiently explained the plan. They were eBECS elves, he said, and were going to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

“It will all be very different,” promised the elf “You’ve got the best of the best working for you—we’re always winning awards. You’ll be up and running in no time.” He sounded his bugle again, the sign for the elves to start work.

“High ho! High ho! It’s off to work we go,” they sang, as they fanned out through the organisation, clipboards at the ready, taking notes and drawing up best practices.

Christmas Future

 “Gosh,” mused Father Christmas. “It’s that time of year again.”

And so it was: yet again, another twelve months had rolled by. But Christmas more or less ran itself, these days.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM handled all the incoming letters, and remembered which children had received which presents. Microsoft Dynamics AX handled all the ordering and manufacturing, and kept tabs on the pesky elves. The elves from eBECS had even rustled up a route planning and optimisation solution, which had pleased the reindeer no end.

But something was missing, realised Father Christmas. It was just as the elf had promised: freed from the day-to-day grind of organising Christmas, he could see questions that needed answering, and opportunities to be pursued.