Dynamics 365 Powers your Business into the Future

Imagine the power and convenience of seeing all your business and customer data, in a single, 360° view. Consider the value you gain with a real-time stream of insights about your customers and business. Microsoft Dynamics 365 gives you all this plus the power of artificial intelligence, the cloud, the Internet of Things, and hundreds of business tools, all designed to interconnect and work together flawlessly.

In this article, we’ll explore the major features of Dynamics 365 and what these means for businesses.

Take Aways

• Dynamics 365 is a fully capable CRM and ERP solution.
• The suite simplifies digital transformation.
• Using Dynamics 365 gives your business the flexibility it needs to respond to marketplace changes and disasters such as a pandemic.
• Major features such as marketing, sales, service, finance and operations, human resources, SMB, and others ensure that Dynamics 365 supports your business needs.
• Microsoft is releasing packaged versions of Dynamics 365 to support specific verticals such as retail and healthcare.
• Features such as mobility, AR/VR, and personalized/customizable reports, and dashboards are included.
• Dynamics 365 is a top-notch suite of tools and applications to power your business into the future. If you haven’t explored the possibilities of Dynamics 365 for your business, then there’s not better time than now.

Major Features

We all know that digital transformation is not simple. However, the disruption caused by the pandemic, changes in the workforce, and international supply chain issues means that there is no time to lose in pushing forward with your business’s digital transformation. These days, businesses must be nimble and flexible in their response to marketplace changes and disasters.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 contains the tools and applications your business needs to successfully navigate the disruption in the world marketplace. Microsoft has been hard at work developing new features to give customers even more options. Some of the new features include the following:

Dynamics 365 Marketing. Manage customer engagement using rich personalization and automation.

Dynamics 365 Sales. As the name suggests, this module contains several applications to improve the customer relationship, drive engagement, interface to LinkedIn and Office 365, and provide a 360° view of customer engagements. It also contains a mobile application on iOS that uses augmented reality to help with the sales process.

Service. Dynamics 365 includes modules and services to aid with customer support, field service, and remote assist. The customer insights application is particularly powerful, giving an actionable AI-enabled view of industry trends and other information.

Finance and Operations. For finance, this module provides automation and predictive analytics. The supply chain management module gives a unified view of all facets of the supply chain and uses predictive analytics to support decision-making. Other models include Guides, which is a mixed reality application for use with employee training, and Projects Operations to unify operational workflows.

Human Resources. These applications give the HR department insight into the workforce and supports personnel management, compensation, benefits, payroll integration, and everything else you’d expect in this area.

SMB. Small and medium-size businesses will be able to take advantage of the Dynamics 365 Business Central module to get the applications they need to support their organization.

Dynamics 365 Commerce. This is a comprehensive omni-channel solution. It unifies the back office, in-store, call-center, and digital experiences. The solution builds brand loyalty with personalized customer engagements, increases revenue by improving customer productivity, and by optimizing operations it reduces costs and improves the efficiency of supply chains.

Virtual Agent for Customer Service. This package combines an AI-powered chatbot with insight solutions. Customer service teams use this product to identify and automate support issues without writing any code. This allows deliver exceptional customer service to be delivered using Power Virtual Agents.

 Other new features include the Customer Data Platform which helps organization to unify disparate data; the Dynamics 365 Customer Voice Module, which is a survey solution for the enterprise; and industry accelerators that are aimed at specific verticals such as automotive, education, financial services, health, and nonprofits.

Support for Verticals

Each vertical has its own unique requirements for the applications needed to run their business. As a result, Microsoft has been releasing vertical cloud offerings, each one targeted to fulfill the needs of a specific vertical.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. This suite of applications bundles Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform. It contains the templates and connectors specific to the healthcare industry to deal with both structured and unstructured health data.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail. This suite is intended to give a beginning to end journey for shoppers. It contains Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform. For some customers, Microsoft Advertising is included, as are the connectors and templates needed to view and manipulate structured and unstructured data.

What it means for your Business and Customers

By putting these Dynamics 365 tools to work, businesses can enhance, simplify, and accelerate their digital transformation efforts.

• Mixed reality (AR/VR) is supported.
• Businesses can take advantage of the IoT.
• Mobility is built-in and fully operational.
• The products are updated with new features regularly.
• Entire business functions can be digitally transformed in a coherent way.
• The tools work seamlessly together.
• Cloud support is part of the package.
• Workflows are streamlined.
• Social media can be monitored.
• Resource scheduling is optimized.
• Contact management is simplified.

These and numerous other robust capabilities give businesses and other organizations with the tools they need for a quick and efficient digital transformation. The comprehensive platform is bursting with tools to support your business as well as your CRM and ERP requirements.

Dynamics 365 Connectivity for Ecosystem Solutioning

Complex connectivity is an issue faced by all digital transformation projects. Disparate systems in different silos must communicate with one another, in batches or in real time. Dynamics 365 helps resolve these complexities using several out-of-the-box connectors and open APIs for customization. Dynamics 365 easily integrates with applications such as Azure Service Bus, SharePoint, Outlook, Office 365, and Microsoft Teams. Using APIs, it is simple to connect with anything from applications in the cloud to legacy applications to whatever data sources are needed.

Conclusions

Dynamics 365 is a highly capable CRM and ERP suite, that provides the tools and applications businesses need to operate smoothly. The product includes everything required for digital transformation. Its many capabilities make it the perfect choice for any business that requires flexibility, personalization, visibility, and excellent reporting.

Mobile support provides excellent capabilities and helps businesses operate smoothly even with large portions of the workforce working from home due to the pandemic. Advanced reporting capabilities provide complete visibility and control over the entire business and includes a customizable dashboard that can be personalized as needed.

Because it is based in the cloud, Dynamics 365 is scalable, easily upgraded, and secure. It integrates with Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint, Office 365, and an ever-increasing variety of other applications.

If you’ve already acquired and implemented Dynamics 365, then you’re ahead of the game. If you haven’t yet taken a look, then do so today.