The “changing technology landscape” has become a common trope when discussing the cloud. I understand whyit helps contextualize the disruption and advancement we’re experiencing. But you know as well as I do, this “change” has happened. The on-premises solutions and infrastructure you built your business on, though once state-of-the-art, are now less adaptable, less useful, and less secure by the day.

Elasticity, scalability, and accessibility have never been more important, especially as new disruptions continue to test organizations, solutions, and processes alike. Moving to the cloud should be a business priority. Like any large project, it should not happen overnight. Build a plan, prepare your organization, and take manageable steps.

Start by understanding the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Power of the Cloud and the benefits it offers. Challenge the legacy thinking and misconceptions within your organization on whether your on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) can deliver on future needs and expectations. Don’t let nostalgia hold you back.

1. Good enough is no longer good enough

The first, and most common thing some business leaders say is, “What we have works just fine.” This can be especially true of customers in the finance and operations spaces, those utilizing Dynamics AX or other on-premises ERP solutions.

The idea of change or adopting something new can trigger this “good enough” reaction. The problem, of course, is that “good enough” masks complacencybecause it maintains the familiar. Within business, complacency is often the death of innovation and growth. Though some leaders still insist their on-premises solution is getting the job done, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the competition is using the cloud to accelerate growth.

Dynamics 365 customers are taking advantage of data integrations, out-of-the-box functionality, plus advanced machine learning and predictive analytic capabilities to optimize legacy processes in real time, outpacing, outmaneuvering, and out-earning their on-premises peers.

2. Your needs are not as unique as you think

Another barrier to migration is the idea that your organizational needs are unique. This claim is common among on-premises organizations whose solutions have been heavily customized over the years, often addressing specific, point-in-time business needs.

Migration can enable an organization to eliminate cumbersome customization and their underlying expenses, infrastructure, and processes. Often what a customer views as a “unique” situation is less about the specialized needs of a given IT environment and more about what is perceived to be proprietary and a limited understanding of what is possible in the cloud.

Moreover, Microsoft works hard to advance our cloud solutions and ensure agility and adaptability to meet modern business requirements. Moving to the cloud is no small decisionthese are large technology projects that take planning and resources. While customizations do add complexity, these modifications should not preclude you from moving to the cloud. Out-of-the-box functionality; low-code, no-code; code-extensions; and ISV applications often eliminate the need for your legacy customizations.

Dynamics 365 offers flexibility and scalability designed to grow with customers’ businesses, allowing them to manage their organizations with unified data in real time.

3. Siloed doesn’t ensure security or compliance

Data preservation is a concern for most organizations. Vulnerabilities within your IT infrastructure and processes can leave systems susceptible to external threats and exploitation. Due to media mentions, many organizations believe the cloud is not safe.

The impenetrable solution is a myth, driven by the misconception that most attacks originate from outside an organization. No doubt traditional on-premises data solutions have been the stalwart cornerstone of many businesses’ IT operations. This firewall thinking served us well for a time. Not anymore. The threats have changed. On-premises solutions are reliant on existing policies, technology, and softwarewhich may or may not be up to datealong with their IT staff ensuring that the latest security processes and protocols are being maintained.

Within a modern cloud based solution, customers are able to take advantage of a Zero-Trust security framework. Zero Trust assumes potential threats have already “breached the gates.” Microsoft is proactive in verifying and reverifying credentials and authentications to minimize risks and threats.

Consider that cloud-based systems have millions of programs designed to check and update customers’ systems, creating backups and adjusting to current conditions, while on-premises solutions are reliant on IT staff to do those things individually. When measured against the increasing sophistication, speed, adaptability, and sheer criminal organization of cyber-attacks, it is nearly impossible for any company to protect itself in a siloed, non-cloud environment. Microsoft Cloud solutions regularly provide localized compliance, security, and governance updates. This translates into greater institutional and organizational efficiency and cost savings, allowing your teams and IT staff to focus on other projects and strategic priorities aligning to growth, leaving the security “burden” on Microsoft.

Your business resiliency may depend on when and how you adopt cloud functionality

Migrating to the cloud makes sense for efficiency and growth62 percent of companies that have migrated to the cloud reported an increase in customer satisfaction. Migrating to the cloud makes sense for customization and adaptabilitycompanies that have transitioned to cloud solutions reported a 44 percent increase in the speed of new product launches due to utility and specialized tools available to them. Migrating to the cloud makes sense for security and reliabilitycompanies that have transitioned to the cloud reported a 60 percent reduction in security incidents compared to their on-premises solutions.

Bear in mind that the benefits of the cloud can only fully be realized through successful migration, and Microsoft has developed the tools, resources, and expert support to help companies make the move in a quick, efficient, and cost-effective way.

Learn more

To learn more about how Microsoft Cloud solutions can help you modernize, customize, and keep you more secure, watch the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Power of the Cloud Webinar and join the migration community for resources and expert advice.

The post 3 reasons to not delay your migration to Dynamics 365 in the cloud appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Enriched profiles in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights help you understand your customers’ brand and interest affinities so that you can provide the hyper-personalized experiences across touchpoints that today’s customers seek.

Brand and interest affinity insights are based on first- and third-party signals and data from people like your customers in age, gender, and location. This month we are announcing two enhancements to the Dynamics 365 Customer Insights enrichment feature:

1. Affinity level. Every enriched customer profile now includes an affinity level, from low to very high. Levels are in addition to the existing affinity score, which is calculated on a 100-point scale. Either can be used to measure affinity and to aid easy segmentation.
2. Share of voice. This information can be used to identify which brand or interest is highest for a given demographic segment. Share of voice is a comparison across brands and interests that you select.

Introducing affinity levels

We added the affinity levels enhancement to simplify the process of identifying a demographic segment’s affinity for a brand or interest. Previously, affinities were assigned a numerical score with no fixed scale. Affinity levels map directly to affinity scores and are designed to make the affinity scores more accessible. There are four levels:

1. Low
2. Medium
3. High
4. Very High

With this enhancement we also fixed the scale of the affinity score. It’s now calculated on a 100-point scale.

The setup experience for affinity enrichments hasn’t changed. Users will see the updated experience automatically.

The following image shows how the new affinity levels appear on the My enrichments > BrandAffinity and My enrichments > InterestAffinity views:

Introducing share of voice

Share of voice identifies which brand or interest has the highest proportion of popularity. It’s an important measure because it helps you understand whether your customer is more likely to engage with you or focus on your competition. The affinity for a brand or interest is calculated as a ratio of its popularity for a given demographic segment (age, gender, location) as compared to other brands or interests.  

Previously, affinities and interests appeared next to each other in the My enrichments dashboard. While there’s a natural tendency to compare them against each other, they’re not directly comparable. Share of voice calculates comparatives across your selected brands or interests using a 100-point scale.

The share of voice numbers for configured brands always add up to 100% and are grouped into four levels:

1. Less than 25%
2. 25% to 50%
3. 51% to 75%
4. Greater than 75%

The share of voice enhancement doesn’t require any additional setup. As with affinity enrichments, users will see the updated share of voice experience automatically.

The following figure shows the aggregate share of voice for configured brands and interests:

You can also see share of voice for configured brands and interests on individual customer pages:

More information

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

For more information about these new feature enhancements, see the brands and interests enrichment documentation.

Sign up for a free Dynamics 365 Customer Insights trial to experience how you can enrich your customer profiles with affinities and share of voice. We invite you to try these new feature enhancements and let us know about your experience.

The post Enrich customer insights with affinity levels and share of voice appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Automatic assignment of incoming service requests is one of the most powerful capabilities of unified routing, benefiting customers as well as agents and management. A common customer pain point is waiting for a long time to reach an agent, only to find out that the agent is unable to solve the issue. Precise automated assignment directly impacts key KPIs like first call resolution, customer satisfaction, and agent satisfaction. On the management side, the system can determine the best agent to assign to a case, removing the need for supervisors to constantly monitor queues.

How automatic assignment works

To assign incoming service requests from all channels to the best-suited agent, unified routing evaluates the following information until it finds a match:

• Static characteristics of the agents, such as skills, proficiency, working hours, and location
• The dynamic characteristic of real-time capacity
• Aspects of the incoming work, such as answers to pre-chat questions, virtual agent interactions, customer journey context, and required skills

Unified routing first looks at the incoming service request and any responses to bots, IVR, pre-chat surveys, and so on, and classifies or “enriches” the service request using machine learning models or logical rules. This step helps in identifying details like incident category, severity, and priority; determining the best support center from the customer’s location; and recognizing related records.

Next, the system uses the enriched information to find the most appropriate agent, as expressed in terms of assignment rules. Unified routing supports multiple assignment rules, executing them one after another until a suitable match is found. Matching can produce three results:

1. Only one agent matches all the criteria. The system assigns the work to the agent.
2. Multiple agents match the criteria. The system ranks them against one another, based on their capacity, proficiency, or experience, or simply assigns them in a round robin fashion.
3. No agents match the criteria. The system provides an option to relax the criteria, or constraints. We call this “gradual relaxation of constraints.” Unified routing evaluates the next matching expression, repeating the process until at least one agent matches.

What happens if the automatically assigned agent rejects the assignment or isn’t available? The system tries to reassign the work on its own, supplemented by supervisor intervention, when needed. Unified routing respects the supervisor’s assignment, so if a supervisor wants to step in and assign work to an agent, they can always do so.

With automatic assignment, unified routing helps improve CSAT while lowering the total cost of ownership, removing the need for constant queue supervision.

Related links and more reading

• Assignment methods in unified routing
• Configuring assignment methods and rules

This blog post is part of a series of deep dives that will help you deploy and use unified routing at your organization. See other posts in the series to learn more.

The post Improve CSAT by connecting customers to agents using automatic assignment in unified routing appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Last October, we announced a new partnership with Shopify to help our customers create a better shopping experience. The partnership was designed to better connect the easy-to-use e-commerce and merchant experience of Shopify with the comprehensive business management capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Today we are pleased to announce that a new Shopify connector is now available.

“We launched the Shopify Global ERP program to give merchants the power to manage the complexity of their business operations. The new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central connector will help our merchants remain resilient and prepare for the future of commerce using real-time insights from connected data.”Colin Bodell, Vice President of Research and Development, Shopify.

The connector will help our customers get the visibility needed to speed customer inquiry responses, process more timely returns and refunds, and achieve more accurate order processing. Ultimately keeping people focused on customer experiences, by eliminating manual processes through:

Support of multiple Shopify shops

• Each shop has its own setup, including a collection of products, locations used to calculate inventory, and price lists.

Bi-directional synchronization of items or products

• Connector will sync images, item variants, barcodes, vendor item numbers, extended texts, and tags between systems.
• Easily export item attributes to Shopify.
• Use selected customer price groups and discounts to define how prices will be exported to Shopify.
• Decide whether items can be created automatically or only allow updates to existing products.

Synchronization of inventory levels

• Choose to use some or all of the available locations in Dynamics 365 Business Central.
• Update inventory levels on multiple locations in Shopify.

Bi-directional synchronization of customers

• Smart-map customers by phone and email.
• Use country-specific templates when creating customers, which helps ensure that tax settings are correct.

Import of orders from Shopify

• During import you can automatically create customers in Dynamics 365 Business Central or decide to manage the customers in Shopify.
• Include orders created in other channels, such as Shopify POS or Amazon.
• Shipping costs, gift cards, tips, shipping and payment methods, transactions, and risk of fraud.
• Receive payout information from Shopify Payments.

Easy tracking of fulfillment information

• Optionally choose to write item tracking information from Dynamics 365 Business Central into Shopify.

Microsoft has partnered with scapta, a Business Central ISV, to acquire their market-tested, feature-rich Shopify connector and embed it directly within Dynamics 365 Business Central. Scapta has many customer testimonials showcasing the power of connecting Dynamics 365 Business Central and Shopify. This approach allows us to offer more value to our customers that need global commerce capabilities.

“We rely on Shopify to manage commerce across three shops and to process thousands of orders each month. The connection with Dynamics 365 Business Central provides us with the visibility needed to adapt faster, work smarter, and perform better.”Stijn Lowette, CEO Kambukka.

Capitalize on the Shopify connector today

More connected data insights can help you reimagine the shopping experience for your customers, while streamlining business operations and financial management. Empower your people with more automated commerce processes so they can stay focused on more strategic work and customer outcomes. By connecting Shopify and Dynamics 365 Business Central you get the flexibility, control, and tracking needed to drive growth. The Shopify connector is available for the online version of Dynamics 365 Business Central. It is not available for on-premises versions. We expect this feature to be available as an extension in all countries where Dynamics 365 Business Central is available. The extension will be pre-installed for new customers. Existing customers can download and install the extension from Microsoft AppSource or the Shopify app store.

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We are excited to return to Hannover Messe in person this year between May 30, 2022 and June 2, 2022. The pandemic has been difficult for most manufacturers, and there are still many lingering challengesyet, manufacturers are intent on digital transformation to drive resilience. There are several emerging trends that we believe are instrumental to manufacturers’ success in how they operate in 2022 and beyond.

At Hannover Messe this year, we will showcase how Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps manufacturers:

• Transform work with advanced warehousing, robotics, and mixed reality.
• Increase resilience with a predictive supply chain.
• Manufacture and operate sustainably with minimal waste.

Based on a commissioned study with Forrester Consulting, more than 30 percent of manufacturing leaders face visibility challenges with inventory of raw materials, work-in-progress, and finished goods in the distributor network.¹ Manufacturers are adopting a data-driven approach to improving operations, and doing so drives more focused improvements to systems and processes. But one-third of respondents surveyed note their organizations struggle with analyzing and applying the data to drive business and process improvements.

Visibility across operations is useful only if the manufacturers can use that data to drive action, hence the importance to driving both visibility and data improvements. Manufacturers are also keen to overcome distribution-related disruptions. Nearly half (48 percent) of manufacturing leaders expect distribution disruptions such as lack of carrier availability to increase.¹ Demand fluctuations are at their peak, and so flexibility is paramount to meet this changing customer demand on time. However, this cannot come at the expense of front-line workers getting burnt out. It is an imperative to improve processes and conditions for frontline employees.

Lastly, environmental sustainability is a growing priority for manufacturing leaders to address in supply chain. Nearly one-quarter of leaders have improving sustainability metrics as a top digital transformation objective. As manufacturers transform, roughly 30 percent expect a reduced environmental impact as a result of their transformation efforts.¹

Overcome disruptions and shortages with robotics and mixed reality

It is no secret that manufacturing operations have facedand continue to grapple withmultiple sources of ongoing shortages and disruptions. From port congestion, shipping delays, and material and workforce shortages, to extensive and unforeseen swings in customer demandtoday’s current challenges are as varied as they are persistent. However, these challenges have also given rise to innovative solutions capable of providing manufacturers and distributors with the capability to improve operations and overcome workforce shortages and skills gaps.

Robotics and automation are an attractive opportunity in this regardone that is generating goodwill among industry professionals and driving increases in investment. Most manufacturing executives believe that automation will positively impact their sector. Concurrently, the number of robots sold in North America rose 28 percent in 2021, setting a record of approximately $2 billion in sales.² These points provide the context for our first work transformation innovation that is helping manufacturers and distributors overcome workforce shortages: advances in warehousing with robotics.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is designed to incorporate robotics to improve the automation of warehousing functions. This robotic integration and automation capability allows organizations to rapidly stand up and tear down temporary and flexible warehouse capacities closer to their manufacturing sites. Ultimately, these innovations enable companies to support complex warehousing functions, improve warehouse productivity, and overcome workforce shortages.

Contributing to the workforce shortages that manufacturers face is the retirement of a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce and, to a lesser extent, normal attrition as workers move on to other roles or companies. The learning curve for new team members in a manufacturing environment can often be steep and challenging due to the complexity of numerous processes and machinery that must be operated. This can cause significant disruption to normal operations. 

A key innovation that is helping manufacturers to overcome workforce shortages and close the talent gap is the application of mixed reality to accelerate the onboarding of new employees and rapidly upskill existing team members. Based on the Microsoft-commissioned Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study, manufacturing organizations that have deployed mixed-reality solutions have reduced training time by 75 percent, at an average savings of $30 per labor hour.³

With Microsoft’s mixed-reality solutions, including Dynamics 365 Guides, HoloLens 2, and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, manufacturers can deliver interactive learning experiences that increase workforce efficiency and flexibility and improve workforce safety by providing hands-free work instructions directly in the field of vision during task execution. Let us see how Toyota Motor North America is boosting operational and training efficiency and scalability with Microsoft’s mixed-reality solutions.

Interested in learning more about how to improve on-the-job guidance or in the benefits of mixed-reality applications in manufacturing? Give our recent blogs, Improve on-the-job guidance with Dynamics 365 Guides and Azure Object Anchors and Watch how to improve on-the-job guidance with mixed reality a read.

Increasing resilience with visibility, insights, and orchestration

When organizations are slow to digitize, they lack the visibility to predict disruptions. They also lack the insights and agility to proactively mitigate these disruptions. At Hannover Messe, we will showcase our latest investments from Dynamics 365 that enhance end-to-end visibility of your supply chain and the production floor, enable flexible real-time planning, and optimize and automate fulfillment by seamlessly orchestrating business processes to proactively mitigate constraints.

These investments from Dynamics 365 are developed to help manufacturers become a composable enterprise. The capabilities are built such that they are interoperable with the manufacturer’s existing supply chain technology infrastructure. They unify data from disparate systems and leverage AI to drive actionable insights. With Microsoft Teams embedded within the Dynamics 365 supply chain portfolio, collaborating to achieve consensus with internal team members and external partners is more streamlined, quick, and almost in near real time.

Manufacturers can further add new revenue lines by moving from fixed revenue to recurring revenue by adding new service offerings. The Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management works seamlessly with Dynamics 365 Field Service so that manufacturers can predict and proactively maintain their customer’s assets.

Dynamics 365 can also integrate with other third-party manufacturing execution systems. This allows manufacturers to unify data in real time across multiple different systems and contextualize the transaction data you get from enterprise resource planning (ERP) and time series data you get from the production floor to proactively looks for inefficiencies and quality issues so that you can improve the overall equipment effectiveness. At the end of the day, these innovations empower manufacturers to create and run more agile and connected factories and more resilient supply chains.

Circular manufacturing advances sustainability

Manufacturers have diligently worked to minimize waste since the ascendancy of lean manufacturing techniques. Now, as the world, governments, and consumers increasingly focus on sustainability, the push is on for manufacturers to reduce another form of wastecarbon dioxide (CO₂). The leading sustainability initiative that brands are investing in worldwide is circular economy or circular manufacturing. This allows customers to recycle products easily. By setting up reverse logistics flows that allow customers to recycle products, manufacturers can not only drive a more sustainable future that is aligned with evolving consumer expectations but can also realize cost savings by utilizing recycled materials to produce new goods.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management provides organizations with the platform and tools to design manufacturing systems, processes, and products for reuse, minimize waste and emissions, and introduce new revenue streams like subscriptions and buyback programs. At Microsoft, we use these solutions to help us keep our commitment to zero-waste and carbon-negative operations. Our pilot initiative is the Microsoft Circular Centers program, which facilitates the reuse and recycling of servers and hardware within our data centers. To date, the Circular Centers program has reduced carbon emissions by 14,500 metric tons CO₂ equivalent.

With sustainability being a core focus for Microsoft, we are also pleased to announce the general availability of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability on June 1, 2022. Cloud for Sustainability solutions such as the Sustainability Manager gives organizations the ability to better manage their environmental footprint, embed sustainability throughout their value chain, and make strategic business investments that drive more value.

To learn more about strategies for overcoming disruptions and shortages while also improving sustainability through circular manufacturing strategies and Cloud for Sustainability solutions, see us at Hannover Messe.

Engage with Microsoft at Hannover Messe 2022 

Register for Hannover Messeand visit the Microsoft booth Hall 4 Stand E34, where you can join guided tours and book meetings with Microsoft executives and manufacturing experts on hand to discuss how Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing brings together Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Platform capabilities that help: 

• Build more agile factories. 
• Transform your workforce. 
• Engage customers in new ways. 
• Create more resilient supply chains. 
• Unlock innovation and new services. 
• Secure manufacturing solutions from edge to cloud. 
• Accelerate your sustainability journey.

Sign-up to tour the Microsoft booth.

We will also be showcasing Dynamics 365 Customer Service, which brings the anytime, anywhere experience through the self-service capability for manufacturers.  

Want to learn more about manufacturing supply chain transformation in 2022? Check out our recent e-book: Six Trends that Are Shaping Supply Chain Transformation for Manufacturers.

Sources:

¹A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft. March 2022- Building A More Resilient Future for Manufacturers Through Digital Transformation

²Association for Advancing Automation (A3), 2022. Robot Sales in North America Have Strongest Year Ever in 2021

³Forrester. The Total Economic Impact of Mixed Reality Using Microsoft HoloLens 2, commissioned by Microsoft

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Manufacturing supply chains are experiencing a post-pandemic paradigm shift. As business models evolve to solve market disruptions, such as changing or adding direct-to-consumer (D2C) to a business-to-business (B2B) model, supply chains require agility and innovation to build resiliency and stay ahead of trends. United States D2C e-commerce sales have more than tripled in the past six years. ¹ The market gained almost $100 billion in about half a decade from 2016 to 2021. It is expected to grow by nearly another $100 billion in the next three years, reaching $212.90 billion by 2024.¹ With added supply chain complexities, including D2C, B2B, and advanced last-mile delivery bots, drones, and self-driving vehicles, manufacturers need strategies that go beyond cost reduction and can easily scale across the network. Supply chain networks able to scale their ecosystems will gain a competitive advantage, and the intelligent solutions to achieve this are composable and modular business applications.

Composable business applications are cloud-based technologies that provide unlimited scalability. They seamlessly integrate with other applications and are easy to use through a low-code or no-code interface. This composability allows organizations to combine different modular applications in an incremental and agile way through rapid sprints instead of embarking on time-consuming and costly rip-and-replace projects. Therefore, reach faster impact regardless of where manufacturers might be in their digital supply chain transformation journey.

The effectiveness of organizations’ digital supply chain in orchestrating supplier and fulfillment partnerships to meet anticipated customer demand determines the quality of the customer experience, as outlined in our on-demand webinar: A Smart Approach to Supply Chain Resilience Using Intelligent Order Management, featuring George Lawrie, Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst.

To summarize, composability makes supply chain network innovation possible, as highlighted in the three advantages below.

1. Modern open platforms pave the way for innovation

Recent years show that siloed data has no place in today’s supply chain network. Traditional networks support predictable environments, which are no longer the case with current market dynamics. From raw material shortages to non-traditional emerging channels, supply chain networks require agility that extends to all stakeholders and foster fluid collaboration.

According to a Forrester report, platforms make it easier to assemble complex technology portfolios across a range of packaging alternatives, leveraging modular components while allowing for customization and custom development.²

Composable and modular business applications seamlessly integrate with existing enterprise systems with modern open platforms and low-code/no-code interfaces. In addition, they support innovative features such as predictive analytics or agile manufacturing for real-time and cross-channel inventory visibility. They also enable manufacturers to enhance network strategies and allow rapid deployment of digital supply chain control towers another advantage of composability.

2. End-to-end visibility to scale supply chain networks

Improving the customer experience is a top priority for many organizations. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw customer loyalty easily swayed. This trend gave new brand entrants a foothold into e-commerce and catalyzed many established brands to engage D2C to maintain market share. Similarly, the rise of the omnichannel’s ease of purchasing, delivery, and return options has set high customer expectations and introduced new buying behaviors. These dynamics present significant risks as ongoing supply chain disruptions continue. But extensible composable tools arm the supply chain network with another advantage: the digital control tower with end-to-end visibility to anticipate and mitigate order management turmoil.

According to a Forrester survey, the most common planned improvement (49 percent) retailers and CPG companies are making, is better visibility across the supply chain (from factories to raw materials suppliers).³ Consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers with newly launched D2C business models recognize that complete visibility is essential for favorable customer experiences.

Digital supply chain control towers take real-time data from multiple supply chain network workloads and provide a holistic, multi-dimensional view. The partnership with FedEx and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for the cross-platform, logistics-as-a-service solution for brands exemplifies these capabilities, offering features like a seamless return experience and transportation optimization to proactively avoid delivery delays. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management also allows organizations to set up the first step to incrementally build a composable digital supply chain platform with different module solutions for end-to-end visibility and deliver highly valued unified customer experiences.

3. Composability with AI drives actionable insights

Finally, composable business applications enable optimization at each node level letting manufacturers know where opportunities exist. Composable business applications give manufacturers advantages that are counterintuitive to previous assumptions. Advanced analytics powered by built-in AI and machine learning capabilities allow manufacturers to test hypotheses with predictive data-driven outcomes.

A Forrester survey shows that 56 percent of respondents report that one of the most important aspects of supply chain agility is increasing the use of machine learning and AI to drive process automation.³

An innovative supply chain network leverages composable digital tools with embedded AI and machine learning to improve decision-making, unify disparate data, foresee disruptions, and utilize deeper insights.

To start building composability in your supply chain network watch the video:

Achieve more with agile and resilient supply chains

Dynamics 365 innovates supply chain networks, making them resilient and sustainable through composability. These intelligent solutions work seamlessly with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to respond to market dynamics quickly and integrate with many market-leading API-enabled applications. Pre-built connectors extend business capabilities through an ecosystem of specialized partners for order delivery, tax compliance, price calculations, transportation, and other logistics services. Plus, users can easily create rules and quickly configure order flows to adapt to changing market conditions or scale to support peak volume demands with an easy-to-use low-code/no-code interface.

By enabling these capabilities, manufacturers can accelerate the digital transformation of their order management process and turn order fulfillment into a competitive advantage. Users can also automate and optimize fulfillment using AI to create real-time inventory visibility and extend into a digital control tower for end-to-end network visibility.

At Microsoft, we are committed to empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. With our next-generation digital supply chain applications, manufacturers can leverage composability to drive innovation across their supply chain networks. See how they can innovate yours in the on-demand webinar: A Smart Approach to Supply Chain Resilience Using Intelligent Order Management.

Sources

1- eMarketer, 2022. Established brands will drive the vast majority of D2C ecommerce sales.

2- Forrester, 2021. Accelerate Sustainable Innovation With Platforms.

3- Forrester, 2021. The Digital Commerce Imperative. A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft.

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