How does Dynamics 365 Sales enhance your sales process?

The sales process is a crucial but delicate step toward securing revenue for your business. This process involves generating and qualifying leads, which you can convert into paying customers if you nurture them properly. To do all these, you need a way to organize your leads and keep track of their information.

Some business owners collate information about their leads using a spreadsheet, but this approach works only up to a certain extent. As the number of your leads increases, it becomes more difficult to manage and organize information in a way that offers maximum insight about each potential customer. For this reason, you need a powerful tool like Dynamics 365.

What is Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based business application that features customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities, as well as artificial intelligence tools. CRM refers to solutions that keep track of information about potential and existing customers so businesses can start and foster meaningful relationships with them. ERP, on the other hand, is a set of solutions that automate processes and provide insights about the business using information collected from the different segments of the company.

What are the benefits of Dynamics 365 Sales?

Dynamics 365 Sales was built with salespeople in mind. It enables businesses to manage the different steps of the sales process, as well as gauge the outcomes of their endeavors using a single solution. With Dynamics 365 Sales, your sales team can:

Easily move data

Some businesses use disparate systems to collect, process, and store lead data. Unfortunately, moving information across different platforms can be a frustratingly repetitive process. There’s also the risk that your data will become disorganized when transferred to a system that’s not 100% compatible with the system of origin. Moving and reorganizing can lead to plenty of time lost — time that your salespeople could have used to nurture leads.

Dynamics 365 Sales enables you to import lead information individually or in batches. You can also activate its always-on connection to MS Excel. This way, if you use Excel to collect data, any information on your spreadsheet will be automatically imported to Dynamics 365.

Boost telemarketing outcomes

Just because you’re talking to your leads doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to convert them. Dynamics 365 Sales can bolster the results of your telemarketing efforts through its process flow user interface. This sends you prompts on which questions to ask and points to raise as you talk to potential customers on the phone. The prompts follow a logical progression from qualifying to converting leads, so you get a higher chance of securing new paying customers.

Track leads by stage

There are appropriate topics to cover and ways to converse with leads depending on which stage of the sales funnel they are in. For instance, those in the Awareness stage would appreciate information about their problem and possible solutions, while those in the Desire stage should know your products’ edge over your competitors.

Dynamics 365 Sales lets you define a series of stages based on the sales funnel. You can assign milestones to each stage, and only after a lead has satisfied all the milestones in a stage can they move to the next one. This helps you accurately track your lead’s position in the funnel and provide them with the necessary information and push toward actual conversion.

Keep track of your competitors

To succeed in business, you also have to pay attention to your competitors and what they’re doing right. This way, you can find ways to make their success work for your company also.

Dynamics 365 allows you to create accurate profiles of your competitors. These profiles may include their strengths, weaknesses, sales opportunities, and even the areas you’re competing in.

Score leads automatically

Some leads are more likely to become paying customers than others. You can score each lead depending on how close they are to the buying stage, so you know which ones need the most nurturing. However, scoring leads can be difficult to do if you’re dealing with hundreds or thousands of potential customers every month.

Dynamics 365 Sales allows you to develop rules for identifying a certain lead’s readiness to convert. The application will then examine each lead and automatically give them a score based on the rules you created, saving you a lot of time and energy as a result.

Optimizing your sales process using Dynamics 365 Sales can dramatically simplify your salespeople’s jobs and improve your company’s revenue. At [company_short], our experts can help you get familiar with Dynamics 365’s features so you can get the most out of this powerful tool. We can also recommend other solutions that can help boost your business’s bottom line. Talk to our IT experts today.

What are the risks and benefits of a BYOD setup?

In a bring your own device (BYOD) arrangement, employees use their personal computers or smartphones to perform their tasks. This setup became especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic when many workers were forced to work from home. If you want to successfully implement a BYOD arrangement in your company, then you must first understand and address the risks it could pose.

What are the risks of a BYOD setup?

There are several reasons why many business owners hesitate to adopt BYOD arrangements.

Cybersecurity risks

Allowing your staff to use their personal devices to access and process critical business data can increase your risk of data breach and loss. This is because, unlike office devices that are equipped with enterprise-grade cybersecurity tools, your employees’ personal devices likely only have free security software, if at all.

To resolve these issues, require your staff to install anti-malware software on all personal devices they use for work. Your staff should also create a separate user account on their device specifically for work purposes. You can then use mobile device management (MDM) solutions to take control of and secure work accounts without intruding on how your employees use their devices outside work hours. To ensure that you’re on the right track, ask our experts at [company_short] for BYOD security best practices you should implement

Lack of control

You have little to no control over how personal devices are used beyond work hours. That is, your staff could be using their devices to visit malware-laden websites or download potentially dangerous files. They may also be connecting to unsecured networks, such as free public Wi-Fi, putting their own and your company’s privacy at risk.

Resolve this issue by developing and implementing acceptable use policies that define which applications and assets your employees may access using their personal devices. At the same time, train your employees on good digital hygiene practices, such as avoiding suspicious networks, files, and websites.

What are the benefits of BYOD?

Addressing the risks of BYOD will help your company reap the following benefits:

Increased productivity

Many people know their personal devices like the back of their hands. They understand their gadgets’ capabilities and can even troubleshoot minor issues, and these devices are configured to suit their users’ preferences and habits. Because of these, workers are very comfortable when using their personal devices for work and can be more efficient when doing so than if they were using relatively unfamiliar company-issued hardware.

Enhanced flexibility

Your employees likely have their smartphones or laptops with them all the time. If your company is following a BYOD setup, this means your staff can work on their tasks wherever they are. Flexible working arrangements can keep your employees safe during dangerous times (like during a pandemic) and allow them to work where they are most comfortable. This is why flexibility is such an important perk, especially for younger workers.

Great savings

Issuing work devices can cost your company a lot of money. You’ll need to pay for the machines themselves, as well as the licenses for all the applications and tools that will be run on those devices. Additionally, your company will have to shoulder the cost of troubleshooting, maintaining, upgrading, and updating both hardware and software, not to mention utilities, space, and other associated expenses. Even with only 10 employees, each with their own work devices, you could lose several thousand dollars a year because of these costs.

Letting your staff use their personal devices spares your business from many of these expenses. For one, your employees likely already have important business applications, such as the Microsoft Office suite, installed on their gadgets. Under a BYOD setup, your staff will also shoulder the cost of repairing, maintaining, upgrading, and running their personal devices, unless you agree on terms that state otherwise.

A BYOD arrangement can be advantageous to your business, especially if you’re aiming to improve your company’s productivity and reduce costs. At [company_short], we can help you develop and implement BYOD policies that take into account and address your company’s unique needs. Talk to our experts today to get started.