What is the purpose of implementing Dynamics 365 and what goals do you want to achieve?

In the previous article, I introduced the five points that you should decide before implementing Dynamics 365. In this article, I would like to focus on the “purpose” of the implementation. In this article, we will discuss the “purpose of the implementation”.　

Determining the “purpose” of the implementation is to determine how Dynamics 365 will serve as a system for your company and how it will benefit the company as a whole.

Dynamics 365 is just a tool. It is not the tool itself that is valuable, but the purpose for which the user uses it that makes it valuable. I hope this article can help you with that.

Now, think about the “real purpose” of Dynamics 365, specifically from the examples in this article. Let’s consider if any of them apply to you.

【Consideration １】 Clarify the purpose of implementing the system and the purpose of the business.

You need to distinguish between the purpose of implementing the Dynamics 365 system itself or the purpose of your business.

Some examples of the purposes of implementing Dynamics 365 are as follows

• I want to share customer and case information in a database.
• I want to standardize my sales process.
• I want to manage all my customer data in one place and use it for business analysis and BI.
• I want to be able to check data on my mobile device by linking it to my email and calendar.
• Cleansing of existing data and mastering of customer data to reduce management costs
• I want to know the priorities of my customers and conduct sales activities efficiently.
• I want to be able to think about how to approach a sale, such as what products to recommend next, based on my purchase history.
• I want to know how much sales I can expect to make next month and how close I am to achieving my sales forecast and goals.
• We want to conduct regular follow-ups with our customers to strengthen our relationship with them.
• I want to launch a new product or service in as short a time as possible.
• I want to have a certain amount of business contacts for opening a new store or office.
• I want to develop a marketing strategy based on the average age and address distribution of users.
• To learn about the most frequent inquiries and consider measures to reduce the cost of answering the phone.
• We want to support recruitment and the ability of employees to work longer and at higher performance levels.
• To reduce unnecessary travel and communication loss, and to reduce the workload of technicians and administrators

On the other hand, the purpose of the work and the goals to be achieved are

• 30% increase in sales
• Practicing new sales development
• Increase the number of visits by 1.5 times
• Improve customer satisfaction

There will be such things as

If Dynamics 365 is the system that can realize these objectives, then let’s consider implementing it specifically.

【Consideration ２】 Know that the purpose of system implementation is different from the purpose of business.

The following is a list of the objectives of the work listed in Discussion Item 1.

• 30% increase in sales
• Practicing new sales development
• Increase the number of visits by 1.5 times
• Improve customer satisfaction

These are some of the things that often come up when a company is considering a CRM system, including Dynamics 365. However, these are business objectives, and it is wrong to list them as system implementation objectives. I understand that these goals are directly related to the business, but they should never be directly related to the “CRM system implementation” itself.

In other words, the purpose of business is to improve the “numbers”, but implementing a CRM system is not about improving the numbers, it is just a means to achieve business innovation and improvement.

Are the goals to be achieved as easy-to-understand “numbers” for business operations, or are they to be achieved through reforms and improvements? By making a clear distinction between the two, the true purpose of the introduction will become clear.

【Consideration ３】 Think about the effects of implementation

Last but not least, you need to be clear about what kind of effects you want to achieve by implementing Dynamics 365.

1. gain strategic customer responsiveness

If your sales are not improving as much as you would like despite being busy in the field, or if you are just too busy to improve sales…

• Conducting business meetings without a clear purpose.
• Focusing only on customers who are not expected to generate significant sales
• The best customers and the rest of the customers are treated exactly the same.

These are most likely the major causes of the problem. These things need to be analyzed in an informed manner to understand the level of prospects and strategies, and to focus the cost of sales activities.

In order to do so, the first step is to create a system for collecting, managing, and utilizing customer information, which will lead to knowing the customer and strengthening the ability to deal with the customer.

2. improve customer satisfaction and efficiency

Increasing customer satisfaction may have led to an increase in operating costs. Increasing customer satisfaction is not simply a matter of spending more on sales costs; it requires a concerted effort within the company, and cooperation from other departments is essential.

If you can get an order but it doesn’t lead to a profit, the cost is completely wasted.

A system for sharing information within the company must be in place, and a network must be built to ensure that the necessary information is available to the necessary people, so that everyone can work together and share it. We need to create a system to analyze the results of daily sales activities and make proposals. By making this happen, it will lead to increased customer satisfaction and efficiency.

3. Create a system that enables high value-added proposals

There must be a variety of know-how within the company, but the problem is that it is not available to everyone in the company at the right time, it is not well organized, and the information is not visualized.

The reason for this is that although we have the information, we are not making good use of it or have not created a system to utilize it. Creating a scenario that will lead to success is the most important thing in the sales field, and it will enable you to quickly provide customers with high value-added proposals.

In this article, I introduced the “purpose of implementation” in depth. First of all, you need to identify the issues you are facing, and then you need to clearly distinguish whether the issues are for the purpose of implementing the system or for the purpose of business.

If the objectives are clear, it will be easier to get cooperation from other departments, as I mentioned in the previous article. If the purpose is clear, it will be easier to get the cooperation of other departments, as mentioned in the previous section, because you can say, “Your work will improve by XX %, so you will be able to reduce overtime and spend more time on other tasks that each department has been thinking of doing.

I encourage you to take the time to work on this.