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How an Intelligence Business Platform Will Rock Your Business

How an Intelligence Business Platform Will

Rock Your Business

Your Dynamics 365 Modernization Manifesto

Beyond Software — How to Intelligently Transform Your Business

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Dynamics CRM has been one of the fastest growing technologies in the CRM market, with over 4.4 million individual users. Now, with the release of Dynamics 365, there is an opportunity for organizations to make a monumental leap forward into the transfor-mation of their business and business processes, and to realize the mission and vision that Microsoft has for every size and type of company around the world.

Our mission is to empower every person and every organiza-tion on the planet to achieve more.

Technology can shape growth. Help us be more agile. We can use technology to change and disrupt the landscape of the industries that we participate in. Building technology so that others can build technology and make things happen. Our success is not dependent on our products. It is dependent on the success that our customers and our partners have with our products.

It is really not about our ambitions but it is about the application of our ambitions so that we can deliver digital transformation.I want you to envision what difference you can make to shape the world.

- Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft1

This eBook will explore how the Dynamics 365 platform will enable you to move your business and business processes forward at light speed with the next generation of intelligent business applications combined into a unified cloud service.

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CHAPTER ONE

The Past, The Present, and The Future of Technology

It is undeniable: the pace of innovation is accelerating. From mainframes in the 1980s to client-server architectures in the 1990s, to cloud computing as we know it today, technology and the way it is delivered and implemented has had transformative impact on businesses. It is a matter of keeping up with the pace of change in order to reap the rewards of innovation.

But it isn’t easy.

Many organizations are falling behind, spending the majority of their IT resources (around 82%) on keeping existing systems operating, leaving little room for new tech-nology investments. As the tech industry continues to create the latest and greatest solutions, businesses struggle to keep up.

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The Past & the Present of Adopting New Technology

Out with the old and in with the new. The first question is: “How are we going to do it?”Introducing technological change into an organization presents a variety of challenges beyond budgetary constraints. In the CRM and ERP world, we’ve traditionally seen two approaches - the “silo” approach and the “big bang” alternative. Each has merit, but also drawbacks.

The “Silo” Approach An organization may decide to introduce a new system into one depart-ment or location before implementing it throughout all other depart-ments. When deploying point solutions, an incremental rollout tends to be faster with less risk, but can cause a lack of integration, data duplication and a lack of consistency across the organization, creating information and technology silos.

The “Big Bang” MethodologyUndertaking big bang adoption involves ridding the company of its ex-isting system and transferring to the new system all at once. It is a “one-and-done” deal that carries a lot of risk if problems arise, and tends to be expensive. Once the change is made, it is hard to go back. It is also difficult to move forward and embrace emerging technologies, which results in limited flexibility and agility.

However, cloud technology is making adoption easier. The cloud is enabling the oppor-tunity to blend the best of point solutions with big bang alternatives.

According to Gartner, a “cloud shift” in IT spending is occurring. Organizations are increasingly shifting from traditional IT offerings to cloud services (varieties like: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS). By 2020, we can expect more than 1 trillion dollars in IT spending to be affected by the “cloud shift.”2

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The Future is in the Cloud

As cloud computing enters its second decade of existence, with the promise of driving digital transformation and business innovation, it is no wonder that so many businesses are choosing to tackle technology adoption with a cloud-first strategy in place.

Cloud investments are helping organizations to:• Lower the total cost of ownership,• Replace on-premises legacy technology,• Enable business continuity, and• Provide the flexibility and scalability that only cloud solutions can deliver.

Cloud technology is becoming a staple to organizations’ infrastructures, as 70% have at least one application in the cloud.4

The cloud offers the ability to crawl, walk, then run in order to deliver a fully optimized environment across an entire organization, one step at a time.

The future of technology adoption is in the cloud. However, what is most important goes beyond the mechanisms we use to deploy solutions.

Businesses need intelligent systems tailored to each business process, each person, down to each micro-task that can evolve as their business changes and the world progresses.

Cloud-first strategies are the foundation of staying relevant in a fast-paced world.

- Ed Anderson, Research Vice President, Gartner3

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And let’s be clear - digital transformation won’t happen with another bolted-on cloud app or a giant implementationof monolithic and closed business application packages that take half a decade to customize and deploy, and another for employees to begrudgingly learn how to use. Digital transformation requires systems of intelligence that are tailored to each industry, each company, each micro-task performed by each person. Systems that can learn, expand and evolve with agility as the world and business changes.

- Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft 5

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Tailoring Technology to Your Business: The Jibe365 Approach

Whether you’re deploying a solution on-premises, in the cloud, or with a hybrid combi-nation, the key to any good implementation is understanding the business drivers and the goals behind them.

Ask yourself these questions:1. What requirements does your organization have?2. What internal and external processes are key to your business?3. What is your current IT infrastructure?4. What future technology initiatives does your organization have planned?

By determining your requirements and identifying your processes, a solution that best fits your specs and supports your business can be designed.

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CHAPTER TWO

The Unrecognized Problem in Business Today

The Breakdown in Communication

What can we do differently today that will improve our customers’ experience tomor-row?

Ultimately, this is the end goal of every organization: we strive to find ways to better engage with our customers to improve satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. Technology - like CRM and ERP systems - has helped companies collect, store, and manage custom-er data to drive new insights for the departments using it.

A company needs the full picture of their customers - from sales, marketing, and cus-tomer service to supply chain information and the financial status of customer accounts. The challenge is that no system is handling the entire conversation!

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Look at it this way:

A company has a CRM system to handle sales, marketing, and customer service auto-mation. They also have a system managing information for the back-end of the office, from product planning, shipping and delivery, and inventory management, to finance, to name just a few.

Here’s what’s happening: No one is talking to each other.

The customer service activities are not tied to the sales force. The tech support hotline happenings are not tied to engineering. The sales force’s activities are not tied to mar-keting. And the marketing department is not tied back into what the sales force is doing. Departments are operating in silos.

The reality is: The fact that they’re all not talking with each other and don’t perceive that as a problem IS the problem.

For example, if the company’s tech support hotline has received multiple product complaints, engineering and sales need to know. In the existing process, tech support recorded the data, but engineering and sales cannot get that information in real time. A summary report at the end of the month isn’t going to cut it. Without the whole con-versation accessible in real time, departments lack the useful information that will help them better serve their customers and improve profitability.

The product will continue to be developed, sales will continue to sell it, marketing will continue to promote it and tech support will continue to take calls and document the issues. No one perceives they have a problem. But they do.

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Cross-Pollination: A 360o View of Your Customers

People can do a better job for customers when the right information is in front of them at the right time.

Integration between the various parts of a business’s operations and the data that is generated allows for what we like to call “cross-pollination”.

When an organization creates a structure that allows for and encourages “cross-pollination”, all teams benefit.

This is why we’re enthusiastic and excited about bring-ing Microsoft Dynamics 365 to you.

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?

Dynamics 365 is the next generation of intelligent business applications in the cloud. With everything you need for CRM and ERP - Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Marketing, Operations, Project Service Automation, and Financials - you have the choice to start with what you need, build on what you have, and add apps as your business needs change.

The platform breaks down the artificial silos of CRM and ERP solutions to enable your organization to grow, evolve, and transform. Every application works together seam-lessly in the cloud to solve real business problems and deliver real value. You have the power and possibility to truly transform your business with a 360o view of your custom-ers.

Finally a platform is here that can handle the entire conversation, tailored to your unique business needs and business processes in order to delight your customers. In the next chapter, we’ll explore Dynamics 365 in-depth, and how you can leverage this intelligent business platform to rock your business.

Cross-Pollination: a sharing or interchange of knowledge, ideas, etc., as for mutual enrichment.

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CHAPTER THREE

Crossing the Canyon with Dynamics 365

The True Value in Dynamics 365 for Your Business - Crossing the Canyon’s Edges

Ryan Cunningham, the Principal PM at Microsoft, painted a clear picture of the value of Dynamics 365. He used the analogy of a canyon’s edges to explain. We think it ties in perfectly with the necessity of removing the barriers between business processes across various business operations.

The story starts:

You’ve created a quote and your customer has ap-proved it. Now you create the order and send it off. But, where do we go from here? In the sales compo-nent of Dynamics CRM Online we’re staring across one big canyon’s edge to another - the operations side.

Operations and sales are not talking to each other. As we discussed in the previous chapter, this is the prob-lem no one is perceiving to be a problem. The beauty of Dynamics 365 is that these processes can be easily and seamless integrated, allowing for the “cross-polli-nation” of teams with customer-centric data.

Dynamics 365 is the bridge between the canyon’s edges. We’ll show you how:

In a classic CRM world, that’s the end of the line. That’s where the process has stopped. We’ve gotten to the edge of one big canyon between the the classic CRM system and staring across to the other edge of the operations system that needs to deliver the order, and get it to the customer and manage all the inventory and stocking around it as well,

- Ryan Cunningham, Principal PM, Microsoft 6

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The Ins & Outs of Dynamics 365From an initial handshake or product development on a whiteboard all the way through to delivering a product and deepening the customer relationship, you have the applica-tions to move business processes forward within a unified cloud service. With Dynamics 365, everything is a click away. Your data isn’t stored in different systems that may not work well together, and no matter where you are in the system, you can seamlessly switch applications with all your data already there.

Your Business Application Line Up

Microsoft Dynamics 365

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What makes this platform different? Four core themes run throughout the entire plat-form and each individual application.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is:

Purpose-BuiltStart with what you need and build as your business changes. Tailor your solution to fit your needs. Whether you start with an individual app or mul-tiple apps, each is designed to work flawlessly on their own or together. Everything is at your own pace!

ProductiveGet productivity where you need it. Seamlessly transition between Dy-namics 365 applications and the familiar tools of Office 365. Empower your employees with the productivity tools to connect CRM tasks in Out-look and ERP tasks in Excel. See your employee efficiency skyrocket!

IntelligentMake data-driven decisions. With built-in Power BI, Cortana Intelligence and Azure Machine Learning, your employees can turn data into action-able insights and optimal outcomes.

AdaptableExperience a single view of all your data, across all your applications. Built on the common data model (CDM) - the glue that sticks the pieces togeth-er - you can optimize the platform for your business needs. You can stay agile and adapt in real time.

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Beyond “Out-of-the Box” Microsoft Applications

Microsoft AppSource - Find Your Perfect AppMine the wealth of expertise in the worldwide Microsoft partner ecosys-tem with AppSource. Search categories, industries, departments, and even roles, to find the third-party apps to meet your business needs. With AppSource, you have a chance to try before you buy. If it is the right fit, you’re connected with the partner that can configure and provision the app to fit your exact needs.

Microsoft PowerApps - Build Your Own AppsDid you ever think you’d be able to create apps without writing a line of code? PowerApps makes it possible. Using drag-and-drop tools, you can quickly create apps with the data you already have, on-premises or in the cloud.

Microsoft Flow - Automate Your WorkflowsMeet the newest workflow engine of the Microsoft Cloud. As the sister service of PowerApps, Microsoft Flow automates workflows between your favorite apps and services to get notifications, synchronize files, collect data, and so much more. Shortcut your time-consuming tasks into a multi-step process sequence or a simple one-step click.

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What does this mean for Dynamics CRM Users?

Dynamics 365 is the next wave of innovation from Microsoft. For current Dynamics CRM users, this may leave some questions unanswered, and maybe a little uneasiness.We’re here to tell you there is nothing to fear!

Microsoft has designed Dynamics 365 in such a way that it will work effortlessly with your existing Dynamics CRM system, whether it is on-premises or in the cloud. This gives you the opportunity to build onto your existing CRM investment and begin to connect your various business operations with other business applications and compo-nents, like Microsoft Flow to automate your workflows. It will be a seamless transition.

How about ClickDimensions?

Good news is here, too! ClickDimensions is a part of the Dynamics CRM solution. With Dynamics 365, that won’t change. Your business can continue to leverage the top-rated marketing automation solution for email marketing, web intelligence, nurture pro-grams, and more.

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Connecting the Front-end to the Back-end of Your Sales Conversations – That’s Where We Can Help

When we think about how a company manages customer information throughout a sale, we tend to see a disconnect between the front-end and the back-end of a transac-tion. What do we mean by this?

On the front-end is all activities that lead up to making the sale, such as leads, oppor-tunity tracking, quotes, and follow-up. On the back-end is all activities that support the customer after the sale, like customer service, tech support, and warranty returns, to name a few. What’s missing is a system that enables the back-end to inform the people on the front-end of the transaction. There is a great opportunity for businesses to un-earth much more information about what is going on with their customers and enable “cross-pollination” between all customer touch-points.

By using an intelligence platform like Dynamics 365 along with Jibe365’s expertise, we can help your business connect the front-end to the back-end of your sales conversa-tions to automate and interconnect your business processes and open the flood gates of creativity.

Many organizations don’t recognize the lack of integration as a problem or a pain point. Business processes have been siloed, and everyone is continuing to do their jobs. We’re here to tell you that by connecting your business processes and integrating the conver-sations and data across multiple departments, you will transform your operations. What you can’t do for customers today, you will be able to do tomorrow.

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Build The Foundation with Dynamics 365

Crawl, walk, then run.

We believe in utilizing an agile methodology when implementing Dynamics 365. The purpose-built nature of the platform means your business can set up the bones and build on it at a pace that suits your needs.

With the foundation in place, you can run when you’re ready.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Are You Ready? Take Our Readiness Self-Assessment Use this worksheet to assess your organization and Dynamics 365 readiness.

Are you using a CRM solution? If yes, which system.

What is the primary motivation for implementing CRM?

Is management ready to drive change? What steps can you take to get their buy-in?

Do you have a plan for training users across the organization to ensure user adoption?

Have you mapped out your customer lifecycle and customer touch-points across all departments?

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Is your organization using spreadsheets to track or manage critical business data or as part of a critical business process?

Does the marketing department know about the content of the sales teams call re-ports?

Does your company offer competency training and certifications for your customers and distributors?

Does your firm conduct supplier reviews on a regular basis?

What happens to the data gathered by the tech / customer support hotline at the end of the day?

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CHAPTER FIVE

The Jibe about Jibe365

What’s in a name? A lot. A name is your signature, your brand and your story. If you get the name right, you can say a lot about yourself - and often the company you keep - in simply a couple of words.

What do you think about when you think about Azure? You probably think Microsoft. How about when someone mentions Dynamics? You probably think Microsoft. And Office365? Ditto. Names are powerful stuff.

For us at Jibe Cloud Services, we have been a Microsoft partner for a long time. We are incredibly proud of our close association with Microsoft, our commitment to the Micro-soft Dynamics platform, and the success our customers enjoy when they choose us to work with.

We felt like we wanted our name to reflect that.

That is why our company name is Jibe365.

Jibe is about changing course, finding the favorable wind and going in the right direc-tion. It is also about connecting - when two people jibe, there is a spark that allows them to create something better.

Adding Jibe and 365 together is simply a matter of letting you know that we are jibing with Microsoft - 365 days a year. Always on, always available, always ahead of the pack. At Jibe365 we will help you chart the right course, follow the favorable winds, and take a journey that will let you transform and lead your company into better waters and toward bountiful shores.

Stop worrying about where the cloud will take you and your business, and start jibing with us - Jibe365.

Get in touch today!

Call us at 440-918-9341or send us an email at info@jibe365.com

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REFERENCES

1 Satya Nadella quoted in Digital Transformation with Dynamics 365 from https://www. microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/first-look

2 Gartner, Press Release, Gartner Says by 2020 “Cloud Shift will Affect More Than $1 Trillion in IT Spending, from http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3384720

3 Gartner, Press Release, Gartner Says by 2020 “Cloud Shift will Affect More Than $1 Trillion in IT Spending, from http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3384720

4 IDG, IDG Enterprise 2016 Cloud Computing Survey, from http://www.idgenterprise. com/resource/research/2016-idg-enterprise-cloud-computing-survey/

5 Satya Nadella, Reinventing Business Processes, from https://community.dynamics. com/b/msftdynamicsblog/archive/2016/07/13/reinventing-business-processes

6 Ryan Cunningham quoted in Digital Transformation with Dynamics 356 from https:// www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/first-look