Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions are the bedrock of many an organisation. Keeping track of essential customer communication, sales and marketing activities and outcomes is fundamental to a smooth-running business.
In terms of the number of solutions on offer, the CRM space is a crowded marketplace. However, in recent years, Microsoft has invested heavily in its Dynamics applications to turn them into cloud solutions, making the Dynamics 365 applications a lot more attractive to many more users. But does that mean Dynamics 365 could be a suitable CRM for your organisation?
Let’s consider a few basics.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a collection of business apps delivered from the Microsoft Azure Cloud.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) covers two solution areas: CRM and Finance & Operations. Under those umbrellas, there are a number of modules to address specific business functions.
For customer relationship management (CRM), Dynamics 365 offers:
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations
For finance and operations (something akin to the ERP space), Dynamics 365 offers:
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales is designed to enable salespeople to track correspondence, manage their accounts, contacts and day-to-day tasks and monitor their progress. Used in conjunction with LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Viva Insights it is very powerful.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing enables your marketing team to track all their activities across multiple channels in a single platform. As well as enabling your sales and marketing teams to work better together, you gain an improved view of marketing ROI and AI-enabled insights.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service integrates your customer service operations, helping staff to keep track of tasks and quickly access the information and insights they need to deliver better service.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service is a useful addition for any organisation which has engineers or maintenance staff working remotely at customer locations. As well as dealing with scheduling, dispatching work orders, enabling task management and updates, engineers have access to necessary customer information and integrated office tools.
Finally, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations offers functionality for project planning, creating estimations, forecasting, progress tracking, billing and other management and reporting tasks.
The different solutions can be easily extended, with no connectors necessary, across the different elements of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 offering.
Of course, the major benefit of Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the company behind it.
You benefit from the kind of investment into the tool that other CRM solution providers can only dream of. Microsoft has invested heavily in Dynamics to transition it from a rather clunky, on-premises solution to the cloud-based solution it is today. That investment is ongoing. Not only do you benefit from a well-documented development path, you know that your investment in your CRM system is well protected. You can rely on having a stable platform for years to come.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 has been designed to seamlessly integrate with the other Microsoft business tools you use every day. You benefit from tight integration with Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Word and SharePoint as well as with the Copilot, Microsoft Power Platform and Power BI.
In this way, you can get more from your existing Microsoft investments.
Because the solution is cloud-based, upgrades and updates are no longer a worry. The system is always up to date and you have access to the latest technology, including many Microsoft AI tools. And because it’s cloud-based, it’s easy to scale up and down. Your CRM system can grow – and shrink – according to demand.
And, of course, your CRM solution is hosted in the Microsoft Cloud, so it comes with all the security and resilience of the Microsoft datacentres.
If you’ve outgrown your existing CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a good way to advance. It offers a wealth of real-time analytics, performance metric tracking, multi-channel relationship management tools and AI-based recommendations – advanced tools that are often missing from other, lesser CRM software.
This means that, if you’re stuck with on-premises or legacy apps you want to replace, Microsoft Dynamics is a fast way to leapfrog to an advanced, cloud-based solution.
If customisation is important to you, Microsoft Dynamics offers plenty of opportunity for that. The depth and quality of the Microsoft Partner ecosystem (of which Grant McGregor is proud to be a part) comes into play here – you can easily access accredited support when and where you need it.
Watch below our webinar and if you’d like to know more about any of the ideas or solutions discussed, please reach out to our team. We’re always happy to answer any of your questions.