As small teams grow, the way they manage day-to-day work starts to change. What starts as a few conversations in Outlook or Teams soon turns into a steady flow of enquiries, quotes, delivery work and customer communication. At that point, it becomes more difficult to see what’s been done, what’s in progress and what still needs attention.

For teams with fewer than 10 users and no dedicated system in place, this often shows up as missed follow-ups, duplicated effort and gaps in visibility across sales, projects and marketing.

What happens when there’s no central system

Many small teams still rely on spreadsheets, inboxes, Teams messages and shared folders to manage their workload.

When too much time is spent chasing updates, checking spreadsheets or retracing conversations, admin starts to take over. Work becomes harder to coordinate, decisions take longer and opportunities lose momentum.

Why many small teams rule out Dynamics 365

For a long time, Microsoft Dynamics 365 wasn't a good fit for small teams.

It was powerful and flexible, but too expensive and too complex. By the time you added new licences, configuration and redesign, it was more than most businesses with under ten users needed or could afford.

The good news is that Dynamics 365 no longer has to be an all-or-nothing decision. You can start small, focus on what matters most and build from there as the business grows.

The Lite approach: Sales Lite, Project Lite and Marketing Lite

The Lite range is a set of fixed-scope packages built on Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Each one is designed to give small teams the core features they need, without the complexity of a full-scale CRM programme.

Sales Lite

Sales Lite gives small teams a clear view of the pipeline and what needs action, without the cost or complexity of features they don’t need.

Sales Lite includes:

• Lead, account and opportunity management with a clear view of the sales pipeline

• Import of existing accounts, contacts and leads

• Integration with Outlook, Teams and SharePoint for day-to-day collaboration and document management

• Mobile access, including business card scanning

• A fixed deployment that gets you live in seven days, with recorded training for reporting, users and system administration

• Up to 15 custom fields, configured in a live session so the system fits how your team works and can be maintained internally

Project Lite

If you deliver client work, Project Lite keeps delivery tracking alongside your customer and sales information, so everything sits in one place.

With Project Lite, you get:

• A single view from lead through to project delivery and completion (within Dynamics 365 / Power Platform)

• Deliverables or workstreams to plan and track work independently

• Tasks, milestones and key dates to keep delivery moving

• Simple risk tracking, including RAG status

• Resource tracking with time and effort recording (timesheets)

• Clear reporting for quick weekly status updates

• Optional finance tracking, such as orders and invoices, in the Dynamics version

Marketing Lite

Marketing Lite is for small teams that want more structure around their marketing activity, without taking on an enterprise-scale platform. It focuses on managing contacts, campaigns and engagement in one place, with tools to plan activity, automate routine tasks and track what's working.

Marketing Lite covers:

• Account and contact management to keep marketing data organised

• Email marketing with templates and basic personalisation

• Campaign automation and triggers based on customer interactions

• Segmentation to target messages more accurately

• Social media management to plan, schedule and report across major platforms

• Configurable dashboards, including web page visit tracking

• Marketing forms that connect into your CRM for accurate data capture

What changes once a Lite package is in place

With Sales Lite, lead, account and opportunity details are captured and updated in one place, rather than being spread across emails and spreadsheets. This gives teams a clearer view of the pipeline and what needs action. Quotes and follow-ups can be managed consistently, with customer history easy to access.

With Project Lite, delivery tasks, milestones and timelines are tracked alongside the customer and sales information the work originated from. This makes handovers clearer and gives everyone visibility of what's in progress, without switching between tools.

With Marketing Lite, contacts and campaign activity are linked back to account records, making it easier to see which activity is generating interest and where follow-up is needed. Marketing performance sits alongside sales and customer data.

Next Steps

If you’re planning to grow your business, spreadsheets and inboxes quickly reach their limits. A CRM helps you handle more volume, more customers and more complexity without losing control.

For UK businesses with fewer than 10 users, the Lite packages provide a practical starting point for Microsoft Dynamics 365, beginning with Sales Lite and expanding into Project Lite or Marketing Lite as needed.

We’re running a session with our partner Cloud9 to walk through the Lite options. We’ll show what a Lite implementation actually looks like in practice. How long it takes, what's included, and where it fits for teams that want more control without committing to a full CRM programme.

Join us for our webinar, Fast, Affordable, Scalable D365 for SMBs on Tuesday 24 February at 11:00 am. Or get in touch to book a demo.

Call us: 0808 164 4142

Message us: https://www.grantmcgregor.co.uk/contact-us