Enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms were designed to help integrate the fragmented processes that comprise the operation of a large enterprise. But the way we do business keeps fundamentally changing. New business models disrupt the way companies sell products and services, blurring industry lines and transforming customer experiences.

Business complexity continues to intensify, and the rise of data as a driver of business—plus the attendant proliferation of data streams—means reaping the full promise of comprehensive ERP platforms can still be elusive.

In fact, according to a Gartner® Research report, “by 2027, less than 30% of customers who adopted new solutions from ERP platform mega-vendors will have proven their original adoption business case.”¹

The arrival of generative AI brings hope of renewed promise. AI is elevating performance and creating advantages for those who understand how to apply it to data-centric systems like ERP platforms. By 2027, according to the same Gartner report, at least 50 percent of ERP systems with AI-enabled features will be enabled through generative AI capabilities.¹

People often think of generative AI as a tool to automate routine tasks, but its capabilities are so much broader. Improved decision-making is an area where AI becomes a valuable tool. In fact, a report from the market research firm IDC found that, by mid-2024, 30% of global organizations will take advantage of human-like interfaces in their enterprise applications to gain more insights quickly, improving decision velocity.²

While AI can inform and enhance any number of operations across an enterprise, it’s worth looking at some specific processes in detail to see how much AI can elevate ERP solutions. Learn more about current trends in ERP platform modernization in the age of generative AI in this webinar.

How AI creates a better plan-to-produce process

Most manufacturing firms implement a plan for how they will schedule production runs to meet materials capacity, deliver quality products on time, and maintain cost-effectiveness.

Sometimes, though, this plan-to-produce process becomes an accretion of good ideas at the time, a fragmented assemblage of tools and strategies trying to work together to paint the big picture of what’s happening on the production floor. This can lead to quality control issues, and manpower and equipment shortages that fail to meet production surges, or inaccurate forecasts that waste resources or leave customers high and dry—among other issues.

Generative AI integrated with a robust ERP system can aggregate data from across an enterprise—even data residing in multiple clouds—in real time, so managers have a clear picture of the state of play at any given moment, allowing them to reduce lead times necessary to plan or alter production runs.

The complicated interdependence of tasks on a manufacturing floor—for example, Part A must be installed before Part B can be attached—is a perfect puzzle for AI to help solve. The predictive analytics capacity of generative AI allows it to better forecast demand and synch production with supplies, and then optimize timing to match resource availability with manpower. AI can also forecast and build scenarios for supply chain disruption or changes in demand.

Whether a manufacturer needs to increase production volume to meet increasing demand or build whole new facilities, AI excels at building scalable networks, finding efficiencies, and reducing costly interventions.

Learn more about how Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and other applications optimize the plan-to-produce process.

Optimizing the procure-to-pay process

Another process most large organizations seek to optimize is the integration of procurement with accounts payable. When you need to spend the money, it’s good to know that you have the money. IDC reports that, by mid-2025, 70% of global businesses will use embedded financing to collect and make payments.²

More than most industries, healthcare organizations must reckon with a complex field of myriad payers, purchasers, and suppliers. Healthcare organizations face layers of challenging regulatory compliance and the need to control ever-rising costs. Many organizations in this field still rely on antiquated, paper-based invoicing and payables.

Fragmented processes and siloed data make regulatory issues more fraught, while also increasing attack surfaces to create security risks. AI can remove complexities by integrating processes in one ERP platform, helping to reduce vulnerabilities. By mapping operations to standards, AI supports compliance efforts, efficiently creating the audit trails and tedious reports that often take staff hours to produce.

AI streamlines procurement, reducing the potential for human error present when ordering supplies and equipment from a diverse range of providers. It tracks expenses to help control costs, providing easily accessible price information about competing products and services so the organization can continually find cost efficiencies.

An ERP solution enhanced with AI allows planners to automate the maintenance of inventory with both real-time and predictive information, reducing the risk of stockouts or overstock situations and more effectively communicating with suppliers.

Quicker quote-to-cash with personalization and automation

AI integrates and improves the sales, finance, and supply elements of an ERP platform by increasing automation in negotiations, contract lifecycles, production, order management, billing, and delivery. For businesses with retail components, making the quote-to-cash cycle faster and more accurate creates efficiencies—which can help keep customers happier.

Automating price and quote information speeds up the resolution of even highly complex deals. The same is true once a quote is accepted—an accurate, automatically generated proposal follows immediately. AI-generated purchase orders and invoices free sellers to spend more time interacting with customers and accounting teams to focus on tasks that increase the organization’s productivity.

AI’s predictive analytics ensure on-time delivery of products but also allow firms to quickly identify current and future trends and make data-driven decisions about ordering and pricing. Automating invoicing tracks payments accurately and creates a real-time picture of cash flow. AI can continually improve cash flow forecasts by comparing projections with results and adjusting from the outcomes over time. And analytics enabled by AI offer suggestions for improving sales performance and strategic decisions.

Learn more about how Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance optimizes the quote-to-cash and other retail business processes.

Get more from your business data with AI-enabled ERP processes

Across the organization, optimizing finance and supply chains can create a connected enterprise that allows enterprises to infuse AI, automation, and analytics into ERP processes. Today, companies can confidently move to the cloud with AI-powered ERP solutions, modernize business processes, and unlock the agility needed to lead the way in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace. 

A recent Forrester Research study interviewed IT leaders and professionals who had experience using Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software.³ Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that has 5,000 employees and generates USD1 billion in annual revenue. Forrester found that, over a three-year period, the value added to the composite included:

• USD1.2 million in increased profitability from real-time visibility and enhanced decision-making.
• USD8.9 million in increased productivity from unified data access, streamlined processes, automated workflows, and other gained efficiencies.
• USD3.9 million in reduced infrastructure and IT operations spend from cloud migration.
• USD8.9 million in productivity improvements in finance/accounting, supply chain/logistics, and other personnel.

The study estimated a net present value of USD8.1 million and an ROI of 106%, as well as additional benefits like an improved cybersecurity posture and enhanced employee experiences. The composite organization would pay back its investment in Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software in 17 months.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software

Learn more about the total economic impact of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software

Read the report

AI-enabled ERP platforms allow you to protect, connect, and get more from your business data while gaining security. With the right ERP solution, you can scale globally to drive business expansion and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) while ensuring regulatory compliance, supercharging productivity, and realizing the business impacts of generative AI even faster.

Sources

¹ Predicts 2024: ERP Evolves Planning With Automation and AI, Denis Torii, Gartner Research, April 5, 2024

² IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Intelligent ERP 2024 Predictions, doc #US51300923, October 2023

³ The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP, Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Dynamics 365 ERP, a Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study commissioned By Microsoft, April 2024

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

The post Transforming ERP, and the speed of business, with generative AI appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In a previous blog, we discussed how modern, AI-enabled customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems help drive new, more effective ways of working for employees and more satisfying outcomes for the customers they serve in three key ways: by streamlining operations, by empowering more informed and insightful decisions, and by elevating customer and employee experiences.  

In this blog post, we’re going to focus on the third item: elevating customer and employee experiences by showing how AI-enabled CRM solutions help increase productivity and provide unprecedented levels of personalized service across three key business functions: marketing, sales, and customer service. We’ll also provide insights and best practices for how to help employees get the most from AI, including how they can be empowered to create personalized experiences for their customers.  

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

Grow your revenue with next-generation AI.

Learn more

Revolutionizing marketing: How AI-enabled CRM software drives personalized experiences and enhance customer engagement 

Marketing is one area where generative AI is already in active use. According to a Forrester survey of CMOs, more than half (56%) of B2C marketing or advertising decision makers have been using generative AI in three key ways:  

• To help employees minimize tedious tasks, allowing for more time to focus on strategically important work. 
• To summarize insights and enable swift action without the need to dig through data manually. 
• To boost the scale of creative output by generating starter ideas along with visuals and copy.¹

AI is particularly capable of delivering personalized experiences in marketing, where AI-enabled CRM platforms can marry customer data to messaging to create memorable moments and impact sales. One example of a company using AI-enabled CRM solutions to generate marketing content is North Carolina-based sports club NC Fusion, which used Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to help its marketers create personalized messaging tailored to its audience segments, increasing the reach of the brand. Using AI-enabled content ideas, descriptions, and summaries has provided significant time savings, and personalizing campaigns has been more effective with Copilot.²  

“For families, we are able to tailor the message they receive. This means a family will only receive messages that apply to their situation, and not a multitude of emails that have no application to their family situation. With AI-assisted content production, our customer engagement has increased from 10% to 30%.”  

Chris Barnhart, Head of IT and Data Systems at NC Fusion

Empowering sales teams: How AI-driven personalization can transform customer interactions and boost revenue 

Another area where personalization can impact an organization’s bottom line is sales, where making authentic connections with customers at the right time is paramount. Few organizations know this better than superyacht brokerage Northrop & Johnson, which has used AI to deliver highly personal sales experiences tailored to the wants and needs of its high-value clients. 

“In this market, we have high-wealth customers who are considering very high-value purchases, and we can’t afford any interactions that leave them feeling anything less than special.”

Keith Perfect, Director of Technoloy & Intelligence at Northrop & Johnson 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, and Copilot provide Northrop & Johnson sales teams with comprehensive and timely data for each client, which helps them deliver personalized conversations at precisely the right time to engage. 

“Clients at this level want to know they are taken care of. And when you must make an impact in minutes, which is all you have with these busy clients, you need to be very attuned to them. Otherwise, it could cost you the sale. So, having a solution at your fingertips that connects the entire journey is huge for our sales team.” 

Daniel Ziriakus, President & Chief Operating Officer at Northrop & Johnson

Sales teams using AI-enabled CRM software also realize significant time savings as salespeople assign more tedious tasks to their AI assistants. In fact, according to new Microsoft research, 79% of Microsoft Copilot for Sales users say it reduces the amount of administrative work they have to do, 67% say it helps them spend more time with customers, and 64% say it allows them to better personalize customer engagements.³  

Transforming customer support: How AI-driven assistants enhance productivity, satisfaction, and retention 

Customer service is still another area where AI-enabled CRM platforms can make an immediate impact. According to a November 2023 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), customer service agents using a generative AI-based conversational assistant were able to increase productivity—specifically measured by the number of issues resolved per hour—by an average of 14%. The effect was even more pronounced with novice and low-skill workers, who experienced productivity increases of 34%. Researchers also found that AI assistance improves customer sentiment and increases employee retention.⁴ 

One company using an AI-enabled CRM solution in customer service is Microsoft. We operate one of the largest customer support teams in the world and process more than 145 million contacts per year. We use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service to help utilize the full expertise of the engineers on staff and provide better resolution of customer issues across the board.⁵  

“The challenge for every support engineer is to connect with the human being on the other end of the call who has a problem that needs solving. You want to connect with them, but you also need to be able to pull in a great deal of technical information. Copilot provides us the support to offer the customer understanding while also sorting out their technical problems.” 

Ric Todd, Director of Support Strategy at Microsoft

Download The AI Advantage: Driving sales performance with next-generation tools.

Bringing AI to your organization  

For leaders looking to roll out AI solutions in their organizations, we have some encouraging news: people new to AI begin recognizing its value quickly. Recent Microsoft research shows it takes a time savings of just 11 minutes per day for most people to see its usefulness (a key factor in getting new work habits to stick). ⁶  

Encouragingly, most respondents report having saved more than 11 minutes. The most efficient among them are saving up to 30 minutes per day—the equivalent of 10 hours per month—and the average person is saving 14 minutes per day for a time savings of almost five hours per month. 

What’s more, the breakthrough moment by which respondents report seeing improvements in productivity (75%), work enjoyment (57%), work-life balance (34%), and the ability to attend fewer meetings (37%) happens within one business quarter—11 weeks.⁷  

While personal productivity gains from Copilot are real and significant, building an AI-powered organization requires committing to working in a new way. Some best practices to consider include:  

• Encourage daily use. Realizing productivity gains from AI will take intentional everyday practice. Those who start building the habit early will pull ahead. And don’t forget—11 weeks is all it takes for people to recognize the effect.  

• Help people manage their new assistants. Employees taught to treat their generative AI tools as assistants, not search engines, will get the most value. Teach team members to manage their new assistant and to recognize when to delegate a task to AI and when to apply their human intelligence, judgment, and skill. 

• Find good use of reclaimed time. Help your team take advantage of time savings to focus on the higher-order and creative tasks only people can do. Salespeople can devote more time to building relationships with customers and closing deals. Marketers can carve out time to dream up new solutions. Customer service teams can focus on solving problems, and managers across the organization can spend more time coaching and caring for their teams. 

Taking the next step forward 

Take the next step in your AI adoption journey by learning more about Copilot and other AI-powered capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Discover how to keep your organization on the cutting-edge by realizing that a new paradigm of customer engagement through AI-enabled personalization empowers both customers and employees.  

Join us at a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Virtual Training Day to gain the skills needed to help your organization sell, service, and deliver on the customer expectations of tomorrow. Register for free, in-depth training events, where you’ll uncover new efficiencies of scale, discover smarter connections, and utilize built-in intelligence for deeper insights into your business. Register now! 

Sources

1.  Leap Now, Not Later, into a Responsible Generative AI Strategy for Marketing (July 5th, 2023) 
2. Microsoft Customer Story-NC Fusion expands youth marketing outreach, taught kids leadership and life skills with Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
3. What Can Copilot’s Earliest Users Teach Us About Generative AI at Work? (microsoft.com) 
4. Working Paper 31161; Generative AI at Work; NBER 
5. Microsoft Customer Story-Microsoft empowers support engineers to shine brighter with Dynamics 365 Customer Service 
6. AI Data Drop: The 11-by-11 Tipping Point 
7. AI Data Drop: The 11-by-11 Tipping Point 

The post Elevating experiences with AI, from productivity to personalization  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.