Growth is exciting—but it introduces complexity. 

As small and midsize businesses scale, finance and operations become harder to manage. Transactions increase, reporting requirements expand, and disconnected systems start to strain visibility and margins. What once worked becomes a constraint. 

A newly published Forrester Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study helps quantify what many organizations are already experiencing: modernizing on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central delivers measurable financial impact.

Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate the potential return on investment organizations may realize by deploying Business Central. Based on interviews with four business decision makers, which were aggregated to model a fictitious composite organization¹, the study projected that the composite organization could potentially realize: 

• More than 200% return on investment (ROI) over three years 

• An estimated $460K net present value (NPV) over three years 

• Potential payback in six months 

Across finance productivity, enterprise resource planning (ERP) consolidation, improved profitability, and reporting efficiency, the composite organization modeled by Forrester realized more than $680K in three‑year, risk‑adjusted present value benefits. 

These outcomes reflect the potential impact of modernizing finance and operations on a single, integrated cloud ERP platform—while also establishing the foundation for AI‑powered experiences like Microsoft 365 Copilot and intelligent agents. 

Where the value comes from 

The Forrester TEI study highlights several areas where organizations can potentially realize tangible, risk‑adjusted benefits when using Business Central. 

Support faster, more efficient finance operations 

Manual processes often slow growing organizations. Interviewed customers reported meaningful efficiency gains across accounts payable (AP), accounts receivable (AR), billing, and financial close. 

By year three, the composite organization was projected to potentially achieve: 

• Up to 30% reduction in monthly close time 

• Up to 50% time savings for AP, AR, and billing activities 

These improvements translated to more than $210K in present value over three years in finance productivity alone for the composite organization—allowing teams to shift focus from reconciliation to higher‑value analysis. 

Standardizing data and workflows in Business Central also creates the conditions necessary for AI‑enabled automation. While AI benefits were not independently quantified in this study, interviewees noted that unified processes accelerate the adoption of Copilot‑supported approvals, variance analysis, and exception handling. 

Lower total cost of ownership through ERP consolidation 

Interviewees reported operating aging on‑premises ERP systems alongside spreadsheets and disconnected point solutions. Consolidating onto Business Central reduced infrastructure complexity and IT overhead. 

The study projected the following potential benefits for the composite organization over three years: 

• More than 10% reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) 

• More than $170K in present value savings from retired systems and reduced maintenance 

Beyond direct savings, simplification can reduce operational risk and improved scalability—allowing organizations to grow without layering on new systems to compensate for gaps. 

Enable improved profitability through better visibility 

Unified, real‑time visibility across finance and operations enables faster, more informed decisions. 

By year three, the composite organization was modeled to potentially experience: 

• Up to 3% improvement in net profit margins 

• More than $240K in present value from improved profitability 

Better insight into costs, projects, and performance enables earlier course correction. AI‑powered experiences such as Copilot can further assist by surfacing cost variances, project overruns, or unbilled work sooner. While AI alone does not drive margin improvement, modern ERP data and standardized processes strengthen an organization’s ability to act with precision. 

Fast reporting and audit readiness 

Business Central’s integrated data model and native Microsoft Power BI capabilities streamlined reporting and audit preparation. 

Based on modeling by Forrester, by year three, the composite organization was projected to potentially reduce: 

• Audit preparation time by up to 30% 

• Time spent creating internal and executive reports 

These projected improvements were valued at nearly $50K in present value, while also enabling increased confidence in data accuracy and consistency. 

Beyond the numbers: Building an AI-ready foundation

In addition to quantified financial outcomes, interviewees highlighted broader operational improvements, including enhanced customer experience, reduced days sales outstanding (DSO), better warehouse management, and a more intuitive user experience. 

Just as importantly, Business Central provides an AI‑ready ERP foundation. 

By unifying finance and operations data and aligning processes to best practices, organizations are better positioned to leverage Copilot, Power BI, and intelligent agents to: 

• Help reduce time-to-insight—not just report creation
• Surface anomalies and trends quickly 
• Enable more proactive, data‑driven decision‑making 

While AI‑driven outcomes were not directly measured in this TEI, the study reinforces a critical principle: realizing AI value at scale depends on clean data, integrated systems, and standardized processes. Business Central delivers that foundation. 

Read the full study 

For SMB‑focused organizations and partners evaluating ERP modernization, the full Forrester TEI study provides a detailed financial framework to help quantify potential projected value—grounded in customer interviews and risk‑adjusted modeling. 

Join us at Directions North America 2026 

The Forrester TEI study highlights the potential value organizations may realize with Business Central—from faster financial processes to improved profitability and lower total cost of ownership. 

We’ll continue these conversations at Directions North America 2026, where partners, Microsoft engineering, and product leaders come together to discuss what’s next for the Business Central ecosystem and the future of AI-powered ERP. 

Join me for the keynote, where I’ll explore how Business Central is evolving into an AI-powered system of action with Copilot and intelligent agents. 

Attendees will: 

• Gain insight into the Business Central roadmap 
• Prepare for upcoming AI-powered capabilities 
• Connect directly with Microsoft engineering and product experts 
• Engage with partners across the Business Central community 

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1. Composite organization assumption: Results are based on a Forrester modeled composite organization derived from customer interviews, with $50M in annual revenue, 300 employees, 15 core finance and accounting users, and 100 light users, using Dynamics 365 Business Central in a cloud deployment. All quantified benefits represent the three-year, risk-adjusted present value for the composite organization.

The post Enable accelerated growth with confidence: A Forrester TEI study projects more than 200% ROI over three years and six-month payback using Dynamics 365 Business Central appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In modern contact centers, not every customer question can be resolved by a single representative. Complex interactions often require quick collaboration—bringing in subject matter experts, supervisors, or external partners—without breaking the flow of the conversation or forcing customers to repeat themselves.

Dynamics 365 Contact Center addresses this challenge with powerful consult capabilities, enabling service representatives to collaborate in real time while keeping conversations seamless across voice and digital channels.

To see how these capabilities come together in practice, let’s step inside Contoso Health, a multi‑specialty healthcare provider delivering patient support at scale.

Inside Contoso Health: Coordinated Care Without Disruption

Contoso Health serves thousands of patients every day through its Patient Access and Care Coordination teams. Representatives handle a wide range of interactions—appointment management, referral validation, insurance questions, post‑discharge follow‑ups, and care plan clarifications.

Their goal is simple: connect every patient to the right expertise instantly, without transfers, repetition, or uncertainty.

Here’s how consult capabilities in Dynamics 365 Contact Center make that possible.

Consult with a Representative: Real‑Time Peer Collaboration

Some situations require a quick second opinion before responding to a patient. Rather than transferring the interaction, representatives can consult another service representative or supervisor while keeping the patient on hold.

Contoso Scenario: Referral Eligibility Check

A patient calls to reschedule a specialist appointment and asks whether their referral is still valid. The Patient Access representative initiates a consult with a Scheduling Specialist, who can see the conversation context and confirm referral rules in real time.

What the patient experiences:

• A short, informed hold.
• No handoff or repetition.
• A confident, accurate response from the same representative.

Consult to Queue: Access to Specialized Expertise

When the required expertise isn’t known upfront, representatives can consult an entire specialist queue. Dynamics 365 Contact Center uses routing logic to connect the representative with the most appropriate expert based on skills and availability.

Contoso Scenario: Pre‑Procedure Instructions

A patient asks detailed questions about preparing for an upcoming procedure. The representative consults the Nursing queue, allowing the system to route the consult to an available clinician.

Why it works:

• No manual searching for the right person.
• Faster access to clinically accurate information.
• Safer, more reliable guidance in high‑stakes interactions.

Consult with External Numbers: Coordinating with Healthcare Partners

Healthcare interactions often depend on information outside the organization—insurance providers, labs, or partner clinics. Representatives can consult external PSTN numbers directly from the communication panel.

Contoso Scenario: Insurance Coverage Verification

A patient wants to confirm coverage for a diagnostic imaging procedure. The representative consults the insurance provider via an external number, verifies eligibility, and returns to the patient with confirmed details—without ending the call.

Outcome:

• Verified information in a single interaction
• Fewer callbacks and follow‑ups
• A seamless, unified patient experience across organizations

Consult with Microsoft Teams Users: Bridging Contact Center and Care Teams

Many clinicians and care coordinators work primarily in Microsoft Teams, not the contact center. Dynamics 365 Contact Center allows representatives to consult Teams users directly.

Contoso Scenario: Post‑Discharge Medication Question

A recently discharged patient calls with concerns about medication timing. The representative sees the assigned Care Coordinator is available in Teams and initiates a consult to confirm instructions before responding.

Benefits:

• Faster access to care teams
• No context switching or manual follow‑ups
• Better alignment between service and clinical teams

Filtered Consults: Connecting to the Right Expertise with Confidence

In complex service environments, not every expert, team, or specialist should be available for every consult. An unfiltered list can slow representatives down and increase the risk of engaging the wrong resource. Dynamics 365 Contact Center supports filtered consult experiences, ensuring representatives see only the most relevant queues and users based on organizational rules and roles.

Contoso Scenario: Targeted Consults in Care Coordination

A customer interaction is routed into the Care Coordination queue based on intent. Once the conversation lands in the queue, consult options are filtered. Representatives see only approved specialist queues and users aligned to Care Coordination roles and policies. This ensures consults stay within the correct domain, prevents accidental misrouting, and helps Contoso resolve complex requests efficiently after work enters a specialized queue.

Why it matters:

Filtered consults help Contoso Health maintain clinical accuracy, reduce decision fatigue for representatives, and ensure collaboration happens within the right care boundaries—supporting safer, more confident patient interactions.

Confident Collaboration, Better Outcomes

Great customer experiences depend on confident, well‑informed conversations. Dynamics 365 Contact Center enables representatives to stay in control while collaborating in real time with the right experts—peers, specialist queues, external partners, or Microsoft Teams users.

The primary representative remains the single point of contact, preserving continuity while bringing in additional insight when needed. Customers experience faster resolutions, fewer handoffs, and clearer answers—without repeating themselves or losing context.

Learn more 

To explore the consult capabilities in detail, visit the official documentation: 

• Transfer calls and consult with users | Microsoft Learn
• View the communication panel for conversations | Microsoft Learn
• Enable consult and transfer settings for representatives | Microsoft Learn

The post Better Collaboration, Better Care: All Consult Capabilities in Dynamics 365 Contact Center appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In today’s customer-focused landscape, every interaction matters. Modern contact centers must quickly connect customers with the right expert through voice, chat, or digital channels. Effective transfer options are critical—especially in multi-intent conversations, where a customer may start with one request (for example, a loan inquiry) and then pivot to a completely different need. 

Dynamics 365 Contact Center solves this by offering robust transfer features, allowing service teams to route conversations efficiently to experts, specialist groups, or external partners. From direct transfers to warm handoffs or collaboration, these tools keep service smooth and consistent, helping representatives get customers the support they need without disruption. 

To see how these capabilities play out in a real-world setting, let’s visit Contoso Bank. 

Inside Contoso Bank: Delivering Seamless, Expert-Led Customer Experiences 

To see these transfer capabilities in action, let’s walk through a real-world example from financial services. Contoso Bank is a global financial institution known for its premium wealth management offerings. Its Wealth Desk Support team assists high value clients each day. They answer investment queries, clarify portfolio allocations, manage insurance-related questions, and coordinate with Relationship Managers and specialists across the bank. Their mission is simple: connect every client to the right expert instantly, with a service experience that feels seamless, personal, and trusted. 

Here’s how Dynamics 365 Contact Center empowers Contoso Bank’s service representatives to deliver that promise across voice and digital channels. 

Direct Transfer: Fast, Seamless Connections 

Direct Transfer enables service representatives to move a voice or digital conversation to another representative instantly, without a consult step. 

Contoso Scenario: Initial Query → Relationship Manager 

A customer initiates a chat with a general banking question, such as loan eligibility. As the conversation progresses, it becomes clear that the Relationship Manager (RM) is the right person to guide the customer further. The representative performs a Direct Transfer to the customer’s assigned RM. 

What the client experiences: 

From the client’s perspective, the experience feels immediate and effortless. There is minimal wait time, no need to repeat information, and the conversation continues directly with the Relationship Manager who understands their portfolio best. 

Warm Transfer (Consult → Transfer): Perfect for High-Value, Sensitive Cases 

Warm Transfer allows a representative to first consult with another expert while the customer is on hold. This ensures the handoff is informed, confident, and respectful of the client’s needs. 

Contoso Scenario: Relationship Manager → Wealth Specialist 

A customer contacts their Relationship Manager (RM) to discuss concerns about recent market volatility and its impact on their portfolio. The RM consults a Wealth or Portfolio Specialist to review the customer’s risk profile, preferences, and current holdings. Once aligned, the RM completes a Warm Transfer, briefing the specialist before bringing the customer into the conversation. 

Why it works well: 

This approach preserves the personalization and trust already established by the Relationship Manager. It also reduces customer anxiety during sensitive financial discussions, and ensures the specialist receives full context before engaging with the client. 

Transfer to Queues: Seamless Routing for Specialized Work 

When the next handler depends on deeper expertise or workload balancing, conversations can be transferred into a queue, where routing logic selects the best representative. 

Contoso Scenario: Mutual Fund Switch Request 

A client wants to switch mutual funds via chat. The representative transfers the conversation into the Wealth Operations queue, ensuring the next available specialist picks it up. 

Benefits: 

This ensures efficient workload distribution across specialists, supports compliance-friendly handling of regulated requests, and delivers consistent, reliable service for customers. 

Transfer to External Phone Numbers (PSTN): Connect with External Partners 

Banks frequently rely on external insurance, investment, or brokerage partners. Service representatives can transfer voice calls directly to an external PSTN number, creating a unified client experience even across institutional boundaries. 

Contoso Scenario: Insurance Policy Maturity 

A client needs details from Contoso’s insurance partner about an insurance product. The representative enters the partner’s PSTN number and transfers the call seamlessly. 

Outcome: 

The customer experiences a smooth handoff without channel disruption, while Contoso Bank maintains a connected end-to-end journey even when collaborating with external partners. 

Transfer to Microsoft Teams Users: Collaboration Without Barriers 

Many Relationship Managers and wealth specialists work primarily in Teams. Dynamics 365 Contact Center enables representatives to transfer conversations directly to Teams users, bridging contact center operations and collaboration tools. 

Contoso Scenario: Urgent Conversation with a Relationship Manager 

A VIP client calls needing immediate portfolio guidance. The representative sees the Relationship Manager is active in Teams and transfers the call instantly. 

Benefits: 

This enables faster access to advisors, eliminates context loss between systems, and gives Relationship Managers greater flexibility to engage from their primary workspace. 

Wrap Up After Transfer: Protecting Time for Compliance & Documentation 

After transferring a call or chat, representatives often need to document the interaction — capturing notes, updating CRM fields, tagging compliance steps, or recording follow-ups. 

Wrap Up After Transfer provides dedicated time to the expert before new work is assigned, helping maintain accuracy and quality. 

Contoso Scenario: Logging KYC and Notes 

During this wrap up time, the representative can complete KYC verification, add investment-related notes, and schedule any required follow-ups without pressure from incoming work. 

Why it matters: 

This reduces operational errors, strengthens compliance posture, and ensures customer records remain complete and accurate. 

Filtered Transfers: Showing the Right Queues, Every Time 

In large contact centers, not every queue or user should be available for every transfer. An unfiltered list slows representatives down and increases the risk of incorrect or noncompliant handoffs. Dynamics 365 Contact Center addresses this by allowing organizations to control which queues and users are visible during transfer, ensuring representatives see only the most relevant options. 

Contoso Scenario: Precision Transfers in Wealth Operations 

A customer’s chat is transferred into the Wealth Operations queue once their request is identified as a fund switch. Representatives can now see and transfer only to approved Wealth Operations sub-queues and eligible specialists, based on role and policy. This ensures the conversation stays within the correct domain, prevents accidental rerouting, and helps Contoso maintain accuracy, compliance, and faster resolution once work enters specialized queues. 

Why it matters: 

Filtered transfers reduce cognitive load for representatives, improve transfer accuracy, and reinforce compliance—especially in multi-intent conversations where choosing the right next destination is critical to a seamless customer experience. 

Elevate Every Conversation with Dynamics 365 Contact Center 

In any industry, strong customer experiences depend on connecting people with the right expertise quickly. Dynamics 365 Contact Center offers flexible transfers and intelligent routing to keep conversations efficient, regardless of complexity.  

Learn more  

To explore the transfer capabilities in detail, visit the official documentation:  

• Transfer calls and consult with users | Microsoft Learn 

• View the communication panel for conversations | Microsoft Learn 

• Enable consult and transfer settings for representatives | Microsoft Learn 

The post All Transfer Capabilities in Dynamics 365 Contact Center  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

As organizations continue to seek ways to differentiate through exceptional customer service, many are turning to emerging agentic AI capabilities as a catalyst for transformation. However, the promise of agentic service—better experiences, greater efficiency, and continuous improvement—can only be realized when AI is deeply embedded and seamlessly orchestrated across every workflow and channel. This requires more than just automation; it demands a unified context and intelligence layer that travels with the work.

At Microsoft, we believe the future of customer service is one where Microsoft Dynamics 365 becomes the context and intelligence platform for Copilot and AI agents, grounding every interaction in rich customer data and business processes. With Dynamics 365 providing composable skills across the tools people already use every day, we enable intelligent, proactive self-service and augment human capabilities. This empowers service reps, supervisors, and leaders to amplify their impact, delivering more consistent, personalized, and effective service at scale.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, we’re already delivering on this vision, helping our customers achieve tangible business outcomes with agentic service. Dynamics 365 Customer Service combines our latest AI advances with robust core capabilities, all deeply integrated with the entire Microsoft portfolio across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Azure, and the Microsoft Fabric data platform.

​Today, we’re excited to announce that Microsoft has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Service Solutions, Q1 2026.

Delivering measurable outcomes with agentic service

Our customers and the industry at large recognize we’re leading the way in agentic service innovation and enterprise adoption.

In Dynamics 365 Customer Service, AI agents orchestrate context and automate workflows in simple and complex inquiries across voice and digital channels. Agents can handle routine interactions and execute actions autonomously within robust governance and compliance guardrails. Customer Intent Agent continuously discovers new intents from conversations across channels, enabling evergreen self-service.

Agents like Case Management Agent automate repetitive tasks and integrate with Copilot to surface next-best actions during human-assisted interactions, helping reps offer rapid resolutions.

Importantly, these service agents create self-learning loops, helping improve resolution accuracy and speed. This continuous improvement extends to service reps as well. Quality Evaluation Agent monitors service quality in AI-powered and human-assisted interactions to enhance agent performance and recommend coaching opportunities for reps. Meanwhile, Customer Knowledge Management Agent adapts knowledge bases, updating content and generating new articles based on fresh insights or recurring issues.

This powerful combination of agentic and human service is orchestrated through Agent Hub, which routes tasks to the most appropriate AI agent or service rep and optimizes task distribution based on real-time KPI results.

Customers like Visa are saving time by using the Customer Knowledge Management Agent to turn customer conversation data into knowledge articles.

Auto-knowledge generation reduces article creation time by 88%, from four hours down to 30 minutes per article. And by mining 7,000 cases, we’ve been able to produce 700 knowledge articles, just for one line of business and we continue to accelerate knowledge creation at scale.

Lidia Daldoss, Vice President, Service Digitization & AI Acceleration, Visa

Accelerating successful AI adoption

Despite the numerous benefits on offer, navigating the AI adoption journey can be extremely complex for many organizations. Sometimes there’s uncertainty about where to start, or a lack of clarity about how to get a measurable return on AI investments.

Microsoft simplifies AI adoption, enabling organizations to quickly realize significant efficiency and productivity gains in customer service operations. We offer structured guidance and proven methodologies to help accelerate adoption success for organizations at every level of AI maturity.

Our customers particularly value the FastTrack for Dynamics 365 program, which is built on our Success By Design framework that paves the way for effective solution design, deployment, and operation. With proactive, expert guidance, organizations can confidently implement an agentic service platform based on advanced technologies that are already delivering tangible business outcomes for enterprises worldwide.

Enhancing core customer service capabilities

While AI agents automate and orchestrate workflows, and Copilot provides contextual guidance for reps, Dynamics 365 Customer Service also offers a strong set of core capabilities.

Intelligent, omnichannel routing, for example, is a cornerstone of effective service, directing inquiries to wherever customers will find the fastest path to resolution. Similarly, Microsoft’s longstanding strengths in business intelligence, process management, and forecasting and scheduling provide an essential foundation for efficient operations.

Integration with Microsoft Teams also enables seamless collaboration across service, sales, and marketing, streamlining issue resolution and highlighting opportunities to enhance the end-to-end customer experience.

Another notable strength of Dynamics 365 Customer Service is its extensibility, both within Microsoft’s suite of business applications and productivity tools, and across our extensive partner ecosystem and third-party marketplace.

The biggest impact of Dynamics 365 is that the customer information is more centralized, which saves time and gives us a 360-degree view of the customer.

Petra Velten, Business Expert Customer Service, Lufthansa Cargo

With Dynamics 365, our team has a single pane of glass with all customer information and tasks in one place. The Rheem knowledge base within Dynamics 365 Customer Service also gives [reps] fast, easy access to specific product information during customer calls.

Jordan Bond, Senior Manager, Product Owner, Dynamics Service, Rheem

Amplify your impact with Dynamics 365 Customer Service

We’re delighted to be recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™, but this is just the beginning of the agentic service era that Microsoft and our partners are shaping. We’ll continue to make significant R&D investments that help accelerate AI breakthroughs and work alongside our pioneering customers to define the future of service.

Explore how you can boost efficiency and enhance service in every channel:

• Dynamics 365 Customer Service
• Dynamics 365 Contact Center

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Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.

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