As the world of sales is increasing its adoption of digital transformation, we are looking for ways to help boost your sales teams’ productivity and give them tools, like conversation intelligence, that help them focus on winning deals without distractions.

After talking to sellers and managers from different sales teams, we found that the tasks that are the most energy-consuming during calls and time-consuming after calls are capturing action items, and later following up on them.

As a seller, your daily routine is full of calls with different customers regarding various deals. In each call, you need to note all your commitments to your customer and try to remember what the customer committed to do. Later, you need to find the time to follow up on those commitments: send a follow-up email, set up meetings, update information regarding the deal, and much more.

Starting today, you can forget about forgetting. With this update to action items, you can focus on what really mattersbeing more engaged in the conversation and gaining the customer’s trust.

Action items updates in conversation intelligence

In the first version of action items, we identified commitment sentences during the call and presented the seller with a quote of the commitments.

In this action items version, which was released as part of Dynamics 365 2020 release wave 2, there is an improved artificial intelligence model that better captures and contextually understands the commitments that you or your customer made throughout the call.

It has robust capabilities that not only capture the action items but also make them more comprehendible and actionable. In just a few clicks you can send an email, set up a meeting, or add a phone call activity or a task. No need to juggle between different apps. In this design, we give you an all-in-one app experience.

The action items updates integrate with our new call summary page design, to give the best user experience to the sellers and managers. Now, by a quick overview, you can understand which topics were discussed in different parts of the call and what was the sentiment there. Then you can drill down further to a specific point of interest and see the insights for that segment. Thus, you can better understand the customer’s needs and wishes.

Getting started with conversation intelligence

To understand the full capabilities of Dynamics 365 Sales Insights and the value it brings to Dynamics 365 sales customers, visit Dynamics 365 Sales, check out the sales insights add-in datasheet, or read these FAQs where you’ll find a list of supported languages and answers to other common questions.

Next steps

If you’re currently using conversation intelligence and have any feedback, questions, or suggestions, we’d like to hear from you on the Ideas forum.

The post Forget about forgetting with the latest update to action items in conversation intelligence appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

With NRF Chapter 1 starting this week, many retailers are looking to 2021 with one prominent thought: what’s next? Microsoft Dynamics 365 will again play a prominent role in Retail’s Big Show with new announcements and showcasing customer agility and innovation amidst a very disrupted market.

It’s clear that 2020 was a year where the retail industry went through rapid transformation; it’s less clear which of these changes are permanent and how retailers should prepare for 2021 and beyond. In a recent study by Forrester, commissioned by Microsoft, over 83 percent of executives agreed that connected and unified experiences were key to business success and digital commerce was a core ingredient. Of the 600 consumer-facing businesses surveyed, over 75 percent of companies said that improving digital commerce capabilities is their most urgent business priority.

Digital commerce is now the face of retail

The global pandemic has shifted how we buy, pushing more people to shop online than ever before. Fifty-nine percent of American consumers reported shopping online more often since the pandemic, according to CouponFollow, and data from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that e-commerce sales grew as much from mid-June to mid-August as they did over the previous ten yearsa staggering increase. And in 2020, 71 percent of holiday shoppers planned to do most of their shopping online, up from 51 percent in 2019, according to CreditCards.com.

While we anticipate in-store sales will rebound as the pandemic subsideswe’ve already seen comfort with in-store shopping increase 65 percent since April, from 34 percent to 56 percent, according to Deloitteit’s also clear that digital commerce has seen tremendous growth during the pandemic, and this trend is expected to continue. Sixty-six percent of consumers stated they’d likely continue to purchase items online that they’d previously bought in-store prior to the pandemic, according to CouponFollow. And according to a recent report by Ipsos by 2023, e-commerce will represent 22 percent of global retail sales, amounting to $6.5 trillion USD. By 2021, it projects that 2.14 billion people worldwide will be buying goods and services online.

No matter the size of your business, digital commerce can no longer be an afterthought. Where brick-and-mortar locations were once the face of many companies, digital storefronts and online experiences now define many retail brands and will be key to unlocking growth and new opportunities.

Online shopper demographics have shifted

Younger shoppersMillennials and Gen-Zhave long been the primary users of online shopping, but the pandemic has caused major changes to who is shopping online. While Millennials and Gen-Z continue to shop online at high rates, we’ve seen 60 percent of Gen Xers and 47 percent of Boomers report increasing their online shopping from before the pandemic, according to CouponFollow. Also, according to eMarketer more than 30 percent of Boomers tried or were considering online grocery shopping, with some planning to continue doing so long-term, while 70 percent of both Gen Xers and Boomers plan on doing most of their holiday shopping online this year.

While shutdowns and safety concerns were the likely drivers of this adoption, they may not be the reason these groups are continuing to shop online. In a September poll by CreditCards.com, convenience was the top-cited reason older shoppers purchased online, with 76 percent of Boomers and 83 percent of Silent Generation shoppers agreeing. Other top-cited reasons include finding better deals (46 percent) and a bigger selection (44 percent). Interestingly, “avoiding human contact” was conversely correlated to age, with the youngest shoppers demonstrating the highest degree of caution, 59 percent of Gen-Zers, and only 48 percent and 47 percent of Boomers and Silent Generation shoppers, respectively.

The increase in online shopping among older users, in conjunction with their motivations for doing so, suggests that these changes may have been caused by the pandemic, but they are not being upheld by the pandemic. And therefore, we anticipate this shift will continue after the pandemic. Businesses need to consider these new users when developing digital retail strategies, including user experiences for customers who may be less tech-savvy than many younger users.

Customer experience means maximum flexibility

As we’ve discussed, the pandemic has driven more shoppers online. But it has done more than that; it has pushed retailers to offer maximum flexibility for their customers, both online, offline, and in bridging the gap between the two.

This started with changes to return policies, which became an important tool for retailers to help customers feel comfortable making the types of purchases that they were accustomed to making in-person, such as apparel, where fit is essential. In an April survey published by eMarketer, 40 percent of U.S. retailers had adjusted their return policies due to the coronavirus pandemic, while 27 percent were considering doing so.

To help ensure the safety of their employees and patrons, many brick-and-mortar stores made changes to their in-store environments. For many, plexiglass dividers have become commonplace at checkout. Contactless payments and mobile point of sale have also seen a surge of adoption during the pandemic. According to the State of Retail Payments study conducted by NRF and Forrester, 67 percent of retailers surveyed now accept some form of no-touch payment, with 56 percent accepting digital wallet payments on mobile phones, up from 44 percent from last year. No-touch payments have increased 69 percent since January 2020, according to retailers surveyed.

Another significant change has been the adoption of buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), both by retailers and consumers, especially older shoppers. Over 60 percent of Boomers are aware of BOPISmore than any of their younger counterparts, and two-thirds have tried BOPIS, with 63 percent saying it has improved their shopping experience, according to the National Retail Federation.

Flexibility has been a growing trend in retail and fulfillment, but many of the things that were once requests are now requirements. And post-pandemic, these requirements will become the expectation. Customers want and need maximum flexibility with how they engage with customerswhether through personalization, social media engagement, or omnichannel purchasingand the retailers who continue to thrive will be those that let shoppers engage on their terms.

The future of retail engagement

As we look forward to 2021, digital engagement will continue to unlock new opportunities for those retailers who choose to embrace it. For many, online has become their new norm. Others have bridged the gap between online and in-store experiences, like with BOPIS or curbside collection. And when more physical retail environments open, retailers will have to contend with the new reality that in-store shopping is less about purchasing and more about delivering a richer shopping experience.

This week at NRF 2021, the Microsoft Business Applications team will demonstrate how Dynamics 365 makes it possible for retail businesses to quickly launch and enhance their digital commerce platform, deliver secure and personalized service, and modernize their in-store experiences.

If you are a registered for NRF 2021, we invite you to join Shelley Bransten, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Consumer Goods and Retail Industries, to learn how Microsoft is empowering retailers from across the globe to build more intelligent, resilient, and sustainable retail operations. Tune in on Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time.

Also, continue to visit the Dynamics 365 blog this week to learn more about how Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform are helping retailers reimagine the road ahead with truly engaged, always connected solutions.

The post Microsoft at NRF: the changing landscape of retail appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Setting up or overhauling a supply chain operation has traditionally been an arduous, complex process. Now, by deploying modern, intelligent cloud applications like Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, organizations are demonstrating just how rapidly one can transform operations, especially when guided by the right experts.

Invitalia, the Italian national agency for economic development, provided a great example of just how rapidly an organization can ramp up a supply network, especially when faced with a monumental, global crisis that won’t wait for tedious deployment or onboarding of new technologies and processes.

When the COVID-19 pandemic spread to Italy in early 2020, the country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, contacted Invitalia CEO Domenico Arcuri and requested that the organization take over emergency responsibility for the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE).

“The situation in Italy was critical at the time, and the international market for PPE was complicated, with many buyers all chasing a limited supply of equipment.”Fabrizio Bellezza, Chief Information Officer, Invitalia

Invitalia took on managing the acquisition and distribution of essential PPE, medicines, medical devices, and other supplies from a variety of international sources. The agency needed a new logistics platform so that it could simplify the complex process of purchasing and distributing thousands of units of PPE from sellers in other countries.

“Because demand for PPE around the world was so high, and supply was limited, it was very often a first-come, first-served situation, so it was essential that we react as fast as possible,” Bellezza said.

Outrunning the pandemic

To help streamline management of PPE and other COVID-19 supplies, Invitalia worked with Microsoft Services and Agic Technology, a Microsoft Gold Partner, to get the new system up and running.

“The pandemic was running fast,” said Giuseppe La Mantia, partner at Agic. “Every day, Invitalia had new requirements to manage. They were really overloaded, and the solution needed to be fast and simple, but complete. To reach the objectives on time, we had to outrun the pandemic.”

Invitalia had already established a productive relationship with Microsoft that included moving all of the agency’s datacenter IT resources to Microsoft Azure, so its leadership felt comfortable bringing in more Microsoft technology at such a crucial time. Agic helped Invitalia deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, which includes planning, production, inventory, and transportation features that organizations can use to build agile, resilient supply chains and maximize operational efficiencies.

Over a period of two intense weeks, the Agic and Invitalia teams worked together to install the solution. “We worked night and day, seven days a week,” La Mantia said. “In a very short time, we performed all the steps of a project plan, from analysis to deployment. We worked together to make a solution design that could be representative of COVID task force needs. Each deliverable was shared with the IT project team and then the business team to be sure they would deliver the expected results. After solution design, we made the necessary setup and simple customizations, showing defined mockups to share the intermediate results. Then we made adjustments and moved forward toward the final goals. We tested the solution and trained the users, and then we arranged everything to deploy the solution.”

Without the need to retool or replace multiple systems, Invitalia was able to maintain their existing investment while deploying SCM rapidly to meet urgent supply chain needs. In addition, Agic Technology and Invitalia streamlined the deployment process and reduced complexity, dramatically accelerating the time to value.

Invitalia expects to expand its use of Dynamics 365 into other areas of public administration. “It connects easily with other Microsoft products, giving us the opportunity to create end-to-end solutions for enterprise resource planning,” says Bellezza.

Once it was ready, the Invitalia team launched Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management with hundreds of suppliers on file. With it, the team could learn right away when any of the suppliers had products available, and Invitalia could respond appropriately. The solution also helped the Invitalia streamline the distribution of PPE from shipping locations to hospitals around the country, so they were able to get the equipment to the people who needed it most.

Better prepared for upcoming phases

Several months later, as Invitalia prepares for a new phase of the pandemic, Agic continues to offer ongoing support, helping the agency maintain the solution and providing any updates they need to comply with new government regulations.

“Now, Invitalia is able to manage worldwide suppliers, check and report about products, quantities and prices, and respect regulations from the Italian government and internal approval processes, to track in real time where materials are,” La Mantia said.

With Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Invitalia can now rely on a centralized solution that helps the agency assess medical needs across the country and then quickly provision and distribute critical medical equipment. The agency can process hundreds of orders a day and provide more than one thousand hospitals with the supplies they need to contain the spread of COVID-19 and help save the lives of affected individuals.

Overcoming personal limits to achieve a goal

Bellezza believes that the PPE project brought out the best in everyone involved.

“Agic and Microsoft really put forth their best resources to help us, and we very much valued their deep knowledge and expertise. We also learned a lot about our own capabilities because a critical moment like this teaches you a lot about yourself, and you discover strengths that you never knew you had.”Fabrizio Bellezza, Chief Information Officer, Invitalia

La Mantia agreed. “Each team member worked very hard, guided by the awareness of making a contribution to the most important cause for Italy in that moment,” La Mantia said. “As a company and team, we learned that we can reach very challenging goals, working together with partner and customers in the same direction. We also learned that if you are guided from a very strong motivation you can overcome personal limits and aim straight for the goal.”

Learn more

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is agile enough to help Invitalia address their high-stakes challenges without overhauling their entire supply chain operation. It can help you too.

Learn how your customers can use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to rapidly streamline their processes and get quicker time to market while utilizing their current investment.

The post How Agic Technology deployed Supply Chain Management in 2 weeks to help Invitalia fight the pandemic appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Today’s continuous growth of e-commerce sales drives the need for a stronger focus on fraud detection and protection. To meet demand and stimulate growth it’s become crucial to keep fraud and operational costs low by streamlining business processes. Automating the risk analysis and transactional review process with machine learning platforms, like Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection, is one way to do that.

Platforms like Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection provide a rich set of APIs that you can use to assess the risk surrounding account logins, account creations, and purchases. Rule-based linear models then use the risk score, as well as purchase or account attributes, to segment traffic and return automated decisions. Rules are just one way to automate decisions on events. It’s equally important to have this information feed into your existing business workflows and then automate where possible.

Here are three ways to help you customize and automate your own end-to-end fraud management workflow.

First: Diagram your existing risk management framework

It’s crucial that you develop a business process diagram (from transaction processing to data flows for automated risk assessments, case management, reporting, and communications) with key stakeholders and metrics for tracking success at each stage. Getting a high-level view of existing workflows will help identify areas for improvement or automation.

Second: Identify real-time decision points

Use your fraud management process diagram to identify key metrics or flags that could require real-time actions. For example, the risk score is an actionable data point used to indicate fraudulent activity and could be monitored in real-time. API latencies, rule executions, or changes to existing rules or configurations in your fraud management platform, are other examples of key data points that could be valuable to track in real-time.

Third: Configure triggers and automate actions

After identifying the key real-time decision points throughout your fraud management process, it is important to find a platform that will manage the data egress and automation components.

Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection’s event tracing establishes a real-time telemetry platform that can seamlessly integrate and extend your existing business workflows. You can subscribe to events triggered by the user or system-level actions and forward the data associated with each event to Azure Event Hubs or Blob storage. From there, you can take advantage of powerful fast-development tools such as Azure Logic Apps and Power Automate to configure trigger conditions and real-time actions from all of your connected systems.

For example, if a user’s score is suspiciously low, you can subscribe to a transactional event that will be sent to Azure Event Hubs and consumed in Azure Logic Apps to check the score, trigger an email, and investigate the order before a chargeback occurs. Using an ever-growing library of third-party connectors available in Azure Logic Apps, you can create a highly customizable workflow to cover everything from order investigation, additional verification for suspicious orders, alerting on changes made in the portal, and updates to customized monthly business reports. These connectors work seamlessly with Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection to provide you with a single solution for your business’ fraud detection and protection needs.

Next steps

Developing a robust fraud management workflow that enables your business to scale and operate efficiently is crucial. Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection and its Event Tracing capabilities aim to support your business by easily connecting to and optimizing your existing business workflows. Get started today with Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection and learn more about how Event Tracing can provide real-time insights and workflow automation here:

• Start your Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection trial today
• Configure Event Tracing
• Sample Azure Logic Apps using Event Tracing

The post 3 Tips for Creating Intelligent Fraud Management Workflows appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Although it may seem counter-intuitive, now that many people are working from home at least some of the time, having a streamlined mobile app for your sales team has become critically important. Whether they’re in the office, in their car, or just moving around their houses, sellers need to stay on top of their deals and get daily sales tasks done quickly. Being able to get work done on a phone is a huge time-saver.

The new Dynamics 365 Sales mobile app, now available for preview, is optimized to help your sales team stay productive wherever they’re working. The key capabilities of the mobile app enable sellers to prepare for customer engagements, log and share information quickly, and find the information they need.

Mobile app highlights

The Sales mobile app helps your sales team:

• Prepare for customer engagements. As a seller prepares for a meeting, they see the meeting details, attendees, and their responses from Outlook along with the related data for which the appointment is tracked, such as opportunity title, estimated revenue, estimated closed date, pipeline phase, notes, and AI-generated reminders.
• Log and share information using native device capabilities and simplified forms. Details can be captured in notes using the device’s keyboard or voice-to-text capabilities, and can include attachments and images taken with the device’s camera. To streamline updating information, sellers use a lightweight, customizable form that allows them to edit the most important fields. Or if sellers need more info, they can access the full record with a single tap.
• Find and interact with sales data from an optimized home screen and with relevance search. The home page is optimized to display upcoming meetings and recently viewed records. Additionally, with relevance search, sellers can find the info they need, faster and more efficiently.

Get your sales organization started

The Dynamics 365 Sales Preview mobile app is available for public preview. Before sellers can use the app, admins need to take the following steps for their organization:

• Enable the Dynamics 365 Sales mobile app in Advanced Settings.

• Enable relevance search in the Power Platform admin center. Enabling relevance search is required for your sales team to use the mobile app and will also be available to all members of your organization.
• After you’ve enabled the mobile app and relevance search, let your sellers know they can install and start using the Dynamics 365 Sales mobile app.

Next steps and continued learning

To learn more about the Dynamics 365 Sales mobile app:

• Enable the Dynamics 365 Sales mobile app
• Check out the documentation for more details on the capabilities, set-up process, and to get the link to install the app.

We’d like to hear your feedback, please share your ideas.

The post Enable the Dynamics 365 Sales Preview mobile app in Advanced Settings appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This year, I’ve shared inspiring stories of organizations responding to adversity by building digital resilience into the fabric of their operations and cultures. A common thread between these organizations is the agility to be better prepared for change, as well as the ability to stay focused on putting customers first.

That’s why it’s apropos to close the year by spotlighting Grant Thornton, a public accounting and advisory firm that, at the start of the pandemic, rapidly adjusted operating and client engagement modelsfrom selling and engaging clients remotely, to focusing services on those that will have the most immediate and beneficial impact in a time of crisis.

Grant Thornton’s journey to transform sales and customer service delivery is a testament to just how far digital sales tools have evolved in recent yearsand how the right platform can help client engagement teams to guide customers at the most crucial times of need.

A shift to digital selling pays off in deeper customer engagements

Organizations in 135 countries depend on Grant Thornton’s expertise and insights to prepare for the future, whether applying new technologies or digital transformation, understanding shifting regulatory landscapes, and tax and advisory services.

In 2018, Grant Thornton had the foresight to reimagine how to engage customers and build deeper relationships. Microsoft Relationship Sales, which brings together Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, helped them to build customer relationships at scale.

Nichole Jordan, Grant Thornton’s Central Region Managing Partner, shared how the solution had transformed the business at the 2019 Microsoft Business Applications Summit. “We believe it’s critical to monitor the health of the relationship with our clients at all times and using technology is the best way to be able to do that,” explain Jordan, citing the relationship sales solution enables teams to understand the sentiment of the relationships at all times.

Jordon shared that LinkedIn Sales Navigator was making a big impact on the depth and breadth of relationships. “Those teams that have more LinkedIn connections with their particular customer base have a higher win rate and an increased amount of sales versus those who don’t. We can see that the technology is helping us to better understand these companies, build deeper relationships and wider across the entire organization.”

Dynamics 365 Sales introduced a constant stream of intelligence to Grant Thornton teams around the globe, tracking changes at client organizations, from personnel to mergers and acquisitions, to customer and competitive trends, “providing automated insights and research to Grant Thornton partners twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,” said Jordan. “These alerts go to our partners on their phones so they are constantly getting the latest about our client base so that they can provide more relevant information for them.”

Responding to a global crisisone customer at a time

When the pandemic struck, Grant Thornton had to rapidly pivot priorities. “It was critical that we could reach out to our clients,” explained Jordan, in a recent conversation with Chris Weber, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, “to be there for them, to listen, to learn, and to offer help.”

Jordan shared with Weber how Grant Thornton leveraged its digital sales tools to help its team keep customer relations personal and impactful in the face of emerging challenges.

The first step was to reach out to its extensive customer base. “In our business we don’t regularly send messages to all of our customers so this was a first and we really relied very heavily on our Microsoft relationship and our customer relationship management (CRM) system with Dynamics 365, just our central repository for all of our customer contact information, so we started there.”

Sales staff offered clients a complimentary pandemic resiliency tool, a risk assessment dashboard that helps quantify risk through data-driven analysis across multiple impact zones and risk factors, plus tailored benchmarking by competitor or industry. “In order to leverage the toolwe had to dig in deep to the relationships that we had. And to do that we leveraged our CRM, so we were fully engaged in Dynamics 365,” explained Jordan.

The sales team is also continuing to leverage LinkedIn Sales Navigator, as well as Microsoft Power Platform. “All of our teams have access to our sales pipeline management through Microsoft Power BI,” said Jordan, “that gets updated every night and our teams have access to it every morning. So it’s built into their routineto be able to access the pipeline and the wins and the losses, and helps them understand the winning areas so that we can double down on that and bring that value across other clients.”

The sales team is also exploring Microsoft Power Apps to help target sales opportunities. For example, enabling teams to quickly pull up previous engagements that helped banks solve regulatory challenges, which could then be replicated at a different client or industry sector.

Real results

This combination of digital selling tools, from Dynamics 365 to Power Platform and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, has resulted in markedly improved business outcomes, according to Jordan.

The teams are able to connect with a broader number of clients and deepen relationships widely across an organization. They can prioritize opportunities that have a higher likelihood of winning. And they can do it all with speed and accuracy, enabling teams to respond to opportunities faster, including delivering proposals in days, rather than weeks.

“The technology improves our speed, it improves our accuracy with all that we’re doing, it’s helping us connect more broadly with clients, and it’s helping us focus our time, our money and our resources on areas where we can really bring the greatest value to clients and where we can win as a firm.”

Get the full story

Watch ademoor take aguided tourto see howDynamics 365 Salescanempower your sellers with actionable insights.To learn more about how Grant Thornton has deepened engagements with customers,read the full story and watch the full conversation between Nichole Jordan and Chris Weber.

The post Digital selling helps Grant Thornton engage clients at scale appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.