Mumbai: In a bid to give tough competition to the established CRM and ERP players in the industry, Microsoft recently demonstrated Dynamics 365 to its partners and customers. Microsoft Dynamics 365 unifies CRM and ERP capabilities by delivering new purpose-built applications to help manage specific business functions, including Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Operations, Marketing, Project Service Automation, and Financials.
Channel partners have given a thumbs up to the new offering of the company. Partners say that the integrated CRM and ERP software solution will enable them to showcase their solutions worldwide and expand their reach into the new growth areas.
Dynamics 365 is a new cloud service that bundles CRM and ERP into a single offering. Powered by advanced analytics and machine learning, the service will be available in two editions — Enterprise and Business, on a subscription per app/per user model. Dynamics 365 includes applications to manage field service, sales, marketing, project service automation, financials, operations, and customer service.
Microsoft will deliver Dynamics 365 with fully native mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows. Dynamics 365 will be available to customers and partners in more than 135 markets in over 40 languages, beginning November 1.
Also Read: Microsoft Demonstrates Dynamics 365, AppSource For Partners
The company has introduced AppSource to increase partners’ discoverability with prospective customers. The marketplace aims to help customers find a partner who can help them with the implementation and deployment of SaaS apps from Microsoft. The marketplace currently has nearly 250 SaaS apps, add-ins and content packs, including exclusive new industry-specific business apps.
Devesh Aggarwal, Director at Compusoft Advisors, feels that channel partners can bundle their services and solutions around Dynamics 365 and publish the same in AppSource. “Dynamics 365 and AppSource will change the way business solutions are being sold. This would be first solution on the cloud with a complete ERP and CRM functionality. Channel Partners can bundle their services and solutions around Dynamics 365 and publish the same in AppSource. AppSource becomes a single destination for both customer and partners worldwide to identify vertical specific services and solutions around Dynamics 365. This will enable a partner based in India to market their solutions worldwide on a single platform”, says Aggarwal.
Microsoft has said that it would soon list Dynamics 365 apps and services from Microsoft ISVs and solution integrators (SIs). Customers interested in an app will instantly get focused recommendations to find the right SI partner with relevant experience based on the unique requirements of the app, industry expertise, geographic location and other factors.
“Dynamics 365 will allow partners to be more deeply involved on their customers’ business processes, creating new business opportunities that couldn’t be pursued before when selling a single product”, Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president, Microsoft Cloud + Enterprises said in a blog post.
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To help partners build Microsoft Dynamics 365 practices, Microsoft has also established a technically-focused community, Dynamics 365 Partner. The community includes a monthly call, blog series, and Yammer group, where partners will be able to connect with Dynamics technical, sales, and business experts. “Regardless of what you sell today—Office 365, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Dynamics CRM or ERP—Dynamics 365 can play an integral part of the cloud story for every partner”, the company said in a blog post.
“Since the last couple of months there are various training being conducted by Microsoft for the partner CXO’s and technical and functional teams on the changes expected in Dynamics 365. Our teams have started evaluating the various options of our services and solutions that we can publish in AppSource”, says Aggarwal.
The latest offering is set to give stiff competition to other established players such as Salesforce, SAP and Oracle. Industry experts say that the launch of Dynamics 365 is a move by Microsoft to compete with Salesforce in the CRM space.
Salesforce, which holds a larger share of the CRM market, recently debuted Einstein, an artificial intelligence technology infused into its sales, service and marketing apps. Pricing is a major factor where Microsoft intents to take on Salesforce. The company has already hinted its plans on price war with the main CRM players, particularly Salesforce.