It’s one of the toughest challenges for organizations today: how to foster collaboration in a workplace that is more decentralized than ever, with people scattered across offices and locations.

Working together to move business forward is nothing new, but the way we collaborate is changing dramaticallyno longer confined to face-to-face time in a conference room or even a virtual web conference. The future of collaboration for all of us is about seamlessly switching between individual work and collaborative activities in the momentin context with the business application on the screen. That’s how information, ideas, and knowledge are shared in a natural way without breaking the flow of work. Everyone can collaborate as one business, everywhere.

In this blog series, we’ll explore blueprints to build a culture of collaboration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams, with examples of how one organization has woven cross-team collaboration into its DNA.

Before we get started, we encourage you to register for our upcoming session at Microsoft Ignite, “Accelerate cross-organization collaboration with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365,” where we’ll announce and demonstrate new integrations between Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. We’re unveiling a lot of new features in the 30-minute session, so be sure to tune in.

More than meetings: collaboration redefined

Before unrolling the blueprints, we need to set the stage with an updated look at how people collaborate in the workplace.

Collaboration needs no introduction. Many of us spend the day collaborating synchronouslylive, in real-timein-person or in online meetings, one-on-one or in groupswhere we plan, review, share, co-create content, brainstorm. All the familiar activities that have traditionally defined collaboration.

Real-time collaboration is just one way we work together. We also collaborate asynchronously, with ideas and interactions contributed over email or in response to a chat message as schedules permit, rather than in real-time.

Whether working together synchronously or asynchronously, collaboration should feel natural and seamless, without breaking your focus. That’s why the business applications you use need to integrate collaborative experiences nativelyso that any person or information you need is immediately available in the moment.

At Microsoft, we are prioritizing collaboration across the applications your organization uses every day, such as Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams. Collaborative apps ensure people engage and interact with each other naturally and spontaneously, in context with the task at hand. That’s the key to ensuring everyone achieves more together.

Introducing the blueprints for collaboration

Let’s take a closer look at one day in a typical organization with people scattered across headquarters, home offices, retail stores, and beyond.

A manufacturer of electric bicycles produces a growing line of brands sold online, in several flagship retail stores, and through dozens of retailers across North America. Many departments across the company rely on Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365including Microsoft Teams and Office applicationsto keep up with demand for the company’s product line. Together, these seamlessly integrated applications keep the business moving in high gear by breaking down all the silos in the business, between data sources, people, processes, and insights.

Marketing

The marketing team hosts monthly webinars for prospective retail partners that showcase product innovation and partner incentives. In the past, planning, hosting, and promoting the presentations was a time and resource-intensive effort for two marketing managers and a third-party production vendor.

Today, one marketing manager, Taylor, runs the entire show.

Taylor uses Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams, and Dynamics 365 to produce, host, promote and engage attendees for each monthly webinar. At each step, he can pull in experts when needed right from within the application on the screen, without breaking the flow of the task at hand. The entire marketing team also has a clear view of engagements that the sales team is working on and can recommend or prioritize marketing tactics based on the sales stage for each engagement.

After the event, Taylor follows up with the event participants by sending personalized emails and orchestrating customer journeys using Dynamics 365 Marketing. For this marketing team, webinars aren’t just another marketing tacticthey are one of the best performing tactics to expand its retail footprint across North America. Dozens of qualified leads are delivered to the sales teama seamless hand-off between Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Sales that lets the sales team rapidly nurture, further qualify and convert opportunities to customers.

• Get steps to turn attendees into loyal customers with Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 Marketing
• Watcha video demonstration

Sales

The marketing webinars are a hit. Leads are flowing in; so many, in fact, that the sales team has been inundated, including opportunities ready for a proposal. It’s a good problem to have, but one that would traditionally lead to a push for quantity over quality.

With Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams, the sales team doesn’t need to compromise on detailsfrom the proposed solution to pricingthat can make or break a deal. Right from within Dynamics 365, a sales manager can reach out to experts across the company and quickly get the guidance and information needed to create an unbeatable offer.

Joanna, a sales manager, gets started by browsing a prioritized list of opportunities in Dynamics 365 Sales. Since the marketing and sales teams both use Dynamics 365, they can access a single source of trutha unified record of leads and customers, at every stage of the journey, from the very first engagement to purchase, service, and renewals.

Joanna has been nurturing a warm lead, a prospective customer ready for a quote. With familiar Microsoft Teams capabilities natively integrated in Dynamics 365 Sales, it’s a breeze to find the right people and information needed to create a quote custom-fit for the prospect’s unique challenges and needs.

In our blueprint for team selling (below) Joanna can see who has been engaging with the prospect or working similar deals, as well as any subject matter experts who can offer insights into the prospect’s business or industry. People and related documents discussed on Teams chats and channels are visible right from the customer record within Dynamics 365 Sales.

As Joanna mobilizes the team, she can share the opportunity record in Dynamics 365 to anyone in the company within a Teams chat. Without leaving Teamsand without the need for Dynamics 365anyone on the organization’s Teams domain can directly view details in the shared recordfrom contact details to engagement history, purchases, account notes, and more. They can see the very latest context needed to provide Joanna with informed and relevant guidance.

With collaboration, sharing, and communication capabilities integrated into Dynamics 365, It no longer takes hours or days to hunt down the right people and information across email chains, meetings, and callscollaborative activities are brought to Joanna front and center in the application she depends on to move deals through the funnel.

Once she shares the quote with the customer, it’s just as easy to bring together her team of experts and the prospective customer on a Teams meetingagain, right from within Dynamics 365 Sales. Together, they walk the prospect through quotes and address any questions and concerns. Conversation intelligence transcribes the call and provides meaningful insights and analyzes content, sentiment, and behavioral stylesuch as competitors and keywords that the prospect mentions during the call. AI-guided live feedback and suggestions can help sellers adjust their sales pitch, as well as provide managers with a way to track team performance and provide valuable coaching to help boost customer satisfaction.

The result: an unbeatable proposal, insights to optimize future quotes and sales processes, and plenty of time in the week to convert more webinar attendees.

• Read more: Intelligence and collaboration converge in Dynamics 365 Sales
• Take a guided tour of more ways to activate digital selling with Dynamics 365

Up next: blueprints to elevate collaboration across retail and customer service

In the next installment, we’ll share blueprints to elevate collaboration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams on the customer frontlines, from retail storefronts to customer service. Until then, we invite you to explore the four essentials to collaborate as one business, everywhere and take a behind-the-scenes look at two companies reinventing how people collaborate across the organization.

The post A blueprint for cross-organization collaboration: marketing and sales appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The past year has presented enormous changes in both our personal and work lives. But one thing that hasn’t changed is our desire for personalized service experiences and quick resolutions when we have issues. Service, which is often the face of a brand, plays a key role in what that experience looks like. That means that organizations need to understand what customers are looking for as expectations continue to rise, and leverage technology in a way that allows them to reimagine what customer service can look like. As a champion in customer services, we’re pleased to announce for the eighth consecutive year, Microsoft was named a Leader in the June 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center. We believe this placement recognizes Microsoft’s continuous investment and authority across our service solution and Cloud functionality.

“Gartner defines the CRM Customer Engagement Center (or CEC) market as software applications used to provide customer service and support. This support is by engaging intelligentlyboth proactively and reactivelywith customers by answering questions, solving problems, and giving advice.

The orchestration of customer service processes through a CEC application involves both assisted and self-service experiences within the customer journey. This is typically built around case management records and processes and extends to emerging approaches such as conversation-based customer engagement.”

CEC applications are expected to harness and synthesize customer data during their interactions to improve service delivery.

Noted capabilities

Microsoft has long pioneered cutting-edge technologies that have led to the development of rich features that empower agents to collaborate and increase productivity, optimize resources, and personalize the customer experience. Microsoft has been a partner to service organizations around the worldhelping to quickly align service operations to strengthen business continuity to withstand a changing economic landscape.

Take SHI Cryogenics Group as an example. For more than 300 years, this manufacturer has pushed the boundaries of possibilities to remain at the forefront by deploying leading-edge technology. SHI Cryogenics Group wanted to apply the same level of innovation to its service and repair processes to enhance support and value for customers. To help achieve this goal, SHI Cryogenics Group turned to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

SHI Cryogenics has reduced product repair turnaround times from two months to two weeks and now shares real-time product data with its customers, providing them with insight into performance issues and service needs. SHI Cryogenics’ customers have more visibility into their products, experience fewer equipment failures, and get their issues resolved faster. Customers can trace any volume of work from production into the field and they’re confident that SHI Cryogenics can deliver support under any circumstance.

What’s ahead for Dynamics 365 Customer Service

We’re committed to deliver rich, innovative features that map to three distinct pillars:

• Tailor customer engagements. Deliver empathetic connected service experiences that provide a holistic view of customers’ case information to enhance first-time fix rates and support smooth service delivery every time.
• Elevate employee effectiveness. Empower employees across your service organization to solve problems faster with actionable insights, enriched data signals, and mixed reality.
• Optimize service operations. Drive proactive service with IoT, unlock new service revenue streams, and reduce downtime and service costs.

With 2021 release wave 2, we’re enhancing this leading end-to-end customer service solution. We’re transforming service operations by connecting people, places, and things. We’re committed to helping you deliver seamless customer-centric experiences by anticipating the needs and wants of every customer. We’re helping service organizations enhance agent productivity by providing the right tools at the right time, regardless of their role or location. And we’re helping to resolve issues the first time and help you identify gaps in service and opportunities for improvement through AI-driven analytics and rich insights. These efforts can drive new revenue streams that were previously overlooked. And yes, the possibilities are limitless.

The bottom line

Many service organizations consist of siloed agents answering service calls, putting customers on hold, asking the same questions repeatedly, and searching for the right answer while following an outdated script or canned response. This process is inefficient, costly, and unsatisfying to the customer.

The world of customer service is changing. Today, service organizations are evolving into profit centers, redefining business models, and creating powerful and fulfilling customer experiencesall supported by leading-edge solutions like Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

We’re excited to be positioned as a Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant Leader for the CRM Customer Engagement Center and are committed to bringing you the best customer service application available. Depend on Dynamics 365 Customer Service to help you tailor customer engagements, elevate employee effectiveness, and optimize service operations.

Learn more

Read the Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant Report for CRM Customer Engagement Center.

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

Check out Dynamics 365 Customer Service 2021 release wave 2.

GARTNER and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center, 15 June 2021, Nadine LeBlanc, Jim Davies and Varun Agarwal.

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Microsoft.

The post Microsoft named a Leader in 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for CRM Customer Engagement Center appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Microsoft Ignite kicks off in just a few days. This year’s digital experience brings together a global community of technology professionals to learn where Business Applications technology is heading, and the tools and resources available to help you solve the toughest challenges facing your business today.

Across three days of programmingNovember 2-4, 2021Microsoft experts will dive into technical and hands-on content across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, as well answer your questionsall streaming live and on-demand, so you won’t miss out.

We’ve pulled together a list of essential sessions to attend, both keynotes and breakout sessionsinformative featured presentations followed by a live Q&A. Be sure to register today to get updates before and during the event, as well as build your own session schedule.

Click on the linked titles below to learn more and add each event to your session scheduler.

Only have time for one or two sessions? Be sure to watch Microsoft Into Focus: Business Applications on Wednesday, November 3, 2021, for a sneak peek at new features and capabilities in 2021 release wave 2, as well as Build a hyperconnected business on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, to learn how to build a digital foundation for today’s business.

Day 1 (Tuesday, November 2, 2021)

Keynotes and core themes

Hear from Microsoft leadership on revealing the latest innovations that are shaping the flexible, innovative, and secure business environments of the future.

Microsoft Ignite Opening

Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 8:15 AM to 8:50 AM Pacific Time

Our economy and society are undergoing a sea change of digitization. Satya Nadella, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will discuss technology trends and innovations across Microsoft cloud that will transform every business and industry going forward.

Build a hyperconnected business

Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 9:30 AM to 9:55 AM Pacific Time

In a rapidly changing world, there’s no more “business as usual.” The way we live and work will never be the same, and there’s no clear roadmap for what’s ahead. Organizations need the agility to respond rapidly and predict what’s next, and that requires a new approach to business solutionsone that harnesses data as a resource and turns its potential into power. Join Alysa Taylor, CVP, Industry, Apps, and Data Marketing; and Charles Lamanna,CVP, Business Applications and Platform, to learn how to build a digital foundation with Microsoft cloud that will carry your organization into the future.

Breakout sessions

Attend sessions that take a deeper dive into topics aligned to a variety of roles and interests. Live, interactive Q&A segments directly follow the featured presentation.

Accelerate cross-organization collaboration with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365

Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Time

Across industries, businesses are experiencing a tectonic shift in how, when, and where people work. In this session, hosted by Emily He, CVP, Business Applications Marketing, we’ll introduce new and upcoming integrations between Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 that enable everyone across your organization to connect, communicate, and collaborate on business tasks and processes in a seamless, natural, and secure way. Get a first look at new capabilities in action and learn how everyone in your organization can achieve more together as one business, right in the flow of work.

Connect experiences across every customer touchpoint with a complete marketing solution

Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 12:30 PM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time

Companies struggle to make sense of an ongoing and accelerating data deluge and to pull actionable intelligence from it. This challenge has made data the lifeblood of business in the digital age and establishes a new value proposition: companies that can use data to serve customers are able to build stronger relationships. A company’s control over its datathat is, its digital autonomyhas never been more important. Learn how Microsoft offers a complete marketing solution to help you accelerate business growth and deepen customer connections from acquisition to retention. Win more hearts and minds in an omnichannel world, while building trust with the highest level of data governance, privacy, and compliance.

Enhance supply chain visibility, predict risks and improve decision making with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights

Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 1:30 PM to 2:00 PM Pacific Time

Customers have experienced supply chain disruptions since early 2020. Now, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights helps companies deliver great customer experiences. By unifying real-time data from third-party data providers, logistics partners, customers, and multi-tier suppliers, companies gain end-to-end supply chain visibility. This visibility is further enhanced by creating a digital twin to generate AI-powered, actionable insights allowing companies to proactively make decisions that put customers first.

Day 2 (Wednesday, November 3, 2021)

Keynotes and core themes

Hear from Microsoft leadership on revealing the latest innovations that are shaping the flexible, innovative, and secure business environments of the future.

Microsoft Into Focus: Business Applications

Wednesday, November 3, 2021, 8:15 AM to 10:00 AM Pacific Time

Get an inside look at what’s new in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. You’ll hear from James Phillips, President, Microsoft Digital Transformation Platform, along with top engineers and other Microsoft Leaders as they guide you through the new features and capabilities in 2021 release wave 2.

Breakout sessions

Attend sessions that take a deeper dive into topics aligned to a variety of roles and interests. Live, interactive Q&A segments directly follow the featured presentation.

Gain a new perspective by bridging the physical and digital

Wednesday, November 3, 2021, 10:30 AM to 11:00 AM Pacific Time

In today’s environment of both digital and physical spaces, organizations have less visibility into their physical footprint than their digital channels, limiting their potential to optimize operations and improve employee and customer experiences. Microsoft is helping organizations harness observational data and use it to produce real-time insights to unlock business value. Join this session to learn more about how Microsoft continues to build onto its spectrum of solutions that bridge the digital and physical to unlock new perspectives.

Introducing Voice Channel for Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Wednesday, November 3, 2021, 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM Pacific Time

The new Voice channel, built on the same planet-scale platform powering Microsoft Teams, enables more personalized customer experiences across all channels, delivers AI at each step of the call, unifies insights across all interactions, and streamlines contact center operations onto one scalable, easy to use solution. Join us to learn more about the future of customer service experiences.

Explore more Dynamics 365 sessions

These feature keynotes and breakout sessions are just the start. Explore the full list of sessions that explore topics related to Dynamics 365.

In addition to the live streams above, each segment will be rebroadcasted throughout the event. The key segments are open to everyone, but we encourage you to register in advance to unlock the full Microsoft Ignite experiencefrom digital breakout sessions with live Q&As to conversations with Microsoft experts and your global community.

Even more to explore

Microsoft Ignite is your opportunity to learn and engage with Microsoft experts and a global community. Check out all of the activities at this year’s events:

• Ask the Experts: Bring your questions and get answers, while exploring the latest product announcements, by engaging with the engineers and partners who are building your most important tools and solutions.
• Connection Zone: Meet with local Microsoft leaders and channel managers, interact with engineers and technical experts, join live Q&As, and more.
• Learning Zone: Accelerate learning with the Cloud Skills Challenge, expert-guided sessions, step-by-step modules, certification details, and more.
• Intro to Tech Skills: Dive into the key topics, essential tools, and Microsoft technologies that can lead to new roles or a different career path.
• Create Zone: Snap animated selfies, express your point of view, and spark conversations in the #MSIgnite community with shareable content of all kinds.

Get the most of your Microsoft Ignite experience

Be sure to follow Microsoft Ignite on Twitter to stay up to date and connected with the community and register for Microsoft Ignite today to create a customized schedule. We’ll see you there.

The post Your guide to Dynamics 365 at Microsoft Ignite 2021 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of tax calculation for Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Over the past three decades, technology has made the world smaller. The steady drive of globalization and digitalization has pushed through significant headwindssuch as market protectionism, global recessions, and, most recently, a global pandemicto change the way we live and conduct business. Now, despite vast geographic distances, it is relatively simple to connect, communicate, and trade instantly with almost anyone. This has set the stage for businesses of all sizes and industries to expand globally in pursuit of new markets, suppliers, talent, and revenue streams.

As businesses pursue global expansion, they are challenged to keep pace with a myriad of ever-evolving country-specific laws and frequently changing legal requirements from local, state, and national tax authorities. For many years, the only option available for business leaders looking to ensure tax compliance globally was to hire enough full-time finance and tax professionals to monitor policy changes and align company processes accordingly. Indeed, this has been the standard solution for some time now.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is changing this situation for companies with intelligent and timely globalization solutions, such as tax calculation. Tax calculation not only helps businesses unify their tax-relevant data, but it also leverages automation to make their tax calculation processes more efficient. At the same time, it assists in minimizing compliance risk by reducing opportunities to introduce errors into the process. In these ways, our new tax calculation service is simplifying and improving tax compliance for global businesses.

Learn more in our recent blog: Reduce complexity across global operations with Dynamics 365

Tax calculation service overview

Tax calculation is a low code, hyper-scalable, multitenant, microservice-based tax engine that enables organizations to automate and simplify the tax determination and calculation process. It is a standalone solution built on Microsoft Azure that enhances tax determination and calculation capabilities of Dynamics 365 applications through a flexible and fully configurable solution.

As tax calculation becomes generally available, it will integrate with Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and we plan to integrate with more first and third-party applications in the near future. Additionally, it is fully backward compatible with the existing tax engine in Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and can be deployed as a new feature in the Feature Management workspace. Tax calculation service can also be enabled at more granular levels, including by legal entity or business process.

Tax determination

One challenge for organizations today is determining the appropriate tax for their business transactions. This challenge increases in difficulty as organizations add new regions where they trade and as the volume and types of transactions they process grows.

Tax calculation configures and determines tax codes, rates, and deductions in a low code and flexible way based on any combinations of the fields of a taxable document, such as shipping to or from location address, item category, or nature of counterparty, typically found on purchase orders or invoices.

Tax calculation

Another related challenge that companies face in addition to determination is calculating the tax due for their transactions. Again, this challenge becomes more difficult as business scale increases and as business is conducted in more distinct tax regions, each with its own authorities and requirements.

Our tax calculation service helps businesses meet this challenge as well by configuring with low code experience and executing the complex tax calculation formulas and conditions required by tax regulators, such as tax calculation based on margin or tax calculation on top of other tax codes.

Multiple tax registration numbers

Organizations also face challenges when they have multiple tax registration numbers that must be rolled up or reconciled to one central legal entity or party. When businesses add multiple tax registration numbers, the complexity of tax determination and calculation multiplies in step.

Tax calculation enables organizations to support multiple tax registration numbers under a single party, such as a legal entity, customer, or vendor. It also supports automatic determination of the correct tax registration number on taxable transactions like sales orders and purchase orders. And it works across various workflow scenarios, including transfer pricing, consignment warehouse, or low-risk distributor model.

In conjunction with new tax calculation, modified Tax Reporting provides new capabilities to execute country-specific, tax regulatory reports like VAT Declaration, EU Sales List, and Intrastat from a single legal entity. In multiple tax registration business scenarios, the reports select sets of data only relevant for transactions with specific country tax registration and provide results in the legally required form of an electronic file or a report layout required to file taxes in the country of tax registration.

Learn more about the feature enhancements of Tax Reporting and availability for specific countries and regions in our release notesand TechTalk.

Tax on transfer orders

A final challenge that businesses face when confronting the complexities and risk of tax compliance in foreign markets is determining and calculating the tax on transfer orders. This situation is quite common, such as when a business has a regional manufacturing facility or central warehouse that feeds storefronts scattered across multiple countries.

With tax calculation, businesses can allow for tax on transfer orders to support the EU regulation “Exempt intra-EU supply according to article 138 of the Directive 2006/112/EC” for Intra-EU Supply of goods.

Availability

Tax calculation is deployed in the following Azure geographies.

• Asia Pacific
• Australia
• Canada
• Europe
• Japan
• United Kingdom
• United States

Learn more about the features of tax calculation service inour tax calculation overview, and check out our recent TechTalk on tax calculation.

Learn more what some of our partners are saying about the new tax calculation capabilities of Dynamics 365:

• in EY’s blog Microsoft Dynamics 365: supporting your organization to navigate the complex tax landscape: “The flexibility provided by the new tax calculation service combined with the global tax knowledge and experience provided by EY teams on the ground, can help enable your organization to automate tax calculations throughout the business from highly complex supply chain scenarios to more routine indirect tax compliance.”
• in KPMG’s blog Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the tax function – Part 1.

Next steps

If you are an existing Dynamics 365 user and would like to start today with tax calculation and Tax Reporting, check out our Get started with tax calculation documentation. Or, if you would like to see how Dynamics 365 Finance can benefit your company and enable smoother global expansion with microservice solutions such as tax calculation and Tax Reporting, we invite you to get started with a free trial today.

The post Tax calculation enhancements are now available for Dynamics 365 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

2021 has been an interesting year as we embrace the new hybrid world while bringing back the best practices from our old life and work style. With all these changes, the need for products and services to adapt to our new norm has become more important than ever. Sales organizations need solutions that are fluid, dynamic, and cloud-based. During our recent LinkedIn Live session (The Evolution of the Modern CRM), we had the honor to hear from industry sales leader, Santina Franci, Microsoft’s VP of Business Applications, and Amanda Homes, CEO of The Ultimate Sales Machine, as they provided us with gems to help up-level digital sellers.

1. Dream 100 strategy

Amanda mentioned the Dream 100 strategy referencing from her father’s book, The Ultimate Sales Machine, and how this strategy focuses heavily on a small group of clients who purchase your product the most. Implementing sales efforts to narrow down your best clients and focusing your resources on a select group will help yield higher sales. This strategy is much more effective than cold calling 2,000 clients with the slight hope of future leads. It is “the fastest and least expensive way to double sales.” To implement this strategy, you need data from your customer, which can be very complex with the amount of data we receive on a day-to-day basis.

For many sales teams, implementing the technology and human skills to keep up with the evolving demands of digitally savvy customers may seem like a stretch, even by 2025. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales accelerator helps sellers work faster and smarter with a prioritized work list of the next best lead or opportunity, allowing them to engage through their customers’ preferred channel with integrated email, phone dialer, and a Microsoft Teams channel. Sellers are equipped with timely, AI-driven insights and recommendations based on customer events and needs, so sales teams know when to offer customer guidance.

Sellers now have the information and insights to have more meaningful conversations. It is ultimately still your decision on how to proceed with your sale strategy, but these tools can give you a better view of your decision.

2. Educating not selling

As a seller, you are constantly reaching out via email to potential clients, but out of your pool, how many are ready to buy? Amanda mentioned that about 3 percent of clients are in the buying now category, 7 percent are open to your product, and 90 percent are not interested in you, your product, or service. As sellers, we send out emails to that 90 percent of potential customers, explaining our product, while the consumers have no interest in the product or service in the first place. It can be advantageous to educate the consumer on why this product can be of interest instead of explaining the features of the product itself. Being able to educate your customer about the current landscape of their business and the challenges they might face will put you in a better position to market your product to them.

In the era of digital selling, even now more than before, email is one of the most used avenues of contacting new customers. To run an educational marketing strategy, your CRM must be able to integrate with your communication platform, so that all aspects can work together. Not having to rely heavily on manual labor to ingest, respond, and avoid mistakes when communicating with your customers will in return free up time for sellers to further their personal and intimate relations with their customers. Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows you to integrate your communication platform and add applications that can ingest, send, and alert sellers of high-value customers. Collaborative apps from Dynamics 365, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft 365bring together the right people, both inside and outside the companywith new ways to see who is available to chat, call, and collaborateall right from within Dynamics 365 or Teams. Sellers can also bring in resources from across the organization and across the globe in real-time to ensure they have the most up-to-date context.

3. Relationship selling reduces rejection

“On average three out of four salespeople are ineffective at their job.0.08 percent of universities offer sales as a major or minor” as mentioned by Amanda. Without a proper educational background, it is understandable why leads are being missed, follow-up is lacking, and referrals have missteps; it usually all boils down to the human reaction to rejection. After hours, days, and weeks of customer interaction, the last thing you want to hear is, “I am not interested.” With social platforms being such a powerful player in this arena, we must look towards social selling and bring back the element of human empathy. Having the strength to let go of the fear of rejection and instead use tools to help enable social engagement.

With the pandemic, social selling has been an important pillar for sellers around the world and with LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365, the ability to socially interact with customers has been made easier. Being able to comment on a post with something engaging or clever brings back the empathy sellers have been struggling with. Actual human interaction, and showing you care, will go a long way when creating relationships with new customers. With conversation intelligence in Dynamics 365 Sales, sales leadersand the sellers themselvesreceive real-time insights about the customer’s priorities, sentiments, and emotions during the actual conversation. Also, customer mentions of competitors are flagged for instant follow-up. This helps the seller take action during the call, and it allows the sales leader to help through guided selling. Having the proper tools helps get rid of the fear of rejection.

Watch the recap of our LinkedIn live session: The Evolution of the Modern CRM

As the market evolves, we as sellers must level up as well. In this day and age, having the correct strategy is only half the battle. It is imperative to have the tools and the platform that can help integrate all avenues into one. Santina and Amanda deep dive into this subject. Be sure to check out the recap of the LinkedIn session to gain further insights and learn more about Dynamics 365 Sales.

The post 3 secrets to optimize your sales strategy appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is teaming up with Shopify to help our customers create a better shopping experience. While Shopify provides merchants with an easy-to-use e-commerce solution, Dynamics 365 Business Central offers comprehensive business management across finance, sales, service, and operations teams within a single application. Seamless connection between the two systems will synchronize orders, stock, and customer information to ensure merchants can fulfill orders faster and better serve customers. The joint effort furthers the commitment of Dynamics 365 Business Central to connect data to help businesses adapt faster, work smarter, and perform better.

Adapt faster

Connecting Dynamics 365 Business Central with Shopify will help merchants all over the world implement more agile online business processes, while keeping people focused on selling. With connected data from across your online stores and business operations, you can rapidly respond to consumer demands to adjust product pricing and merchandising. With support for multi-tier pricing structures and multiple currencies, companies, and entities, Dynamics 365 Business Central will support multiple Shopify store scenarios with ease.

Work smarter

Eliminating manual processes will not only improve accuracy, but also keep your people focused on taking care of customers. By connecting Shopify and Dynamics 365 Business Central, you will improve visibility into stock, pricing, existing customers and order history, order status, billing, and payments. Better visibility means faster customer inquiry responses, timely returns and refunds, and more accurate order processing.

Perform better

Enhanced operational efficiency not only saves you time and reduces costs but can also translate into better results and faster decision-making. So, you have the confidence to expand your online presence while minimizing overhead with automatic synchronization between systems for price changes, product updates, and customers. At the end of accounting periods, Dynamics 365 Business Central will help merchants handle their financial reporting and tax reporting as required by local legislation.

Microsoft is committed to creating an open ecosystem to help our customers with finding the right solution to accelerate their digital transformation journey. Joining the Shopify Global ERP Program helps our Dynamics 365 Business Central customers accelerate growth with the ability to sell, ship, and process payments online using a native connector available in early 2022.

Innovation begins with data-fueled insights and more connected operations will allow merchants that use Dynamics 365 Business Central to meet consumer demands. Along with this, our corporate and enterprise customers continue to rely on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce to deliver unified, personalized, and seamless buying experiences across online and offline channels. Now businesses of all sizes can deliver commerce anywhere to offer consumers more choices and better experiences.

The post Microsoft partners with Shopify to expand Dynamics 365 Business Central ecosystem appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.