Manufacturers value efficiency, automation, and the ability to forecast orders, sales, inventory, and other important elements of their business. Considering these values, it’s perhaps a curious thing, or maybe not so curious, that many manufacturers use their enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for customer relationships management (CRM) activities, or else they don’t use any solution for CRM at all. Considering the myriad benefits of CRM functionality—from lead and opportunity management, contact and account management, data analysis, automated marketing campaigns, event management, branded landing pages and forms, email creation, and so much more—it’s a wonder how a business could get by on the limited customer relationship functions a typical ERP provides.

The on-premise deployment of Dynamics CRM is a long-standing, reliable CRM option, but adopting a cloud-based solution like Dynamics 365 Sales comes with an unprecedented level of securities, tools, and features. Plus, making the jump to a cloud-based business application is easier than you might imagine. With features like pipeline visibility, task organization, sales activity automation, collaborative workflows, end-to-end data security, and more, all in one unified workspace, working smarter has never been easier with Dynamics 365 Sales on the cloud.

We’ve broken down just a few of the benefits of adopting a cloud-based system, and some of the features that make Dynamics 365 Sales the premier cloud-based sales CRM solution.

Acquainting yourself with all the apps and technology required to perform your job responsibilities is a hefty task, let alone using your tech stack with peak efficiency. That’s why it’s so beneficial when applications work together to help you do your job. Enter Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 applications. Built to seamlessly and natively integrate with each other, these business and productivity apps make it easier to transition from one to the other throughout your workday—sometimes without having to actually open another screen.

The Dynamics 365 suite of cloud-based business applications are always being improved as user needs are identified and the cutting edge of technology advances. The coming upgrade is Release Wave 1 of 2022, scheduled from April through September. Some of the foci for these updates across applications include leveraging data, AI, and ideal timing to create better experiences throughout the sales and marketing experience, simplifying onboarding, increasing productivity, optimizing collaboration, and improving connectors and integrations. Here’s an overview of what’s coming to Dynamic 365 apps—Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, and Business Central—for this release wave.

As the new year rings in, many people make resolutions—new habits, self-improvements, changes for the better. Whether or not you ascribe to New Year Resolutions, here’s a change your business can make to kick off this year and build up your bottom line: invest in CRM. A Customer Relationship Management system is a tool that, when added to your tech stack, can return massive ROI by improving your sales and marketing performance and potential. In fact, in 2014, every dollar spent on CRM returned between $5.60 and $8.71 (Nucleus Research).

Sales teams know that using the right system is crucial to their success, and Dynamics 365 Sales is a sales-focused CRM that’s a cut above the rest. Get the most out of its features and functionalities with the Sales Insights add-on. Sales Insights allows users to generate predictive lead and opportunity scores, tap into revenue forecasts, automate sales tasks, and much, much more. Unlock a new world of capabilities to not only better understand where leads and opportunities stand, but empowers sellers to better prioritize work, realize where their time and energy is best spent, and focus on the relationships that matter most.

Here are some of Sales Insights’ standout features:

Integrating Business Central with Dynamics 365 Sales unlocks a powerful range of abilities that lets you access Sales data in Business Central and the other way around as well. If you use Dynamics 365 Sales for customer engagement, you can enjoy seamless integration in the lead-to-cash process by using Business Central for backend activities such as processing orders, managing inventory, and doing your finances.

Looking for new business software can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to something that will hopefully be an all-encompassing solution, like an ERP or CRM system. No matter what kind of system you’re in the market for, there are quite a few options out there, and for such a crucial backbone to everyday business processes, understandably no quick decisions can be made.

If you’re looking to add productivity powerhouses like Dynamics 365 Business Central or CRM applications like Dynamics 365 Sales and Marketing into your toolbelt, read on for some of the benefits you can expect when you join the Microsoft business application ecosystem.

Time is a valuable resource—make the most of it by utilizing smart automation functions for day-to-day tasks. With Dynamics 365 Marketing, you can easily automate email communications to customers, but did you know that you can also delegate send as permissions so others can send emails on your behalf—automatically? Sending quick reminders to check in and follow up have never been easier.

Throughout the entire manufacturing marketing and sales process—from initial contact, to lead, opportunity, and quoting—all the way to order processing, a manufacturer constantly strives to optimize their processes. This makes sense; the faster and better they do their job, the more competitive they are through lower prices and more customers with increased satisfaction. There are countless moments along the sales and production pipelines with the potential to increase efficiency, and utilizing premier business solutions is perhaps the largest area of opportunity. ERP and CRM solutions such as Dynamics 365 offer features and functionalities to optimize business processes and are highly customizable to meet the needs of any manufacturer.

With Sales Accelerator in Dynamics 365 Sales Insights, save time and effort by automatically assigning new leads to sales team members as they come in. Sales Insights is available by default for Sales Premium licenses or as an add-on for Sales Enterprise. The Sales Accelerator can be activated by navigating to the Sale Insights Settings area. Use the Change Area menu at the bottom of the navigation pane to switch over. Users will also need to have the sequence manager, sales manager, or administrator role.

Each business is its own ecosystem, with specialized needs for the customers they serve, the distinct services they provide, and their individualized business processes. You wouldn’t buy a suit without tailoring it to fit you perfectly; the same expectation should apply to CRMs. Companies are not cookie cutter and generic, and neither are the customizable abilities possible with solutions such as Dynamics 365 Marketing or Sales.

Dynamics 365 Sales makes sales-focused CRM easy, and organizations can expect even better features with updates that refresh the user experience and maximize efficiency. More AI capabilities will allow sellers to work smarter and prioritize the most gainful activities while keeping track of critical information for each lead.

Microsoft will begin rolling out a robust update to the Dynamics 365 suite later this year, and Dynamics 365 Sales in particular will see quite a few improvements. The improvements were created based on customer feedback, so users can look forward to a highly optimized app experience.

Plans were recently published for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 2021 Release Wave 2, slated for release this fall. This update will feature hundreds of enhancements and improved functionalities, including robust integrations with Microsoft 365 products. These significant new capabilities will strengthen the features made available by Release Wave 1, which was rolled out earlier this year.

See first-hand how you can customize the new Dynamics 365 Unified Interface to implement unique apps for specific roles within your business processes.

In all business processes, staying organized is one of the most important keys to success. The same applies to the sales process. Dynamics 365 Sales provides a great interface to track sales from the initial lead creation all the way through the final ordering and invoicing.

Keeping details of the interactions with the lead helps to better understand their needs and focused on the sales goal. The sales process from lead nurturing to completing the order flows seamlessly and intuitively between each step.

Today, Microsoft held their Business Applications Launch event for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform 2021 release wave 1. During this event Microsoft walked through a few of many new capabilities coming to Dynamics 365 apps like Sales, Marketing, Business Central, and more over the course of April through October 2021. Here are the biggest announcements.

The LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a great tool for sales teams as it provides them access to new opportunities to find and engage with more, and usually higher quality, prospects and leads from LinkedIn. Most companies are not limited to just LinkedIn for lead generation, so LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be integrated with Dynamics 365 Sales.

Integrating the LinkedIn Sales Navigator with Dynamics 365 Sales helps to bring together LinkedIn contacts and leads with the Dynamics 365 Sales interface. In addition, it gives access to some of the other features available in the LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

In recent years, kanban boards have been rising in popularity as an effective way for teams to manage the smaller tasks within a larger project or process. They provide a great visual representation of tasks within a larger project or process.

This visualization can be a great asset to help teams get an understanding of how they are progressing through a project, or what point within a process different items have reached. Opportunity and activity entries in Dynamics 365 Sales can be viewed as kanban boards for quick editing and management options.

Customer Satisfaction surveys can have a major impact on both sales and customer service operations. Allowing customers to provide meaningful insight into their interactions with your organization can positively influence process changes and impact the bottom line.

With Dynamics 365 Customer Voice (formerly Forms Pro), organizations can create comprehensive customer satisfaction surveys and distribute them directly to contacts from Dynamics 365 apps like Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Service.