Why choose Microsoft Dynamics 365 as your CRM System

What is Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a collection of cloud-based applications designed to support businesses and improve customer experiences. Dynamics 365 includes the core applications you would expect from a CRM; Sales, Marketing and Customer Service. Additionally, Field Service and Project Operations are also part of the Dynamics 365 suite and strength the platform, making it suitable for more businesses.

The CRM applications aim to support businesses to qualify leads, manage sales opportunities, improve processes, build stronger relationships, optimise marketing campaigns, and gain a clearer view of your business.

One of the key things to note about Dynamics 365 is that the solution can be fully customised to suit your business, and is designed around your unique requirements. Furthermore, as it is not a rigid product, the solution can adapt to your changing needs and grow with your organisation.

Key Benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365

Centralise your data – Microsoft Dynamics 365 centralises all your important business data, enabling users across your organisation to access the information they need. As a cloud-based solution, D365 is accessible via app on a mobile, tablet or desktop device, so users can work remotely.

Scalable solution – As Microsoft Dynamics 365 is designed to suit your business needs, you can be confident that the solution can adapt as your organisation scales and requirements changes, providing you with a stable platform for years to come.

Forward-thinking tech – Microsoft roll out two ‘wave’ releases a year, bringing new capabilities to the platform alongside regular incremental updates. This ensures your system is always up-to-date and you’re working with the latest technology.

Integrates with your other business software – Microsoft Dynamics 365 is designed to seamlessly integrate with all the Microsoft tools you already know and use: Outlook, SharePoint, Teams, Word, PowerPoint, etc.

Additionally, Microsoft Dynamics 365 can be easily extended, with no connectors required, across the other applications within the Dynamics 365 eco-system, such as Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Project Operations, Field Service and the Power Platform.

Read more about Microsoft 365 & Dynamics 365: The Perfect Pairing.

Increases productivity – With your business data stored in one place, teams can access the information they need and gain insights quickly without having to switch between applications.

Data security – Microsoft Dynamics 365 is built and hosted on Microsoft Azure secure data centres, so you can be confident that your business information is safe. Within your solution, user access can be controlled with role, record and field-based security controls.

Before you start: Understand the challenges you want to solve

The key to choosing the right CRM for your organisation is understanding the challenges you want to overcome. Start by reviewing your current processes within the departments that you plan to implement a new CRM in; This will help you to identify the features that you are looking for within your new CRM solution. At a high level, examples of these could be:

• Improving client retention
• Data management and consistency of data
• Increasing employee accountability
• Systemising common workflows and processes
• Forecasting sales trends with accuracy
• Tracking leads and lead activity
• Monitoring your customer base

What are the Dynamics 365 Applications that can solve your challenges?

Sales – Dynamics 365 Sales provides employees with the tools they need to acquire new business, nurture relationships, close sales quickly and make informed decisions. The application also has inbuilt organisational capabilities, helping salespeople to manage their accounts and contacts more effectively, track correspondence and ensure activities are always moving them towards their goals.

Customer Service – Dynamics 365 Customer Service allows businesses to transform their service quality and improve customer loyalty. Capabilities enable employees to manage their customer service activities from one application, deliver faster and more personalised support, quickly resolve issues, exceed client expectations, and more.

Marketing – Dynamics 365 Marketing provides your business with all the features you need to execute successful marketing campaigns across multiple channels, create personalised customer journeys, gain a 360-degree view of your business, align your sales and marketing teams, and generate better leads, improve marketing ROI, and more.

Take a look at our video to see D365 Marketing in action: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing

Field Service – Dynamics 365 Field Service is best suited for businesses that deploy engineers to carry out work at a customer’s home or premises. Examples can include installations, maintenance work, responding to break/fix issues, etc. The software helps to efficiently complete service tasks, increase customer satisfaction, optimise scheduling, dispatch work orders, and more.

Project Operations – Dynamics 365 Project Operations allows you to effectively manage your projects end-to-end, combining your teams and processes together with automation technology to provide a unified experience. The system has capabilities for planning, creating estimations, forecasting, progress-tracking, management, billing and more.

How can Dynamics 365 support various industries?

As mentioned above, Microsoft Dynamics 365 can be tailored to sit your business processes. We have implemented solutions for our clients across a variety of industries, each of which has required different functionality to suit their needs and support their goals, that is specific to their organisation.

Below we provide a high-level overview of how Dynamics 365 can be customised to fit different industries, to demonstrate the extensive capabilities of the platform.

Dynamics 365 for Charities & Non-Profit Organisations:

• Volunteer Management – D365 allows you to effectively manage your volunteers by providing a complete overview of hours volunteered, skills, training, communications, etc. With a clear view of your volunteer data, Microsoft Dynamics 365 ensures you are able to support and motivate your volunteers more effectively.
• Grant Management – Dynamics 365 allows you to track grant submissions from start to finish, share documentation with other stakeholders and set automatic reminders to renew or reapply for grants.
• Event Management – Fundraising events are a crucial part of any charity/non-profit organisation, but managing a busy calendar and maximising the opportunities these events present, can be difficult. Dynamics 365can be tailored to handle event management activities, such as bookings, donations, reminders, etc. Check out our blog on fundraising with Dynamics 365 for Charities to learn more.
• For eligible charities and non-profit organisations, Microsoft also provides discounted licensing (approx. 75% less)

Financial Services

• Compliance and Security –Adhering to compliance rules and guidelines in the financial sector is difficult when dealing with manual processes and unintegrated systems. Dynamics 365 helps organisations manage compliance by ensuring data is safely stored within a centralised database, hosted on Microsoft Azure secure data centres. To access Dynamics 365, secure credentials are required to sign-in to the system.
• Reporting – D365 includes reporting functionality as standard to enable users to view sales pipelines and KPIs via easy to understand dashboards. More complex reports can also be created for specific areas such as assets under management, year-on-year profit, net promoter score and more.
• Tracking your competition – Competition within financial services is often intense, so ensuring you are always one step ahead of your competitors is essential. In Microsoft Dynamics 365 you can store information about the companies that you compete against and track who you’re up against during the tender process

Read more about Dynamics 365 for Financial Services in our blog ‘Finance Brokerage with Microsoft Dynamics 365‘.

Training Providers

• Manage training courses –Training Providers can use Dynamics 365 to schedule courses, match trainers by skill and availability, track resources and monitor recurring bookings.
• Users can assign the date and time for each training course, set the course duration to automatically calculate end times, manage relevant certifications for each session and assign contacts with each course (speakers, trainers, etc).
• Full view of delegate information – Being able to access all information in relation to delegates, in a timely manner is essential. Within Dynamics 365 you are able to monitor individual training courses, manage personal information, automatically calculate course expiry dates, add associated documents & certifications and assign a status against each record (interested, paid, attended, etc).
• Personalise marketing activities – By managing delegate information within a system, you are able to track preferences and courses attended, or of interest. Specific marketing lists can then be generated for targeted marketing campaigns, ensuring that you are maximising opportunities to engage with existing clients and potential prospects.

Membership Organisations

• Single view of each member – Gain a single view of each member with all their information, history and notes in one place. This also presents new opportunities to up-sell to members, which can be a challenge if you are relying on manual processes.
• Automated renewal reminders – Dynamics 365 will deliver automated reminders to members when their membership is due for renewal. This reduces pressure on the renewals team and new offers can be personalised based on information within the system, increasing retention rates.
• Identify common reasons for non-renewals or cancellations – Track and monitor all member lifecycles and identify common reasons for not renewing memberships, making more informed decisions for the future. Also, spot members at risk of canceling and intervene before this happens.
• Read more about D365 and Membership organisations in our blog on how to increase member retention with Dynamics 365.

Health & Social Care

• Manage patient information – Dynamics 365 allows you to track all patient data including current/past conditions, medication, tests, appointments and communication preferences.
• Access across your healthcare ecosystem – Access records across your healthcare ecosystem to deliver an exceptional patient experience and increase internal productivity. Manage information between healthcare professionals, various sites, caregivers, employees and referral networks.
• Automated system reminders – Keep track of all tasks and follow-ups with automatic reminders within the system, linked to relevant records and documents.

Hear from our clients…

At Pragmatiq, we have implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 for a variety or clients across multiple industries. Take a look at our Case Study page to learn how Dynamics 365 has benefited many different types of organisations and allowed them to overcome their specific challenges.

Check out our case studies here

Get in touch

If you would like more information about Microsoft Dynamics 365, please get in touch via the contact form, or email us at info@pragmatiq.co.uk / call us on 01908 038110.