Microsoft Updates Its CRM Service

Microsoft Corp. announced that its next service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will be released in December 2012. This new service update comes on the heels of continued success that the Microsoft Dynamics CRM business is experiencing in the market.

Delivering on the Microsoft Dynamics commitment to rapidly innovate, and help businesses attract, win and retain customers through solutions that delight users and proactively help them do business, the next service update will re-imagine the way sales, customer service and marketing professionals work with CRM. Moving away from the traditional data-centric approach, this service update will add new experiences that simply and visually guide users through their business processes. New application capabilities in this service update also include pre-defined best-practice sales and service business process definitions, which are highly configurable and will accelerate time-to-value for organisations; deeper connection to Yammer and Skype; embedded Bing maps; Microsoft Office 2013 compatibility; and cross-browser support enabling new levels of communications and collaboration for customers.

“This release, the first in a planned set of rapid innovation, puts us in a position to redefine user experiences for business professionals,” said Bob Stutz, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “We’ve re-imagined the business process and infused new communication and collaboration capabilities powered by Skype and Yammer. We continue to help sales and customer service professionals drive new levels of productivity on the browser of their choice, and across a wide range of devices.”

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Samik Roy, Director and Business Head, Microsoft Dynamics (Applications) Business said, “Microsoft Dynamics CRM business in India is growing, and the upcoming CRM online update will bring customers re-imagined user experience that simply and visually guides users through their business processes. It strengthens our commitment to rapidly innovate, and help businesses drive revenue through attracting, winning and retaining customers. We are witnessing a lot of interest, update and usage of our CRM from customers and prospects from industries like Public Sector, Retail, Healthcare, Banking, Insurance, Automotive, Pharma and Manufacturing. The upcoming service update for Dynamics CRM truly is a big leap of productivity for businesses enabling sales, customer service and marketing professional to work from almost anywhere and everywhere.”

Microsoft is reinventing the way people work with Microsoft Dynamics CRM — whether they are on the road, at home or in the office. The service update will introduce new role-specific user experiences that guide sales and service professionals through pre-defined lead, opportunity and case management processes. The new user experiences will offer customers guidance and suggestions that can easily be tailored to a person’s specific role to drive maximum productivity. The service update will also add new business process definitions to track and manage leads, opportunities, contacts and accounts, making it simpler for people to understand their customer, and be able to better connect and collaborate with each other.

In addition, prospect and customer addresses will be displayed on embedded Bing maps as part of the new user experiences. Microsoft also remains committed to driving productivity for users of Microsoft Outlook and will provide support for customers who invest in the upcoming Microsoft Office 2013 release.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is delivering next-generation business collaboration and communication, with solutions powered by Yammer and Skype.

Using Yammer, Microsoft Dynamics CRM users can collaborate with colleagues inside their organisation or with customers, partners and other stakeholders. Yammer fosters simpler information sharing around customers, business processes and key business documents — all through social networking capabilities. Yammer marks a significant step forward in providing customers with the ability to project CRM information, activities and insights across their organisation.

Skype capabilities connected to Microsoft Dynamics CRM address an organisation’s need for direct interactions with customers and partners to drive new levels of productivity. With Skype, users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM can now initiate voice and video communications directly from Microsoft Dynamics CRM, enabling businesses to open communication channels and connect with individuals inside or outside of their organisation.

To deliver value to the broadest range of organisations, the December 2012 service update expands browser support to include Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome running on Windows-based PCs, and Firefox and Apple Safari running on Macintosh desktop computers. Safari support will also be provided for Apple iPad to deliver a rich experience for sales users, which enables them to manage their customers, accounts and opportunities on the go.

To help customers access Microsoft Dynamics CRM virtually anywhere, Microsoft previewed a Windows 8-based application, which will deliver a unique experience for managing sales processes by providing customers with seamless and intuitive access to key information. This new Windows 8 Mobile Experience is planned to be available in the mid-2013 timeframe.

Enabling customers with increased flexibility for their Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online deployment, the December 2012 service update will add new cloud extensibility options, including support for custom Microsoft .NET Workflow Services and new bulk data APIs that will make it easier for customers to load and modify large datasets.

To help marketers meet industry demand to drive overall strategy and execution of customer interactions across multiple channels, and to measure RoI on those interactions, Microsoft also recently announced the acquisition of MarketingPilot.