In this chapter we will look into the following:

• What is CRM?
• Benefits of using CRM system
• Intro to Dynamics 365
• Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement

What is CRM?

CRM refers to practices, strategies and technologies that organizations use to manage. Marketing, Sales, Customer service are the 3 areas where you deal with customers directly. 

In other words, CRM is all about improving an organization's’ relationship with its customers. The goal is to improve business relationship with your customers and increase retention rates.

Common features of CRM applications:

Sales Force Automation

Marketing Management

Service Centre Automation

Field Service

Service Scheduling

Social Engagement

Major CRM Applications in the market:

Following are the major Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications in the market which are used by small to big companies.

• Salesforce.com
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE
• SAP CRM
• Oracle CRM
• Zoho
• Open source CRMs

Common components of any CRM applications

Following are the elements or components that you can find in any of the major CRM applications available in the market today. There are marketing specific CRM applications such as HubSpot, Bitrix247, while majority of the CRM applications have atleast 3 most common elements - Sales, customer service and marketing.

• Sales
• Marketing
• Service
• Contact Management
• Workflows
• Reporting
• Collaboration

Benefits of implementing CRM applications

Efficiency: Replace manual processes and increase sales.

Collaboration:  CRM allows employees in from different departments to collaborate at any time.

Managing Data: CRM offers tools that enable companies to understand their customer data and learn things about their customers.

Improved customer experience:  Companies can interact with customers meaningfully at the right times, leading to more sales and higher customer retention.

How a CRM application can help your business

§Improve your customer data:  Improved quality of the data by making it accessible in real-time and making it actionable across your company.

§Manage sales team activity: Understand what is your sales team up to and how they are performing.

§More informed decision making: CRM systems gather important data which  will enable you to review that data, and make decisions on it.

§Manage revenue or pipeline: You can manage activities that influence revenue, not the revenue itself. 

How a CRM System can help your Business?

§Improve your customer data:  Improved quality of the data by making it accessible in real-time and making it actionable across your company.

§Manage sales team activity: Understand what is your sales team up to and how they are performing.

§More informed decision making: CRM systems gather important data which  will enable you to review that data, and make decisions on it.

§Manage revenue or pipeline: You can manage activities that influence revenue, not the revenue itself. 

Chapter 2

What is Dynamics 365

§An enterprise cloud application which combines ERP and CRM functionality.

§It includes 8 business apps in it.

§Introduced in Nov ’16.

§Basically a new sales package without changing functionality.

Dynamics 365 Overview

Dynamics 365 introduces many other technologies:

§Microsoft Power Platform

§PowerApps

§Microsoft Flow

§PowerBi

Dynamics 365 applications

Understanding Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE)

§Updated versions of Dynamics CRM.

§You can keep track of all customer interactions.

§Perform Marketing, Sales and Service Operations.

§Part of Dynamics 365.

Dynamics 365 CE Apps

§Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Applications :

§Dynamics 365 for Sales

§Dynamics 365 for Customer Service.

§Dynamics 365 for Field Service (FS).

§Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation (PSA).

Understanding Dynamics 365 CE application

§Dynamics 365 CE is the CRM solution from Microsoft.

§It is part of Microsoft Dynamics family of Applications.

§Microsoft Office like User Interface. 

Features of Dynamics 365 CE

§Easy to Use.

§Easy to Navigate.

§Can access from Online, Tablets and Mobile devices.

§Developed based on .Net Framework.

§Extendible using Inbuilt features as well as  C#.Net and Jscript.

History of Microsoft Dynamics 365

§iCommunicate.NET was the Predecessor of Dynamics 365 CE.

§Microsoft CRM 1.0 - January 2003.

§Microsoft CRM 1.2 - December 8, 2003.

§Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 - December 5, 2005.

§Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 - December 2007.

§Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 - February 2011

§Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 -November 2013.

§Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 - September 2014.

§Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 - December 2015.

§Dynamics 365 – November 2016.