Delivering bipartisan data on Super Tuesday

Delivering bipartisan data on Super Tuesday

By Stan Freck as written on enterprise.microsoft.com

At Microsoft, we believe technology can create a more secure, accurate, and efficient election experience. We recently supported the 2016 presidential election process by providing advanced technology to help organizations on both sides of the aisle manage their campaigns on Super Tuesday, the biggest day of the 2016 primary season.

Our goal throughout the election process is to enable presidential candidates, regardless of their views, to use technology to more effectively manage their campaigns. Here are a few examples of how both Republicans and Democrats are embracing innovations from Microsoft and its partners to improve the election process, including Super Tuesday:

•The Republican National Committee (RNC) is using Microsoft Power BI to create rich dashboards that enable party officials to bring vast amounts of data to life, thereby quickly spotting trends. With 3 terabytes of data to manage, the RNC needed to make this information easily accessible to a variety of stakeholders, including those who aren’t data savvy. “We were able to do that through Power BI,” says Conor Maguire, Director of External Support for the Republican National Committee. “I think it’s going to revolutionize our reporting and dashboarding for this cycle.”
•The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is using Microsoft Dynamics to improve its tracking system for assigning volunteers to polling places and for identifying and addressing any voter issues that may arise. By rebuilding its tracking system on Microsoft Dynamics, the tool is now far easier to use. “We had real confidence that by working with the campaigns and with Microsoft, we were going to make the product better,” says Pratt Wiley, the DNC’s national director of voter expansion. “I think .”
•CMDI, which provides innovative fundraising and compliance solutions for Republican political organizations, hosts its integrated platform Crimson v2 in the cloud on Microsoft Azure, offering a reliable way for customers to access data—anytime, anywhere. “We don’t have to wake up our IT director in the middle of the night because the server’s gone down,” says Jack Simms, Vice President of CMDI. “It’s running in Azure, we have a backup, and we’re good to go.”
•NGP VAN, a leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations, has been moving its integrated campaign platform to Microsoft Azure, so its customers can easily scale up and down as demands change. Says Stu Trevelyan, CEO of NGP VAN, “Campaigns tend to be very spiky in terms of their activity and that’s a really good use case for Azure. We’re able to scale it up really effectively and very quickly.”

These are just a few of the ways that Republican and Democratic organizations are taking advantage of Microsoft technology to make informed decisions about their campaigns on Super Tuesday and throughout the 2016 presidential election process. To learn more about our efforts, please watch our Super Tuesday video. Also, see my recent blog post, “Microsoft technology powers the 2016 Iowa caucuses.”

The Future of Productivity and Growth in Manufacturing

The Future of Productivity and Growth in Manufacturing

As written by Colin Masson on community.dynamics.com

The old rules don’t apply. Its not enough to focus on economies of scale and efficiency. Today the focus in the manufacturing industry is on achieving top line growth from customer engagement, and new levels of agility and productivity from the convergence of digital information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT). Manufacturers are challenging their existing business models and redesigning operational and business processes by infusing digital into all parts of their operations. The future of manufacturing includes remote monitoring, predictive maintenance and virtual repair capabilities, for highly customized products delivered faster, and by systems that are easy for a changing workforce to learn and use.

Customer journey transformed.

Today's consumers interact with brands across a wide range of touchpoints throughout their shopping experiences. They use social media to read reviews, and smartphones to conduct research. With their own consumer experiences - exacerbated by a skills gap in their own manufacturing and supply chain - even industrial manufacturing customers are demanding immediate, personalized service. By focusing on delivering great customer experiences that they will want to share, manufacturers can create sustainable relationships. But that means that everyone in an organization—from sales representatives to engineers to delivery drivers—need to put the customer first in every decision. Building teams around the customer journey means breaking down the walls of the traditional workplace and helping employees to do their best work with connected technologies.

Intelligent engagement.

Digital manufacturing technologies, including Industry 4.0 (also called Smart Manufacturing or the Industrial Internet of Things), robotics, additive manufacturing (sometimes known as 3D Printing) and smart connected products, are creating opportunities for manufacturers to take a leap forward in margins and differentiation through rapid prototyping, agile manufacturing, and servitization of product-centric business models. Manufacturers can market with new insights gained listening to smart connected products and social sentiment, blended with data from customer touch points across all marketing, sales and service channels. Engineering and marketing can reduce risk and rapidly validate new product ideas with 3D models and 3D printed prototypes. The new era manufacturer can be confident they are delivering a marketable product, and that they can fulfill demand using intelligent automation and digital manufacturing.

Growth at the new speed of business.

It’s called a revolution for a reason. Investment in Industry 4.0, with new smarter connected products, and new service-oriented business models can be challenging, especially if manufacturers are also constrained by their business software. Characterized by excessive infrastructure requirements, complexity, and cost or time to change, legacy systems were designed for a bygone era of simpler, more predictable manufacturing. Manufacturers now need the ability to develop, test, deploy and grow (or close) new business models in weeks rather than years.

With Microsoft Dynamics AX, Lifecycle Services, and Azure, we give manufacturers the ability to leverage the power of the cloud to overcome the traditional challenges of enterprise software and focus on the opportunities presented by Industry 4.0. The technologies easily integrate with legacy systems and data, so companies can continue to benefit from their existing investments and remove any barriers to growth.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online: Maximize opportunities to win and keep customers

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Maximize opportunities to win and keep customers

In an increasingly connected world, a customer’s experience matters now more than ever and maintaining your reputation is vital. As your customer base grows and staying connected with customers becomes more challenging, are you certain you’re making the most of your opportunities? What can you do to anticipate your customers’ needs so they don’t have an experience that sends them off to check out the services of one of your competitors?
Since your business already runs Microsoft Office 365, you are familiar with the value that Office 365 brings to your organization. What you may not know is that when you add Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, you extend that tool to get a complete solution that keeps your business in tune and engaged with your customers.

By adding Dynamics CRM Online, you:

Make it easy for everyone in your organization to get the information they need to deliver great customer experiences.
Boost productivity by empowering your sales and service employees to do their best work from virtually anywhere.
Get visibility into your organization to make informed decisions and grow your business.

You’ll find that the simplicity and affordability of the combination of Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online makes a critical business solution attainable and adaptable for any sized business. Best of all, you can move at your own pace and use only the elements that you need. Its enterprise-class cloud infrastructure, maintained by Microsoft, keeps your business secure and reliable with minimal technology support.

Get Started Now

Businesses who are up and running on Office 365 + Dynamics CRM Online never look back—enjoying gains in productivity and sales, and the competitive advantage from customer service excellence.

Contact us today 800-257-0691 to learn more about how you can use Office 365 + Dynamics CRM Online to shift your focus back on the things that matter most to your business.

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Wednesdays With Will - Analyzing Business Analytics

Wednesdays With Will: Analyzing Business Analytics

By William Marchesano, Technology Advisor & Evangelist

As a Business Owner, Director, or Manager, you know that having insight into your business allows you to make the right decisions for it. Not many people realize that the use of analytics has been a part of business for over 100 years. Henry Ford is probably one of the best known of the early adopters. Even though the concept of business analytics has been around in one form or another over the past century there have been some challenges with its use. The most common stumbling block has been gathering and maintaining the integrity of data. By definition, analytics is the information that you are able to pull from data. If you are trying to build a house (analytics) you must make sure the building blocks (data) are not of poor quality or you will not achieve the desired result. Typically the other challenges are pulling meaningful information from the analytics as well as sharing that inform between separate departments. This week we’ll discuss how to overcome some of these obstacles in your business.

Over the last couple of months, we discussed how you can effectively enhance the capabilities of your Sales, Marketing, and Services teams by leveraging a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. There are many CRM systems out there but my posts were mainly focused on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I have used a few other CRM systems over the years such as ACT!, SalesLogix, and of course SalesForce. In the past few years, my preference has leaned towards Dynamics CRM because of its improved ease of use, functionality, and cost. Its tight integration with Office 365 and other Microsoft products doesn’t hurt either. For the sake of this article and to tie everything back to my previous articles Dynamics CRM will be our point of reference once again.

Of the myriad types of widely used systems in businesses today, a CRM is probably the most common technology used to gather customer information for analytics. Yes, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system can fall under this category as well but that is a different story for a different day. A CRM system such as Dynamics CRM gives you a place to input pertinent information about your customers and prospective clients. This information is then easily searchable and accessible by your Marketing, Sales, and Services teams. Each team will have a slightly different use of the information. Let’s touch on some basic scenarios for each.

From a marketing perspective, analytics provide insight to the effectiveness of different types of communications. There is huge value in understanding how campaigns perform so that budget and time can be best spent. Dynamics CRM powered by Power BI also provides you a visualization of how campaigns are reacting as well as sentiment from a geographical standpoint. Knowing and understanding where potential or existing clients are can help you when crafting your messaging. Being aware of when a prospect has reached a certain level of engagement is key as well. There is a certain level of timing involved when Marketing hands a lead over to Sales for contact. Too early can scare the prospect away and too late may mean the lead is cold again and has to be sent through the nurture process once more.

Once the Sales Team starts their engagement with the client it’s important to understand the journey the lead went through to reach them. The reason this is essential is because it allows you to have greater insight to their need and urgency. This in turn leads to a higher success rate of providing a solution and gaining a new client. The analytics produced by Marketing can provide the Sales Team this information. Throughout the sales process the Sales Team can leverage the analytics in Dynamics CRM to track touch point to conversation rates, pipeline and opportunity stages, and wins/loses over designated periods of time. It basically helps you become a smarter salesperson. Even better, management now has a better understanding of what is working and what is not so they can provide assistance in making you more successful.

The final example I would like to discuss is for the Services Team. With all the time, effort, and money required to gain a new client your number one priority should be to retain them. This is where a high level of customer service becomes crucial. By leveraging analytics through Dynamics CRM, you are able to recognize trends from similar support case instances. This allows you the opportunity to devise a resolution that will prevent similar cases from occurring. The goal is to increase customer satisfaction so they not only remain your client but become your advocate.

Trends are showing there will be a sharp increase in business intelligence usage over the next few years and a CRM system such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM is going to be a big part of that. As always, I encourage you to reach out to me to discuss these topics in deeper detail. I hope you enjoyed and found this week’s article informative. If you’re interested in some how-to related CRM material, check out blogs by my colleague Ben Ward here. Till next time…

About the author:

Will has over 16 years of experience in business development, team management, and project management. Will has worked at Managed Solution for over four years and is currently advising businesses on best CRM practices and implementations. Will’s focus is on process improvement and analytics specializing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Will is a Microsoft Certified Professional, with certifications in Presales Technical Specialist – Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Sales Specialist- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Application, Sales Specialist- Office 365, Sales Specialist- SMB Infrastructure and Sales Specialist- Datacenter.

Other articles by Will Marchesano:

For information on deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM in your organization, please call us at 800-257-0691.

4 Tips to Increase Retention and Drive Upsell

4 Tips to Increase Retention and Drive Upsell

By Kelly Rigotti as written on https://community.dynamics.com

Brand switching is up 29 percent since 2010, and poor customer service is to blame. In the US alone, customers are taking $1.6 trillion in revenue with them as they swap from brand ‘A’ to brand ‘B’. If you want to be on the winning side of those numbers, it’s time to take a close look at what you can do to keep your existing customers coming back for more.

It’s all about forging strong relationships, and here are four ways your CRM solution can strengthen the ties that bind your customers to you:

1. Identify your at-risk customers. Right now you’ve got repeat customers who are thinking of jumping ship. Change their minds. By tracking key metrics like customer purchase patterns and frequency of calls to your support team, you can see which customers are at risk of leaving you and assess their individual concerns or pain points. Then, take the proactive approach. Reach out. Ask what you can do to improve their experience with your company, then follow through on your solutions.

2. Develop personal relationships with every customer. Every interaction you have with customers is a chance to show them how much you care. Create detailed customer profiles and share them with every one of your customer service channels so you can reduce the number of times your customers have to repeat themselves.

Update these profiles after every interaction, and take special care to add any personal details your customer chose to share with you. Go above and beyond customer expectations by simply sending them a birthday card or wishing their child a happy graduation.

3. Make your special offers special again. “Spamming” customers with offers irrelevant to their needs is a one-two punch right to your customer service department’s gut. On the other hand, taking a little extra care and sending out promotional offers to only those customers you know will be interested can have the opposite effect. Combine advanced customer segmentation strategies with each customer’s purchase history and that “spam” could morph into top sirloin.

4. Always be within arm’s reach. Many customers only reach out for help once before jumping ship, and you’ve got to be ready for them no matter what channel they choose. Use social engagement tools to listen for sentiment online. Track frequently asked questions as they appear via chat, phone, email, and video conference. Constantly add newly relevant solutions to your self-service channels.