News and Insights

Microsoft has released the full notes of the next wave of updates, improvements and changes to Dynamics 365 and the Power platform. Starting from October 2023 through March 2024, Microsoft will automatically deploy the explored improvements in this article via the Cloud on a monthly basis. Microsoft has used this strategy to deliver new improvements for the last few years. It keeps customers on the...

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, small enterprises need every advantage they can muster to compete effectively. This is where Microsoft Dynamics 365 comes into play. It offers a comprehensive suite of business applications designed to help businesses of all sizes streamline operations, enhance customer service, and make data-driven decisions. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve deeper into why Dynamics 365 is an ideal...

The automotive industry is known for its complexity, rapid technological advancements, and increasing customer expectations. To stay competitive and drive growth, automotive companies need innovative solutions that streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and enable effective management of the entire value chain. Dynamics 365 offers a range of features and capabilities designed specifically to address the unique challenges of the automotive industry. In this article,...

In today's business landscape, customer retention is paramount for sustainable growth and long-term success. To effectively retain customers, businesses need robust tools and strategies that allow them to understand their customers, engage with them on a personal level, and deliver exceptional experiences. Dynamics 365 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) provides a powerful platform for businesses to harness customer data and implement effective customer retention strategies....

In today's fiercely competitive business landscape, delivering exceptional customer service and efficiently managing field operations are crucial for organisations. Dynamics 365 Field Service offers a comprehensive solution to streamline service management, optimise field operations, and deliver superior customer experiences. In this article, we will explore how harnessing Dynamics 365 Field Service can help organisations achieve optimal service management, improve operational efficiency, drive customer satisfaction,...

As businesses progress on their digital transformation path and consolidate data from various sources within their organization, the volume of data is experiencing exponential growth. To meet the demands of modern business applications, it is crucial for data storage solutions to adapt and cater to emerging business scenarios, handle diverse data types, and assist organizations in navigating the escalating intricacies of compliance requirements. Continuous evolution...

In today's highly competitive business landscape, delivering exceptional customer experiences is essential for building customer loyalty and driving business growth. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service offers a comprehensive solution to help organisations meet and exceed customer expectations. With its robust features and capabilities, Dynamics 365 Customer Service enables businesses to streamline their support processes, enhance agent productivity, and provide personalised and efficient customer interactions....

In today's dynamic business landscape, effective collaboration and communication are crucial for organisational success. Microsoft Dynamics 365, offers powerful integration with Microsoft Teams, a leading collaboration platform. By leveraging the integration between Dynamics 365 and Teams, businesses can enhance teamwork, streamline communication, and foster a collaborative work environment. This is especially important in an increasingly remote working environment that spans multiple time zones. In this...

In today's fast-paced business environment, organisations are constantly seeking ways to streamline processes, boost productivity, and improve efficiency. Dynamics 365, Microsoft's comprehensive business solution, offers a powerful tool named Power Automate that enables businesses to automate workflows and tasks, reducing manual effort and increasing productivity. In this article, we will explore in-depth the role of Power Automate in Dynamics 365 and how it can revolutionise...

Data migration is a critical phase in implementing Dynamics 365. It involves transferring data from legacy systems, spreadsheets, or other databases to the new platform. However, data migration can be a complex and challenging process that requires careful planning and execution. In this article, we will explore best practices for achieving seamless data migration to Dynamics 365. By following these guidelines, organisations can ensure data...

Are you considering implementing Dynamics 365 CRM for your business? Partnering with the right CRM provider is crucial for a successful implementation. In this artcle, we'll guide you through the process of choosing the right Dynamics 365 partner for your project.

Implementing a CRM solution requires a strategic approach that aligns with your unique business needs and goals. Choosing the right partner ensures that...

Implementing Dynamics 365 CRM is an exciting endeavour that promises to streamline processes, enhance customer relationships, and drive business growth. However, this transformational journey is not without its challenges. In this article, we will explore some of the common hurdles organisations face during Dynamics 365 CRM implementation and provide practical strategies to overcome them successfully.

Lack of Clear Goals and Objectives

One of the...

Customising your Dynamics 365 solution is a powerful way to tailor the platform to meet your organisation's unique business needs. By making customisations, you can optimise workflows, automate processes, and enhance user experiences. However, it's essential to follow best practices to ensure successful customisations that align with your business goals. Lets explore the key best practices for customising Dynamics 365 to meet your business...

Data security and compliance are critical considerations for any organisation using Dynamics 365 CRM. Protecting sensitive customer information, adhering to data privacy regulations, and maintaining a secure environment are paramount to building trust with customers and avoiding legal and financial consequences. In this blog post, we will explore best practices and tools to ensure data security and compliance in Dynamics 365 CRM.

Understand Data...

 

In the rapidly evolving tech industry, AI has become a hot topic of conversation. Microsoft is at the forefront of this innovation with their latest offering, Dynamics 365 Copilot—an AI-powered assistant integrated within CRM applications. This cutting-edge solution is equipped with next-gen AI capabilities and natural language processing, enabling users to harness the power of their words for enhanced productivity.

Unleashing the Power of Copilot: With...

You may have heard of or tried ChatGPT by now, an exciting emerging technology that looks to disrupt software, communication, search engines and many other established industries. If you haven’t, Chat GPT is an AI Chatbot developed by Open AI. The chatbot has a language-based model that the developer fine-tunes for human interaction in a conversational manner.

Effectively it’s a simulated chatbot primarily designed for...

Microsoft has released the full notes of the next wave of updates, improvements and changes to Dynamics 365 and the Power platform. Starting from April 2023 through September 2023, Microsoft will automatically deploy these improvements via the Cloud on a monthly basis. Microsoft has...

If you are a financial firm and want to give enhanced visibility to both your customers and inside the breadth of your business, exploring Dynamics 365 is a wise choice.

One of the most significant benefits of Dynamics 365 for financial companies is its ability to automate and streamline processes. This can greatly improve efficiency and reduce the workload of customer service representatives. In the investments industry,...

Building a CRM solution fit for purpose can be one of the most challenging tasks for a business. The capability able to deliver a system that has buy-in from across the whole organisation and meets the needs of the company is hugely rewarding in the long-term. A Fit for purpose CRM system delivers tangible benefits such as a more productive workforce, improved processes, enhanced collaboration...

With the climate crisis damaging our planet and environment, we all have a responsibility to mitigate and help to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Businesses, both big and small are included in the global effort, and will increasingly be held to account by compliance and legal frameworks to ensure they are meeting their environmental obligations. Organisations can leverage Dynamics 365 to help meet...

As we enter 2023, organisations will be exploring ways to enhance workforce productivity and business agility, and a CRM system can be a perfect way to do that. A customer relationship management (CRM) leader is responsible for overseeing and implementing strategies and practices that help a company effectively manage its interactions with customers. Good CRM leadership is essential for ensuring that a company's customer-facing teams...

Many organisations in the 21^st century depend on data to reach their goals. Marketing and Sales need clear, accurate information that they can rely on to send communications and close deals. Businesses that use fragmented data that is utilised across different platforms lead to data duplication, poor internal communication and usually result in a downgraded sales performance. To address this, we first need to recognise why...

When Microsoft purchased LinkedIn in 2017, it provided the enormous potential to bring it into the Microsoft family, and find ways to leverage existing platforms to help sellers research opportunities and create relationships. With an install base of 1.2 billion Office users and over 530 million LinkedIn members, its a unique position to improve the working environment of sales professionals.

Microsoft Relationship Sales was...

Data reporting and visualisations are powerful features of Dynamics, and provide organisations with the visibility of how the business is performing at a granular level. There are scenarios where a business will need very specific information, presented in a unique way that makes sense to them. This is where Power BI shines and can be integrated with your Dynamics system to present beautiful, insightful presentations...

CRMs are the backbone of many organisations, regardless of industry or sector. When choosing a CRM, it's critical you understand not only the vendor and software but the partner who will help you reach your strategic goals. We've put this guide together on what you need to consider when choosing your CRM partner.

1. Expertise

When choosing a partner, one of the first considerations would be...

Moving your business data from one system to another can be very challenging. The risk of errors and not selecting the right data is high, as well as the time it takes to follow through with the process. The scope of the challenge depends on what data is migrated and how the new system will interpret it.

We've put together this checklist for migrating CRM data...

Sales teams spend valuable time identifying the best customer in their customer list, navigating across multiple sources to identify who they need to engage with, when, and how. To streamline this process, Sales Accelerator in Dynamics 365 provides a tailored experience for sellers by minimizing the time they spend on their search for the best next customer to reach out to. Timing in Sales is critical...

Real-time marketing for Dynamics 365 is the next generation evolution for communicating with customers and other stakeholders. New capabilities include SMS sends, AI-driven customer journeys, low code dynamic content production and much more.

We've put together this quick guide so you can understand its potential, how it could help your business and how it compares with the Outbound Marketing module.

Push communications based...

 

Microsoft lets organisations choose an appropriate Customer Service licence that fits the needs of their business. We recognise this can be confusing, so we will try to break down what you can and can't use with a supported table list at the bottom of the page. 

Customer Service is available as either an Enterprise or Professional user license and with several optional add-ins to deliver...

Microsoft lets organisations choose an appropriate licence that fits the needs of their business, helping to reduce costs. We recognise this can be confusing, so we will try to break down what you can and can't use depending on the Dynamics Sales licence, with a supported table list at the bottom of the page.

Sales Professional

A Sales Professional licence provides essential...

Microsoft has released a preview of their new Customer Service capability called Swarms. The goal is to bring together the right talent to effectively resolve complex cases. Agents and subject matter experts can swarm cases in the applications they're accustomed to using, including Customer Service workspace and Microsoft Teams. This will transform an entire organisation into unified customer service and bring faster resolution to customers. With Swarming, the...

Dynamics 365 Marketing continues to go from strength to strength, putting more power in the hands of marketers and communicators.

Recently, Microsoft announced as part of the 2022 wave 1 release what they plan to do with the Marketing application. 

Real-time marketing: trigger a Power Automate flow or another journey from within a journey

• You’ll see a new journey tile – trigger an event.
• You add this tile to any...

   

Dynamics 365 Sales enables salespeople to build strong relationships with their customers, take actions based on insights, and close deals faster. Your business can use Dynamics 365 Sales to keep track of your accounts and contacts, nurture your sales from lead to order, and create sales collateral. You can also create marketing lists and campaigns, and follow service cases associated with specific accounts or opportunities....

The Dynamics 365 release plan for the 2021 release wave 2 describes new features to be available from October 2021 through March 2022

You can download the PDF directly here (50mb).

This release brings hundreds of new capabilities and features across the platform, delivering more value to your organisation. You can see the full summary from the Microsoft Docs website, but you can see some of the...

The size of Dynamics 365 as a solution has grown dramatically over the last decade and when new capabilities and improvements are delivered, this is often met with unexpected behaviour such as bugs, process conflicts, user interface breaks and more. The chance of facing issues increases further when an organisation customises a system past the default environment.  When this happens, we firstly recommend you check you have configured...

Dynamics 365 Customer Service offers a suite of capabilities to ensure your business can deliver the best customer service experience possible to your customers. 

The application offers these possible capabilities:

• Track customer issues through cases
• Record all interactions related to a case
• Share information in the knowledge base
• Create queues and route cases to the right channels
• Create and track service levels through service-level agreements (SLAs)
• Define service terms through...

   

If you are planning a Dynamics 365 implementation and are evaluating the Sales application, you should consider whether you require Sales Professional or Sales Enterprise, as there are key differences. Broadly speaking, the Enterprise version is the full flavoured option and ensures your sales team has all the bells and whistles needed for you to maximise productivity. However, if you have budgetary constraints...

The Dynamics 365 Marketing update 1.35.10071.2017 Preview has powerful capabilities that will help marketers save time and be more productive. It's accessed via a new area in the Marketing application called 'Real Time Marketing' with the old 'Marketing' area being renamed to 'Outbound Marketing'

The release provides an AI-assisted asset library that automatically tags images related to the content. This supports marketers when producing email content...

Recently, Microsoft delivered an online webinar event for Partners and Customers to explore the newest updates to their business platforms. It covers Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform, demonstrating new software and AI capabilities using customer stories including BNY Mellon and Coka Cola. It has a long run time (1 hour 25 minutes) but its a worthwhile viewing to see the investment Microsoft is making...

The Dynamics 365 Marketing application has come a long way over the last few years. With new capabilities being introduced it has become a compelling offering for businesses to enhance their interactions with customers and delivers highly personalised customer experiences using automation and CRM data. We have released a video explaining many of these capabilities, how they work and why they are useful. 

We cover the...

Microsoft has heavily invested in the Marketing app in the last few years. This is coming to fruition as we've seen a lot of changes over the last year. Just last year, we've seen lots of new improvements, bug fixes and capabilities such as a new interface for customer journeys and designing emails, integration with Teams for events and more.

We now have the roadmap...

The details for the next wave of Dynamics 365 updates is now available. Hundreds of capabilities, improvements and bug fixes are to be released from April through September 2021. Microsoft continues to demonstrate their commitment to the platform, supporting customers with digital transformations. 
 

Highlights from Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2021

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing focuses on deeper personalization to engage customers, more channels to reach customers with the right messages,...

   

Aside from irreversibly transforming daily life, the pandemic has also been a critical force in changing how businesses across the globe operate. According to a feature by the BBC, this has involved the massive shift to remote working, the possible elimination of business travel, and the need for rapid digital transformation.

In the face of such changes, it's important for business leaders to re-examine business...

As a direct response to the global Coronavirus Covid-19, Microsoft have released a template for Power Apps. This will enable organisations to manage communications in a time of crisis, and help faciliate remote working. Its a tribute to Microsoft that were able to respond to this and push out this template after just 48 hours. 

Key features include:

• Employees can report their...

   

We've received a new update from Microsoft regarding licencing for Teams. Last year, Microsoft changed the policy for using Dynamics 365 in Teams. Previously it was unrestricted however this is now changing. It was originally planned that from April 2020 this licence enforcement would be in place, and you would no longer have this unrestricted access and instead need to purchase a full Dynamics...

With Dynamics 365 Wave 1 2020 arriving in Spring, one of the features that caught our eye was a much improved email content designer for the marketing app. Currently there are the limitations such as customising pre-headers which are very important for open rates, so changes like this are welcome to optimising campaigns. Not only that, but new templates are coming too, a much...

Today, Microsoft announced several new and enhanced AI features that are coming to Dynamics 365 business applications in the coming months. With Wave 1 already bringing hundreds of new additions to the platform, this is an exciting time to be a customer or partner.

Here are some of the key new features announced by Microsoft:

AI-infused finance insights

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance Insights, coming to preview in May,...

With Wave 1 looming in Spring, we wanted to highlight one of the more exciting features coming to the Sales application, the Kanban view.

The word Kanban comes from Japan, and is a method to manage and improve work across human systems. Kanban boards visually depict work at various stages of a process using cards to represent work items and columns to represent each stage of...

We have exciting news for Dynamics 365 end users. Microsoft has just detailed plans for the first update of 2020. Early access users will have the ability to try out the new capabilities, fixes and improvements in February, and general availability will be released in April. Like always, there are hundreds of new changes across Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.

We've taken the liberty to...

Investing in technology can be difficult for small businesses and startups. It often requires significant initial capital, and this might be hard when you may need to consider other outlays, bills and paying salaries. Thankfully, many technology providers are changing their model enables customers to pay with a subscription model, alleviating some of the pressure on cashflow. If you haven't yet considered implementing a CRM...

As we enter the new year, marketers using Dynamics 365 have probably started considering which leads you should be chasing up for the year. But what do you do if you have so many? How do we know which ones are likely to engage with our communications? Well, fortunately, Dynamics 365 Marketing has a sophisticated lead scoring facility to filter the opportunity that represents the...

We now have the dates for the Dynamics 365 2020 Release Wave 1. Since 2019, Microsoft have introduced a new strategy for delivering new releases for their CRM, aiming to bring cutting edge technologies on a more regular basis. Microsoft have said that they are dedicated to proactively delivering new capabilities to enable customers and partners to drive toward strong business outcomes. They aim to...

If you're looking for the next step in your company's marketing strategy, you may need to employ new and advanced methods. Tools like analytics regarding customer relations, can help drive future marketing and outreach efforts, based on the information they deliver. Below, we'll get into some of the specifics that explain why CRM analytics can be exactly what your company needs to improve its outreach.

We...

With 2019 drawing to a close, we're already looking at what the Dynamics 365 ecosystem brings to the table in the future. Dynamics 365 promises a fantastic offering for organisations looking to adopt a business solution in 2020. Microsoft continues to make impressive investments into the CRM and ERP arm of the business, particularly since it moved to the Cloud via Azure a few years...

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. CRM projects are no different. How your organisation sets out a vision to achieve the goals of a new CRM will determine the success of the solution.

To determine these goals, you should be asking what's currently lacking across the breadth of the business that a new CRM would fix.

You might have:

• Disparate systems
• Poor or no reporting
• Messy data
• Poor interface
• Poor performance/reliability

Whatever your problems are,...

The beauty of a using Dynamics 365 implementation as your central business system is how it integrates with other tools inside the Microsoft Stack. In this blog post, we're going to share a quick tip for you that we think many businesses will find very useful. Excel 365 Online has the capability of updating Dynamics 365 CRM data directly from the spreadsheet. Previously on desktop...

As a Dynamics 365 Partner, we get regularly asked by prospects and existing customers about how secure the platform is. To answer that question, we need to look at the underlying infrastructure that underpins this CRM. But to reflect on an overview of the sector, over the last ten years, the IT industry has seen an enormous shift from on-premise to Cloud. Data storage, software,...

Dynamics 365 Market Insights is considered to be the replacement for the Social Engagement app which is to be completely discontinued in 2020. The preview is now available to try as a web application at https://mi.dynamics.com/firstrun

The app improves your ability to identify, anticipate, and act on market trends and events as they unfold with AI-driven insights.

Dynamics 365 Market Insights enables...

Today we attended Microsoft Future Decoded in ExCel London. As always, it proved to be an excellent opportunity to learn about the Microsoft Stack and learn about new developments across the tech sector. The day started with the keynote, which was opened by Microsoft UK Chief Executive Officer and Corporate Vice President, Cindy Rose OBE. She introduced new data insights around how artificial intelligence for...

The modern workplace is evolving at lightning speed, with distributed teams, brand-new business models, and complex security issues. The right digital tools connect and support employees, wherever they are, to encourage productivity, engagement, and collaboration. Microsoft 365 powers the global, modern workplace with one bundle of products: a smart, efficient operating system, mission-critical enterprise-grade security tools, and seamlessly integrated workplace productivity apps.

Dynamics 365 in particular has...

In late January this year, we we invited to take part at TVision's annual conference. TVision are a leading UK Microsoft Business Central partner specialising in ERP solutions. We were tasked with exploring some of the powerful synergies of bringing Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and Business Central together, creating one system that performs the entire customer journey.

Customer Success Manager Alex Baylis spoke about the merits...

The Dynamics 365 App for Outlook was developed to replace the popular Plugin which was the first real attempt to integrate email functionality and Dynamics 365 in one place. However, Microsoft found this difficult to support as it as it was naturally slower and could interfear with 3rd party plugins. In addition, it could only work on the full Outlook 365 application so mobile wasn't...

It's always been critical that employees are trained to use the tools they need to be productive. CRM software is no different. In order to be able to maximise the potential of both your systems and your workforce, they need to know which features and capabilities are available to them.

Fortunately, Microsoft has an excellent training course program for users both experienced and new. Each course completion...

Did you know that you can now opt-in for early access to test the new features of Dynamics 365 Wave 2 before official deployment in October?

Dynamics 365 Administrators with Customer Engagement apps, preview features can be enabled in non-production environments in the Power Platform Admin Center in Environment > Updates

Once you have enabled this, you can't turn the preview off, so we recommend you are...

CRM moves at a relentless pace; however, for a variety of reasons, the automotive industry has been slow to catch up with the latest and greatest technological innovations in the CRM space. However, with Dynamics 365 in the Cloud, that might be about to change, with many disrupting technologies available out of the box that will particularly benefit automotive industries.

Automotives are facing a paradigm shift...

Learning company software is often seen as non-productive and non-revenue generating and naturally not viewed as a good time investment. We understand. It requires not only the person(s) to learn the software, but also a specialist to sit down and go through the application which, is an exhausting process. Management and software veterans tend to have a bias that new employees can simply pick it up along...

Security is a hot topic in the IT industry right now. With fears of state-level cyber espionage and operating in a post-GDPR world, organisations need to be as vigilant as ever when it comes to protecting their data or risk the consequences.

As CRM and business solutions such as Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement become increasingly central to an organisations operations, it's critical that they have a...

We're coming up to 1 year since GDPR legislation was launched on 28th May 2018. The GDPR aimed to protect the privacy and data for citizens across the European Union and provide control over how organisations communicate to them.

As a CRM partner, we handle a lot of customer data and understand the requirement to be compliant with the GDPR legislation. We have qualifications to ensure...

What makes Dynamics 365 stand out from the crowd is its native integration with the Microsoft Stack. SharePoint, the web-based document management collaborative platform is no different. This quick guide shows you how you can enhance your CRM by synchronising and accessing documents associated with entities that are stored on your SharePoint instance. 

1. Setup your SharePoint installation inside Dynamics 365 CRM

a) You will need to install...

We had had a great trip gathering knowledge to help steer our company and client strategy as a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner Specialist.
 

Important updates to the Microsoft services:
 

Microsoft will not be developing the web interface going forward and will be putting all their focus into the unified interface. (UCI)

The UCI is much faster than the web interface and looks much better. It’s also easier to...

Microsoft's cloud computing service Azure, which supports many applications and platforms such as Dynamics 365, big data analytics, SharePoint, E-commerce and hundreds more has seen record growth in 2018. Microsoft has decided to bet big on cloud computing and is a core product in their strategy to support businesses deliver a Digital Transformation. 

“Our strong commercial cloud results reflect our deep and growing partnerships with leading...

We've been recently reading a lot about the success stories from enterprises deploying Dynamics 365 and using it as the core of the organisation's operations.

The variety of organisations adopting Microsoft's cloud CRM is astonishing. Deployments from the Seattle Seahawks to Pandora, to Siemens, it's rapidly becoming recognised as a versatile solution that aligns to your organisation, not the other way around.

We found ourselves wondering, what...

Microsoft announced the release notes for the upcoming April 2019 update. It's the first major update where all customers across Dynamics 365 will be on the latest update schedule, something Microsoft has been planning for a while which should make support easier to deliver and delivering a consistent platform to all organisations. The new features in this release demonstrate continued investment in digital...

Microsoft has announced the discontinuation of their Social Engagement application. Effective January 16, 2019, Microsoft Social Engagement will no longer be included as part of any Microsoft Dynamics 365 license entitlement for new customers. Current customers with license entitlements to Microsoft Social Engagement will continue to be able to access the service and add any additional social post capacity as needed, until the earlier of these...

In our second review, we're going to be looking at new capabilities for Dynamics 365 for Sales for the October release. Many of the features Microsoft have outlined are subject to change but we can say with a degree of certainty that most of them will make it to the final release. Most of the Sales app capabilities will be released under Public Preview before...

Microsoft has detailed the upcoming features to Dynamics 365 Portal in the October 2018 update. It will bring 100's of new capabilities across the entire CRM platform, with deeper integration, performance improvements to be implemented from October 2018 through March 2019. It's an exciting time for Web Portal specialists like our selves, who have seen plenty of updates since the purchase of Adxstudio. 

We've broken...

As promised in our earlier blog post, we're going to delve into some of the new capabilities of Dynamics 365 applications in the new October '18 update. We're going to start with the Marketing from Customer Engagement suite. 

The marketing application was originally released to build robust multi-channel campaigns directly from CRM, it controls email campaigns, social media marketing integration, events management, reports, analytics and more. 

The...

Microsoft has recently announced the release notes for Dynamics 365 October '18. They are enhancing features across the whole of the CRMs applications, helping organisations to accelerate their digital transformation. We mentioned in previously in our blog how Microsoft has changed their product update strategy, with the upcoming October release reflecting that. 

The new update promises hundreds of new capabilities across Sales, Marketing, Customer Service,...

Microsoft have just discussed their plans to revamp how they deploy Dynamics 365 updates to their customers. They plan to enable businesses everywhere to accelerate the digital transformation process and are continuously enhancing Dynamics 365 with new capabilities. They have said that optimising the way they deliver Dynamics 365 updates will help customers stay consistent, predictable and the process to be seamless. They've also...

Launching a CRM is no small project, it demands time and money, requiring full attention from upper management. The CRM Go Live date is a big day for an organisation and if managed correctly it will quickly transform your processes and drive productivity, enabling you to deliver better services. We've picked a few pointers that will help you manage this challenging period. Hopefully, this article...

Whether you are in Sales, Marketing or Customer Service, every second counts. Having the capability to retrieve the most important information quickly is key to success. Dynamics 365 delivers powerful dashboard facilities that can be heavily customised and shared with other users or exported into various formats such as PDF for reports.

Its stand-out feature is seamless integration with Power BI. This results in the capability to pull...

Your purpose-built CRM needs to reflect your business goals. At its best, it can deliver incredible results, providing improved sales and marketing, actionable insights and can enhance your organisations communications. At its worst, a CRM can be a huge burden, forcing your organisation to work around your CRM, rather than the other way around. We’ve outlined some warning signs that your CRM is not performing the...

Choosing a CRM that is right for your organisation is a significant decision. You will need to factor cost, scaling, customisation, on going support, development time and how it will help you reach your business goals.

Get the decision right, and you will improve your customer service, productivity and profitability. Get it wrong and you will spend more time making the CRM work, than the CRM...

You’ve developed a new CRM system but are struggling to encourage users to adopt it. It’s a common problem and a critical reason why CRM projects fail. In fact, in a recent survey, research group Merkle Group Inc estimated 63% of projects in large organisations fail. That’s a high number, and even if your solution ticks all the boxes, it might not deliver...

The CRM industry is constantly evolving. New features are introduced, user interfaces improved and automation capabilities added. This evolution is happening at an even faster pace with solutions becoming cloud-based. Updates can now be deployed more regularly. There could be signs that the CRM you purchased a decade ago, no longer fulfils your present business requirements. We've decided to point out some of the clear signs you've outgrown your CRM.

Lacks...

 

Now that GDPR legislation is in force, your CRM and other IT systems should be now fully compliant. We think that the new rules actually present opportunities to review all of your data processes and ensuring everything is clean and organised. 

This article will explore some of the ways you can reduce future headaches and produce accurate reporting by managing your data quality.

Duplication problems

A persistent problem...

CRM solutions are complex software products. They are systems that require technical and well-trained users in order to remain effective. It’s important that users are adequately trained in using CRM resources and we believe is a large factor in the success or failure of a project.

It prevents mistakes.

It drives productivity.

It saves time (and money!)

Your data will be high quality.

It increases user adoption.

Unfortunately, training staff to adequately operate software is viewed (wrongly!) as...

CRM development is not a simple IT project, and large-scale solutions can take years of development and planning. Luckily there are some pitfalls you can easily avoid and prevent your CRM project from becoming a burden on your organisation.

Set your targets

Your organisation needs to know exactly why they need a CRM solution, and what they hope to achieve with the software. By identifying realistic targets,...

Dynamics 365 Marketing has plenty of utility and tools available, enabling your organisation to target and communicate with target audiences. Powerful, automated facilities empower you to reach your objectives such as lead generation, building business relationships and brand awareness. We’ve put these tips together that you may not know about, so you can get the most out of your solution. 
 

1) Review your segmented lists

We recommend reviewing...

Did you know that 95% of new Dynamics implementations are using cloud services?

There’s a reason for that...

Organisations are seeing huge benefits by moving to a cloud solution from an On-Premise implementation. The cloud Provides security and infrastructure advantages such as unparalleled performance and 99.9% service uptime.

Hosted by Dynamics 365 means you don’t need to worry about a server that needs to be maintained and upgraded and...

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Portals brings many powerful customisable tools right out of the box. This lets you brand your website easily.

The initial web font globally displayed across the Portal is the popular 'Open Sans' which is excellent for most purposes. However, most organisations will want to use fonts consistent with their own brand when enabling web users to view accessible CRM data. 

Adding fonts is actually...