Why Dynamics 365 is a game changer
When we announced Dynamics 365 earlier this year, Takeshi Numoto, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Cloud + Enterprise, described a better world for business everywhere. “One where you can track leads, automate field service, drive sales and improve operations using modern, mobile, enterprise-ready intelligent business apps from the cloud that are as easy to use as the consumer apps that help us all get rides, book rooms, listen to music and take actions to improve our health.”
In just a few weeks, Microsoft Dynamics 365 will take center stage and showcase the unification of our current Dynamics CRM and ERP Cloud solutions into one cloud service with new purpose-built applications and built-in insights and intelligence. With core business apps (focusing on Sales, Field Service, Customer Service, Project Service Automation, Marketing, and Operations), analytics from Cortana Intelligence and Power BI, and the productivity power of Office 365, this new approach is more than a game changer. It will be the framework that will help grow your business in FY17 and beyond.
The market has changed in four distinct ways:
- Cloud adoption has passed the tipping point and 52% of organizations now have confidence that cloud apps are as secure as premise-based apps.
- Budget decision making is shifting from IT to LoB.
- Overall productivity is critical for businesses to scale and new technologies are the key to increasing individual employee productivity.
- Technology innovation is increasing as more companies transform their business models making the need to adapt to the cloud economy imperative to stay in business.
Whether your business is already built on cloud services or you are figuring out how to integrate cloud services into your business plan, Microsoft’s intelligent cloud platform is for you. The application platform (PowerApps, Power BI, Embedded Flow) and common data model allow you to help your customers run a more powerful solution without leaving the space they are in. The common data model, a cloud-resident business database, was built from years of experience with Microsoft’s enterprise customers. It enables you to build innovative applications and automate business processes with the confidence that they can easily be deployed and used across Microsoft’s entire customer base. For Independent Software Vendors (ISV’s) or Solution Integrators (SI’s) this means the range of solutions you can create regardless of computing environment is virtually unlimited.
What I’m also very excited about is Microsoft AppSource. Microsoft AppSource is the central destination that allows business users to discover, trial and acquire line-of-business apps. While it’s a marketplace, it is also a discovery and collaboration tool for partners, customers, and Microsoft to connect. For example, to customers, AppSource is the face of the ecosystem. AppSource also brings internal employee’s and other partners together allowing them to get involved earlier and stay involved in a sales cycle that isn’t customer driven. It could be driven by another partner or internal resource at Microsoft. AppSource lets you see who’s looking at an app and helps coordinate multiple solutions by using the toolset of the marketplace and not just the marketing function of it.
No application or solution is an island under itself; they are all made more powerful by pulling in structured workflow from other applications or productivity. Artificial Intelligence makes it more powerful. As evidenced last week at the Microsoft Ignite conference, Microsoft is infusing AI into Dynamics 365. This will allow intelligence from the learnings captured outside data models whether sales, customer service, etc. Watch Satya’s keynote here.
At the Worldwide Partner Conference, last July, I listed three reasons as to why I am so happy to be a part of Microsoft: Microsoft’s unparalleled breadth of technology, it’s commitment to customer success, and its long history of a partner-centric focus all of which differentiates Microsoft from our competitors. Now, with the power of Dynamics 365, every business can transform by connecting every aspect of their business with their customers, employees, and partners in new and innovative ways.
There is no question that Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a game changer.
