Enterprise resource planning (ERP) decisions are among the most consequential investments a business can make; shaping how organizations operate, scale, and compete for years to come. Yet many ERP transformations have historically carried risk: high costs, long timelines, heavy customization, and uncertain returns.

To bring clarity to these decisions, Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct two independent Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) studies examining the business value of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP on enterprises and midmarket organizations.

• The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP for Enterprises
• The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP for Midmarket Organizations

From fragmentation to integration: Why ERP modernization matters

Across both 2026 studies, Forrester’s projections showed organizations from a similar place: fragmented ERP landscapes, siloed data, manual processes, and highly customized legacy systems that were difficult to upgrade or scale. These environments could limit real-time visibility, slow decision-making, and increased operational risk; particularly as organizations grew, expanded into new markets, or managed increasingly complex supply chains. These constraints didn’t just slow operations; they could limit a leader’s ability to respond to volatility, growth, and supply chain disruption with confidence.

In response, organizations turned to Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP to consolidate finance and supply chain operations with a unified, cloud-based platform. By centralizing data and standardizing processes, organizations can improve operational efficiency and gain timely, actionable insights across the business.

Importantly, this shift reframed ERP from a back-office system of record to a platform for informed, faster decision-making that connects data, people, and processes across the enterprise.

Quantifying business value with Forrester’s TEI methodology

The strength of the TEI studies lies in their focus on quantifiable business impact. Forrester evaluated benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks over a multi‑year period, modeling a composite organization based on real customer interviews and survey responses. This approach allows leaders to evaluate ERP investments using a transparent financial framework rather than vendor claims alone.

Enterprise ERP: Financial impact at scale

In the enterprise TEI study, Forrester modeled a composite organization representing large, complex businesses using Dynamics 365 ERP. The analysis projects that over three years, the organization achieved:

• 101% return on investment (ROI)
• Net present value (NPV) of $12.9 million

These results were driven by a combination of operational efficiency gains, productivity improvements, and cost reductions, particularly from consolidating legacy systems and reducing infrastructure and IT operations spend.

The study highlights that value did not come from isolated features, but from standardizing processes, unifying data across finance and supply chain functions, and reducing reliance on heavily customized, on-premises ERP environments.

Key enterprise findings business leaders should note

For business decision makers evaluating ERP at scale, several findings stand out:

• Improved operational efficiency and productivity can be enabled through streamlined workflows and better access to real-time insights
• Reduced infrastructure and IT operations costs can be enabled by retiring multiple legacy systems and shifting to a cloud-based ERP model
• Faster, more confident decision making enabled by unified financial and supply-chain data

Together, these benefits contributed directly to the projected positive NPV and ROI modeled in the study, reinforcing ERP modernization as a business investment, not just an IT upgrade.

Midmarket ERP: Enterprise-grade value without enterprise complexity

While enterprises face complexity at scale, midmarket organizations often face a different challenge: how to grow without adding disproportionate cost or operational overhead. Forrester’s Total Economic Impact™ study of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP for midmarket organizations examined how modern ERP can support expansion, improve visibility, and standardize operations without the burden of traditional enterprise‑scale implementations.

In the study, Forrester modeled a composite midmarket organization based on customer interviews and survey data. The analysis projects that the organization would achieve:

• Payback in 16 months
• Net present value (NPV) of $3.3 million over three years

These outcomes were driven by streamlined finance and supply chain operations, automation of manual processes, and the replacement of disconnected legacy systems with a single, cloud‑based ERP platform. By consolidating systems and standardizing processes, organizations can reduce operational friction while supporting improved visibility and control across the business.

Key midmarket findings business leaders should note

For midmarket decision-makers, the study highlights several critical outcomes:

• Enabled faster time-to-value, with measurable financial returns realized in just over a year
• Enabled improvements to operational efficiency and productivity through streamlined finance and supply chain processes and automation of manual tasks
• Potentially reduced complexity and IT overhead by replacing disconnected legacy systems with a unified cloud ERP platform

These benefits contributed directly to the projected positive NPV and rapid payback modeled in the study, reinforcing ERP modernization as a financially disciplined investment for midmarket organizations focused on growth and resilience.

Why independent research matters for ERP decisions

ERP investments shape the future of an organization for years—sometimes decades. That’s why independent, third-party validation is critical. The Forrester TEI studies do not ask leaders to accept conclusions at face value; instead, they provide:

• A transparent financial model
• Explicit assumptions and risk adjustments
• Clear linkage between operational improvements and economic outcomes

For executives, CFOs, COOs, and IT leaders, these studies offer a common language for aligning stakeholders and setting realistic expectations for ERP transformation.

Go deeper: Explore the full Forrester TEI studies

This summary only scratches the surface. The full Forrester Total Economic Impact™ studies include detailed benefit breakdowns, cost considerations, and financial modeling that business leaders can adapt to their own organizations.

• The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP for Enterprises
• The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP for Midmarket Organizations

For organizations considering ERP modernization, these studies provide a data-driven foundation to evaluate options, build a credible business case, and make informed decisions with confidence.

The post Forrester studies project more than 100% ROI for enterprises and 16-month payback for midmarket organizations using Dynamics 365 ERP appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

As the business landscape rapidly evolves, integrating AI solutions into field service operations isn’t just a trend—it’s a necessity. Previously, we shared “5 steps for helping you become AI-ready in field service”. Today, we want to talk about how you can transform your field service organizations by using AI capabilities to drive efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and ultimately boost the bottom line.

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The power of predictive maintenance

One of the most significant benefits of AI in field service is predictive maintenance. By using AI algorithms and machine learning models combined with Internet of Things (IoT) data, you can predict your customers’ equipment issues before they occur through continuous monitoring. But, predictive maintenance can also provide data-driven insights that can help you identify other patterns, trends, and potential areas for improvement—for example, energy expenditure—that help your customers see your field service organization as a partner.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service customers can use Connected Field Service to seamlessly connect their IoT devices to diagnose problems and identify potential issues even before customers become aware of them. Work orders are automatically generated based on IoT data and displayed in Field Service, where field service managers and dispatchers can then use the generative AI capabilities in Microsoft Copilot for Dynamics 365 to automate and streamline work order and resource management. This proactive approach also minimizes downtime, reduces repair costs, and can ensure uninterrupted service delivery to enhance customer experience and increase customer loyalty.

Optimizing frontline workforce management

Today’s enterprise companies can no longer rely on the old paper-based processes for scheduling and performing maintenance and repairs. While many organizations have made the switch to digital in the past several years, their processes remain in a half-digital, half-paper-based limbo that can end up making things more confusing than ever. Field service managers spend hours managing customer information—customer requirements, work orders, resources, schedules, and more. Having to switch between different applications—or between digital and paper—means mistakes are more likely to happen. The bottom line is somebody entering the wrong customer data can make insights and next steps less reliable—which can cost you money in the long run.

AI-powered workforce management tools can help you optimize scheduling and dispatching, helping to ensure that the right technician is assigned to the right job at the right time. This not only improves your operational efficiency, but also enhances customer satisfaction by reducing wait times and increasing first-time fix rates. Dynamics 365 Field Service Plugin for Microsoft Copilot in Outlook or Microsoft Teams enables your field service managers, dispatchers, and technicians to take advantage of generative AI capabilities that make them more efficient and responsive in servicing customers. With Microsoft Copilot, field service managers can simplify work order management by auto-summarizing work orders, assets, resources, bookings, and more. And more importantly, they can manage work orders inside the tool they use the most.

Maybe your field service managers spend a lot of time managing customer emails. Now, without leaving Outlook, they can use the Field Service Copilot pane to help them streamline work order creation with relevant details pre-populated from emails and provide key work order information. The scheduling suggestions in the Field Service Copilot pane also helps service managers schedule field technicians based on travel time, availability, skill set, and more. Your field service managers can also easily schedule work orders using Copilot for Field Service in Teams. As it does in Outlook, the app suggests scheduling options based on factors including availability, skill set, distance to the customer site, preferred time slots, and more. They can also use natural language search in Teams to locate information including guides and manuals, work orders, customer history, and more.

Field technicians can struggle with tightly packed schedules, especially when appointments and routes need to be updated during the day. Now, AI-powered work order updates (in preview) in Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile app enable your field technicians to update work orders on the fly by describing work performed in natural language, using either text or speech-to-text capabilities. Based on their input, Copilot recommends updates to work order fields and updates them after confirmation from the field technician. Field technicians can also view AI-generated work order recaps on the go without having to navigate through customer records to view pertinent information.

Enhancing customer experience

Using Microsoft Copilot Studio, customers can create AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants to provide instant support to their end users, answering queries, and resolving issues in real-time. This 24/7 availability enhances customer experience, helping lead to higher satisfaction and loyalty. You can automate routine customer conversations with field service technicians, such as calls about regularly scheduled maintenance or warranty calls. This enables your technicians to focus on more high value conversations. A benefit of AI-powered chatbots created using Microsoft Copilot Studio is that customers can interact with them using natural language to describe their questions or issues. Any information collected from the chatbot can also be used to pre-populate work orders, helping technicians resolve issues or schedule service appointments faster. You can also use AI-powered chatbots to help keep your customers informed with automated service reminders and notifications via email and text messaging or enable them to reschedule appointments.

Driving data-driven decision making

By analyzing vast amounts of data, AI can uncover patterns and insights more efficiently than human analysts, providing you with better data to help you make more informed decisions. When it comes to your field service organization, using AI to discover trends and patterns can help with strategic planning and drive continuous improvement.

Dynamics 365 Field Service provides a resource and utilization report, a work order summary report, an optimization summary, and an admin report to help you drill down into how your field service operations are performing. You can also connect to Microsoft Dataverse, the intelligent data platform that powers Microsoft Dynamics 365 apps and the Microsoft Power Platform, to access your Field Service data and other relevant customer or operational data to create custom reports. For customers using the Microsoft Power BI Premium service, Dynamics 365 offers various ways to visualize your data using Microsoft Copilot in Power BI to get the most from your data. You can use natural language to get quick and easy summaries, or you can refine or guide the summary by customizing prompts, such as “summarize this page using bullet points” or “provide a summary of work orders on this page”. You can also ask specific questions about the visualized data on a report page and receive a tailored response. This response includes references to specific visuals, aiding you in understanding the specific data sources contributing to each part of the answer or summary within a report.

G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers: Transformative AI in action

G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers has successfully implemented AI in their field service operations, leading to significant improvements. By integrating Dynamics 365 Field Service with AI capabilities, they have streamlined their work order management, reduced manual tasks, and improved scheduling efficiency. The introduction of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service has further enhanced their operations by providing technicians with real-time assistance and insight.

The future of field service

The integration of AI into field service is no longer a futuristic concept. It’s a present-day reality. Business decision makers who embrace this technology can expect to see significant improvements in efficiency, customer satisfaction, and overall business performance. Now is the time to harness the power of transformative AI and lead your field service operations into the future.

The post Harnessing transformative AI for field service excellence appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

At Microsoft, we don’t see ourselves as a vendor. When it comes to our customers, we want to be seen as partners—and as trusted advocates. Today, we want to share a story about how Microsoft can help customers take the long view when it comes to transforming their businesses and adapting to the ever-changing needs of their industries and markets. In 2021, facing an uncertain post-pandemic economy, G&J Pepsi embarked on a transformation journey to maximize customer service, revenue, and cost savings by implementing solutions including Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, and other Microsoft technologies. Since then, it has continued to adapt and adopt solutions like Microsoft Copilot to position itself for future growth and continued success in a competitive landscape. 

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G&J Pepsi is always striving to innovate and provide better services for its customers. As the largest family-owned and operated independent U.S. Pepsi franchise bottler, it’s a respected leader in its industry. Supplying Pepsi and alliance products such as Starbucks, Gatorade, and Dr. Pepper to thousands of customers in Central and Southern Ohio and Eastern Kentucky, G&J Pepsi covers manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, trucking, digital print, and more. It produces, bottles, markets, sells, and distributes beverages consumed on-premises—restaurants, schools, entertainment complexes—as well as those purchased in retail outlets. 

Breaking down siloes for a better customer view 

In 2021, the company’s sales, field service, and other customer interactions were siloed. This meant that sales had no visibility into when a new customer might have its equipment installed, while field service technicians had no insights into a customer’s hours of operations, key contacts, or equipment needs. Customer information was stored in a mix of Excel spreadsheets, hand-written notes, and batch systems. In addition, employees across the service chain from sales to field service had no common platform for communicating and sharing information.  

G&J Pepsi adopted Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Field Service to create a customer engagement management (CEM) platform, so it could accelerate its end-to-end customer journey by unifying cross-functional support and removing barriers to customer visibility. The CEM was a game-changer, especially because it provided real-time visibility into customers that sales, field service, and leadership never had before.  

For field service operations, G&J Pepsi’s data resides in Microsoft Dataverse and is accessed through Dynamics 365 Field Service. Completing certain actions within Microsoft Dynamics 365 triggers a Microsoft Power Automate flow to kick off another process. For example, a business development representative (BDR) requesting a piece of equipment for a new customer triggers the creation of a new work order, which moves through equipment prep to scheduling a field technician for installation. Using built-in Dynamics 365 capabilities, a scheduler can assign best resources to a work order by looking across service locations instead of only selecting from a smaller subset of available technicians. Field service technicians use the Field Service mobile app’s built-in map and routing features to optimize travel time and status flags to indicate if they are on-site or traveling. Field techs can also access all the pertinent customer information in the mobile app: service tasks, customer details, product needs, and so on. And with minimal development effort using Microsoft Power Apps, G&J Pepsi extended the mobile app so that field technicians can generate service reports at the customer site and instantly email them to other departments as needed. 

Simplifying and enhancing business processes for better employee experiences 

G&J Pepsi has a digital transformation and business process team that selectively built their DevOps skills to simplify their application environment and processes using the Microsoft suite of services. In addition, they included frontline employees like service agents and field technicians through all stages of development, testing, and deployment. For example, the company’s Equipment Move Operation (EMO) process, which it performs about 10,000 times a year, had 17 manual steps—170,000 manual touchpoints annually. With Dynamics 365 and Power Automate, it automated that process, reducing a four-day event with 17 manual tasks down to a process that now takes about a minute. With these new processes, existing field technicians immediately felt more efficient and productive during customer visits, and G&J has found that it’s also attracting new talent because it provides modern tools and information flows that result in a better working environment.  

Accelerating customer response times and improving first-time fix rates 

The CEM platform based on Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Sales has dramatically transformed G&J Pepsi’s operational workflow, cutting down paperwork processing from weeks to mere seconds and significantly boosting efficiency. The unified systems give salespeople, service agents, and field technicians immediate access to critical information, so they spend less time retrieving data and can focus on delivering exceptional customer service. Dynamics 365 Field Service has especially improved efficiency for onsite workers through smart scheduling and automation, and its interoperation with Pepsi’s other backend services helps it provide service agents with real-time updates and better stock management, enabling more effective customer service and streamlining operations. In addition, the interoperability of Field Service with Microsoft Teams has reduced email and simplified collaboration across the service chain, enabling service agents and field technicians to quickly locate information and subject matter experts, leading to faster resolution times. 

Adopting Field Service also helped G&J Pepsi improve mobile operations for field technicians because now they no longer need to return to the office or another physical location with dial-up to sync data with backend systems. Now, dispatchers can adjust service schedules in real time, so technicians can quickly address urgent issues, such as water leaks at major accounts. The Field Service mobile app has also enhanced efficiency by improving communication between field technicians and dispatchers and enabling them to manage tasks, like work order management and inventory control, on the fly. The Field Service mobile app also uses cellular technology to auto-update inventory as technicians use parts, avoiding manual entries and speeding up restocking processes. These changes have profoundly improved the responsiveness of field service technicians, resulting in better customer service. Overall, G&J Pepsi is experiencing better first-time fix rates, reducing the need for return visits, which in turn saves costs related to time, mileage, and fuel. It also helps G&J Pepsi achieve greater operational efficiencies and improve overall customer satisfaction by ensuring technicians have the necessary parts and information to complete jobs effectively on the very first visit. 

Benefitting from streamlined operations—and $30 million ROI over three years 

By giving salespeople, service agents, and field technicians instant access to sales history, equipment details, schedules, parts, and pricing, G&J Pepsi has streamlined operations and enhanced customer service. Before implementing its CEM platform based on Dynamics 365, the company was experiencing a $9 million yearly loss due to siloed information, outdated manual processes, and inefficient communications and collaboration. But over its three-year journey with Dynamics 365, G&J Pepsi has achieved a $30 million ROI, amounting to a total of $57 million in cost savings over the same period. In addition, simplifying processes and using technology for better data access and automation led to a 10 point increase in market share in the on-premises sector, significantly outperforming the norm of 0.5 point annual growth. And with its data residing in the Dataverse, G&J has been able to gain access to real-time insights that have transformed its operations. Overall, using Dynamics 365 and Power Automate, it has streamlined 180,000 manual steps that used to take seven to 10 days each down to 35 seconds. 

Embracing a future powered by AI through Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Azure 

Moving forward, G&J Pepsi is excited to explore the possibilities of using Microsoft Copilot to help frontline employees address real-world challenges, like optimizing scheduling and service flows based on data analysis. It plans to employ technologists and AI experts to help drive awareness and adoption of Copilot capabilities to help transform the customer experience. Microsoft tools like Copilot, Microsoft Azure AI, and Power Automate will also play a big role in helping G&J enhance its enterprise resource planning strategy and growth by creating a digital thread through its daily business operations to help succeed daily. 

“We truly see Microsoft as an organization that is tied to the entire success of G&J Pepsi, not just the entire success of the department, but as a true collaborator, where we’re getting our voice heard on some of the challenges and opportunities that we have with the products. Not just with Copilot, but with all the platforms, from Dynamics 365 to Microsoft 365 to Azure.”

Brian Balzer, Executive Vice President of Digital Technology & Business Transformation, G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers. 

Read more about G&J Pepsi’s transformation here: 

• Microsoft Customer Story-Dynamics 365 quenches G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers’ thirst for innovation, integration, and agility 

• Microsoft Customer Story-G&J Pepsi discovers untapped potential with Dynamics 365, boosts profit by $30 million 

The post G&J Pepsi profit rises by $30 million with Microsoft Dynamics 365 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post was co-authored by Michael Mendoza, Director of Service Transformation, Hitachi Solutions.

The era of AI came upon us quickly, and many business leaders are scrambling to determine AI strategies that provide the best way forward for their employees and customers alike. The 2024 Microsoft Work Trend Index shows that 79% of leaders agree that their company needs to adopt AI to stay competitive; however, 60% of leaders worry that their organization lacks a plan and a vision for implementing AI.¹

Many leaders in service organizations see AI as a boon for providing capabilities that can help them improve operations and serve customers better. After all, these days, high service quality is absolutely critical to driving greater revenue and customer satisfaction. But having a vision for AI and implementing that vision are two different things. Service leaders want to implement AI solutions in the most impactful way possible to ensure that service agents and field technicians alike feel confident using the solutions to help them be more productive throughout the day. And they also want to ensure that customers reap the benefits of these AI solutions as well through more positive and efficient interactions with agents and technicians and faster resolution times.

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The promise of AI for field service organizations

Enabling quick, first-time resolution of customer issues in the field is critical to ensuring the efficiency of service operations and providing the best possible experience for customers, to help build loyalty and grow revenue. Arming field technicians with intuitive, AI-powered solutions that combine capabilities such as workflow automation, scheduling algorithms, and mobility can significantly enhance service outcomes. Research shows that high performing field service organizations have been early to embrace AI and automation to help improve job performance—and 93% of mobile workers in high performing organizations also report job satisfaction as a significant benefit.²

A key area for modernizing field service and improving operational efficiency is automation. Over 60% of frontline workers like service agents and field technicians struggle with having to do repetitive or menial tasks that take time away from more meaningful work. According to a recent McKinsey study, service organizations have the potential to use AI-powered workflows to help automate tasks that currently take up to 70% of field service employees’ time.³ This means that both agents and technicians can get back time that lets them focus on servicing more customers.

And all of this is good news for business: more than 55% of GDP gains by 2030 are expected to be driven by improved labor productivity powered by AI.⁴ Smart service organizations know that strategic implementation of AI-powered solutions helps agents and technicians find information and experts, personalize service, and automate mundane tasks. So the question is: Where to begin?

Preparing field service for AI

The benefits of AI—improved service, increased efficiencies, and deeper business intelligence—to name a few—are clearly compelling. But successfully implementing AI solutions and making them part of the organization’s work culture requires careful planning and certain key steps.

We’ve identified five critical steps to help field service organizations prepare for implementing AI solutions in a way that benefits employees and customers alike.

Step 1: Focus on a framework for capturing and proving business value

Proving business value is absolutely critical to the success of any AI strategy. Field service leaders must identify their overall goals for adopting AI solutions, ensuring they are relevant and aligning them with the organization’s overall priorities for the business. They must consider the specific goals, whether they include optimizing processes for faster service resolution, improving customer experience by enhancing key customer touchpoints, or increasing overall revenue by servicing more customers. Then, they can identify their key performance indicators (KPIs) aligned with these goals, such as resolution rates, customer satisfaction scores, or revenue goals.

Step 2: Evaluate the use cases for AI applicability

Once the high-level objectives are clear, field service leaders should take a closer look at daily operations to understand where AI solutions can most help them improve. For example: Do service agents waste a lot of time responding to and managing customer email, or searching for customers’ service history? What processes are they using to schedule field technicians? Do they need help automating scheduling and filling gaps for service? In the field, do technicians need better access to service manuals or technical experts that can help them resolve issues quickly?

Identifying these use cases can help field service leaders understand which areas could benefit from AI-powered solutions most quickly to gain quick wins, and which AI use cases might take more time and training to implement.

Step 3: Enable innovation and collaboration early on

The whole idea behind adopting AI-powered solutions for field service is to help break down information and communication siloes and improve processes to increase efficiency and keep customers happy. The right AI tools provide clear visibility into processes, surface experts and other critical contacts, and enable collaboration to resolve customer issues—all within the flow of work.

Step 4: Design for iteration, feedback, and agility

Empowering field service organizations with AI-powered, low-code solutions provides the opportunity for field service teams to develop and test new apps and processes quickly. This keeps the service organization agile and helps it do a better job of both meeting the demands of the business and improving customer experience. For example, the ability to tweak a new automated scheduling process based on real-time feedback from field technicians could show immediate benefit in helping technicians reach more customers and resolve more issues each day.

Step 5: Ensure training and enablement to drive adoption

While resistance to change can sometimes be a barrier, the latest Microsoft Work Trend Index shows that when it comes to AI, employees are ahead of employers when it comes to being ready. However, even the most exciting technologies can end up on the shelf—so to speak—once the novelty has worn off. That’s why field service leaders need a clear plan for driving adoption and training for AI solutions. Selecting an AI solution provider that provides training resources, along with developing internal champions within the field service organization, can help employees feel more confident about when and how to use AI solutions in their daily work.

Making the AI vision a reality

AI has the power to drive new levels of productivity and efficiency in field service, so it’s critical to take the right steps to ensure your organization has the most effective approach to adopting—and gaining the most value from—AI solutions. If you want to learn more about how to turn your AI vision into a reality, register for our upcoming webinar. 

Sources:

1 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report, AI at Work Is Here. Now Comes the Hard Part, May 2024

2 ZDNET, AI improves field service quality and customer experience, January 2023

3 McKinsey Digital, The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier, June 2023

4 PwC, Sizing the prize: What’s the real value of AI for your business and how can you capitalise?

The post 5 steps for becoming AI-ready in field service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post was co-authored by Safiyyah O’Quinn, Senior Product Marketing Manager and Ghazanfar Riaz, Head of Digital Consulting, Visionet

Fast, efficient service, it’s what everybody wants. And today’s field service organizations are answering the call by adopting next-generation AI technologies that can help them be more flexible and responsive to customers while also driving revenue, reducing overtime, and ensuring more predictable arrival and completion times. Service managers, field technicians, and customers all benefit.

Streamlining work order and resource management to improve service metrics is always top of mind for field service managers. Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service brings the power of next-generation AI to field service managers, enabling them to automate work order management and optimize scheduling with data-driven recommendations based on travel time, resource availability, and skill sets. Recently, we announced new capabilities in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service web app that enable field managers to interact with Copilot using natural language to find pertinent information about work orders. Copilot can assist in retrieving work order details, summarizing them, and presenting them in an easily digestible format. Copilot can also go beyond searching work orders to searching other Microsoft Dataverse records including accounts, contacts, opportunities, and more. In addition, field service managers can now configure data that Copilot uses to generate work order summaries in Dynamics 365 Field Service for more advanced reviews before closing work orders to ensure they’re meeting customer needs.

Resource Scheduling Optimization (RSO) is an add-in to Dynamics 365 Field Service that automatically suggests the technicians, equipment, and facilities (such as warehouses) best equipped to handle a given job. Ghazanfar Riaz, Head of Digital Consulting at Visionet, a Microsoft Managed Partner, believes that having the ability to extend Field Service in conjunction with Resource Scheduling Optimization and Microsoft Copilot Studio can help service organizations be more customer-centric, flexible, and efficient.

“Dynamics 365 Field Service has catalyzed a shift towards smarter, more efficient field services management. With the integration of Microsoft Copilot into Dynamics 365 Field Service, service organizations are now more equipped to consistently exceed customer expectations and build long-lasting relationships at every point of interaction.”

Ghazanfar Riaz, Head of Digital Consulting, Visionet

Microsoft’s latest update to Dynamics 365 Field Service introduces enhanced Copilot capabilities, designed to serve as a field service manager’s AI assistant. Using natural language, managers can now converse with Copilot to swiftly extract essential details and summaries from work orders and transform complex data into clear, actionable insights. Field service managers can also use Copilot to adeptly navigate Dataverse records, including accounts, contacts, and opportunities, for a more holistic view of the customer landscape.

Additionally, field service managers can tailor how Copilot generates work order summaries to help ensure the best possible schedules for field technicians and the best possible outcomes for customers. By using Copilot in Dynamics 365, field service management becomes a more intuitive and intelligent experience, ensuring customer needs are not just understood but anticipated and met.

Let’s take a closer look at how Visionet extended Dynamics 365 Field Service and RSO capabilities to achieve a more customized, adaptable system and greater efficiency in resource scheduling scenarios.

Optimizing schedules for field service technicians

With rising customer expectations, many service organizations have opted to supplement their operations by using contractors or other third-party services to address any gaps in service. In these cases where contractors or third parties are involved, knowing what resources to use—especially when automating resource scheduling for efficiency—can be tricky and time consuming. In addition, contractors and third-party resources are often more expensive than in-house technicians, so many service organizations want to ensure they’re using those resources strategically.

Service managers often find themselves manually reallocating contractors or other third-party resources, consuming valuable time. Visionet identified an opportunity to enhance Field Service RSO, which facilitates automated schedule creation, by extending its capabilities to offer improved scheduling insights and enable automation on a larger scale.  Service managers can efficiently assign bookings by setting preferences for factors such as cost (weighing the use of in-house technicians against contractors), skill set, territory, and availability. With these preferences established, service managers and dispatchers can use this enhanced RSO feature to optimize daily or weekly schedules more effectively and generate precise recommendations.

Visionet is collaborating with service organizations to further augment Field Service RSO by integrating Copilot automation capabilities. Using natural language interactions, field service managers can quickly pinpoint specific resources or assets needed for jobs. This helps ensure that work orders are evenly distributed, skill sets are appropriately matched to tasks, and more costly resources are employed judiciously to maintain cost efficiency.

Managing downtime for field service technicians

Downtime for field technicians, particularly when it’s unexpected, can disrupt service and revenue. Service managers often find themselves needing to reorganize schedules due to unforeseen circumstances such as illness, emergency calls, mandatory training, or meetings that prevent technicians from being in the field. Recognizing this challenge, Visionet enhanced the Field Service RSO by incorporating customizations that improve scheduling flexibility.

Now, service managers can specify planned, non-productive events like mandatory training sessions, weekly team meetings, work breaks, and other time off directly within the system and specify whether they are one-time or recurring. The RSO uses this information to automatically adjust schedules accordingly and ensure no service interruptions occur.

Responding in real time to daily schedule changes

For many service organizations, things can change from minute to minute. Customers can experience outages due to weather, utility maintenance, road construction—the possibilities are endless. In addition, field technicians can get held up by traffic or an accident on the freeway, or even by a customer issue that was more complicated than what was initially scoped. And sometimes, customers need to cancel or reschedule service—even when a technician is already on the way. To help with this, Visionet enhanced Field Service RSO so service managers can use the Intra Day feature to help optimize work order schedules on the fly. With this feature, service managers can dynamically adjust a day’s schedule in response to various situations such as cancellations or rescheduling, incoming high-priority trouble tickets, unexpected gaps in technicians’ schedules, delays in ongoing assignments, or fluctuations in resource availability. This level of agility in scheduling ensures that service disruptions are handled with maximum efficiency.

Take, for instance, a scenario where a customer faces an unexpected broadband outage during the day, and the problem can’t be fixed remotely. In that case, a service manager may dispatch a field technician to the location to resolve the issue quickly and limit service interruption. Reviewing the Field Service RSO board, the manager can find an available technician with the expertise that’s best suited to address the customer’s issue promptly. The manager then assigns the new work order and reorganizes the day’s schedule to accommodate this change.

Dynamics 365 Field Service

Interact with Copilot using new capabilities in the Field Service web app.

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Stepping up field service with next-generation AI

We’re excited to be sharing all the ways you can use Copilot Studio with Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service to extend AI capabilities that can help make your field service organization more efficient, productive, and responsive to customers.

We invite you to visit the Microsoft booth (216), along with our partners, at Field Service Palm Springs to discover how Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service works alongside frontline teams to streamline work order management and increase technician productivity. Learn more about AI-powered experiences for your frontline on Monday, May 6, by attending:

• Chair Opening Remarks by Héctor Garcia Tellado, General Manager, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Frontline Applications
• The Customer Journey Panel: Revaluating and Remapping Service Workflows to Optimize Automation Tool Adoption and Enhance CX

The post Enabling fast, flexible, cost-effective service with Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

According to our Forrester Consulting study, software that helps organizations elevate field service delivery can improve financial performance in two ways: by helping increase customer retention and expansion by exceeding service expectations, and by increasing productivity. We are pleased to share the results of a December 2023 Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact^TM (TEI) Study commissioned by Microsoft. Forrester calculates Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service delivered benefits of $42.65 million over three years to a composite organization. The total investment required was $9.5 million and provided a ROI of 346% with a payback period of less than six months. 

Methodology and purpose 

TEI is a methodology developed by Forrester Research to assist companies with technology-related purchase decisions by providing business decision-makers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of the technology on the entire organization. 

Forrester Consulting interviewed 11 representatives from seven organizations with experience using Dynamics 365 Field Service to conduct this TEI study. The characteristics of these businesses and the results of the interviews were then aggregated to develop a composite organization. The key findings of the study are based on the composite organization and are summarized below. 

Key challenges 

The organizations that were interviewed for the study shared the following challenges prior to adopting Dynamics 365: 

•  Lack of visibility into field service status
•  Communication issues among management, sales, and service teams
•  Technicians’ inability to complete work orders in a timely fashion

With these challenges top of mind, the interviewees sought to invest in a solution that could improve the productivity and efficiency of their field service teams, enable cost savings, and lead to customer retention and profitability.  

Key findings 

Dynamics 365 Field Service helps organizations deliver onsite service to customer locations. The application includes work order automation, scheduling algorithms, asset servicing, mobility, Microsoft 365 integration, and infusion of generative AI through Copilot to set up frontline workers for success when they are onsite providing service for customers. It is part of the larger Dynamics 365 portfolio of applications designed to work together to deliver efficiency and improve customer experience. 

Forrester’s study revealed seven quantifiable impact areas: increased first-time fix rate, increased field technician productivity, eliminated standard time-to-invoice delays, avoided travel time, improved dispatcher productivity, enhanced management productivity, and retired legacy solutions. 

We examine each of these areas below in more detail to understand how Dynamics 365 Field Service delivers value across field service organizations. 

Increased first-time fix rate 

Sending out field technicians to resolve customer issues is expensive even for the first visit, so many organizations want to do everything they can to avoid a second truck roll to resolve a problem. Deploying Dynamics 365 Field Service helped the organizations to increase their first-time fix rates by ensuring that technicians could quickly locate equipment, understand history and problems, tap into institutional knowledge about problems, and ensuring they had stocked the appropriate parts for service. Increasing the first-time fix rates also helped these organizations avoid 12% of second visits by additional technicians to complete a service call.  

Increased technician productivity 

Interviewees found that Dynamics 365 Field Service helped to remove many administrative tasks, so field technicians could spend more of their time focusing on addressing customer issues. Organizations were also able to use the solution to find the best field technician for each job, determine the most efficient route for getting to a customer site, and ensuring that technicians were carrying the right parts and tools to fix the problems. In addition, the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist feature helped technicians use institutional knowledge, rather than having to spend time tracking down a peer or documentation. And both managers and technicians had greater visibility into technicians’ service calls, which helped them to plan for greater efficiency when scheduling customer work orders. All of this resulted in increasing field technician productivity by up to 14% once Dynamics 365 Field Service and Remote Assist were fully implemented. 

Decreased time to invoice customers 

An inability to integrate field service applications with key applications in finance often meant considerable time gaps between when a service order was completed and a customer was billed for service. One interviewee noted that using paper-based processes for invoicing service calls meant up to a month could go by before an invoice was sent, but after implementing Dynamics 365 Field Service, customers could be invoiced for work orders on the same day. For the composite organization, eliminating standard time-to-invoice delays resulted in $2.8 million savings in interest on accounts receivable.  

Avoided travel time 

One key challenge interviewees shared was that field technicians could lose significant time due to traffic delays or inefficient job routing, which required them to go out of their way to get to customer sites. With Dynamics 365 Field Service, dispatchers could ensure that planned routes were the most efficient and economical and that technicians’ routes were updated constantly to avoid potential slowdowns from traffic or road construction. The availability of mixed reality apps like Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and Dynamics 365 Guides also meant that field technicians could get assistance without subject matter experts needing to be on-site. 

By using routing algorithms and traffic updates provided by Dynamics 365 Field Service, the composite organization can create more efficient schedules for technicians and save $2.1 million over three years. 

Improved dispatcher productivity  

Service dispatchers were often relying on highly manual processes to assign field technicians to jobs. Any change in staffing or scheduling increased inefficiency, especially since schedules were shared across whiteboards, spreadsheets, and calendar apps, meaning mistakes and deletions could be made. Dynamics 365 Field Service enables service organizations to automate scheduling and rescheduling for customer service calls. It also helps service managers match the best service technician for a work order based on time or expertise. One project manager interviewed for the study stated that having everything in one place provided better visibility for schedulers that helped them understand job progress and seamlessly include everyone in the workflow. 

Overall, the composite organization saw a 40% improvement in dispatcher productivity as well as cost savings of $1.6 million. 

Enhanced management productivity 

Some interviewees had reported that field service managers spent a lot of time resolving scheduling issues, tracking missing parts inventory, and following up on incomplete jobs. With the ability to automate more processes in Dynamics 365 Field Service, those field service managers found they had more time to focus on strategic tasks that help their teams improve in other ways. Because reporting provided managers with information they didn’t have access to before, they were able to get a clearer view into technician productivity, work order status, parts inventory, and other metrics that helped them discover and address gaps so they could meet monthly targets. Service managers also had greater visibility into areas where field technicians needed more training and support, so they could improve team performance overall. 

Service managers enhanced management productivity by 100 hours per year. 

Retired legacy solutions 

In the past, participant organizations used various combinations of email, calendar and scheduling apps, spreadsheets, or third-party field service tools to manage their field service efforts. Implementing Dynamics 365 Field Service, which integrates with Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook and Microsoft Teams, helped to reduce licensing, administration, and maintenance costs for maintaining separate applications to support field service teams.  

Other benefits 

Beyond the quantified benefits detailed above, the organizations participating in the TEI study also experienced other benefits, including:  

• Improved customer experience through increased efficiency and more accurate updates about service calls. 
•  Enhanced employee experience by enabling field technicians to use their mobile phones to complete most of their work tasks. 
• Improve service delivery speed and quality by using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service in their field service operations.  
• Access to mixed reality applications such as Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides to help support field technicians on service calls. 

Next steps 

As we have seen here, Forrester’s study uncovered seven quantifiable impact areas along with several other significant unquantifiable benefits. When combined, these factors resulted in benefits of $42.65 million over three years for the composite organization. The total investment required was $9.5 million, leading to a 346% ROI with a payback period of less than six months.

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Source: Forrester: “The Total Economic Impact^TM of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service”, Forrester Research, Inc., December 2023.

The post Forrester study finds 346% ROI when modernizing service operations with Dynamics 365 Field Service  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post is co-authored by John Ryan, Manager Functional Architect Dynamics 365 Field Service, Avanade.

One of the most exciting things about the introduction of AI into tools people use every day to do their jobs is the way AI can help revolutionize the way people work. Especially at the frontlines of business, AI provides organizations with innovative and personalized ways to serve customers. According to IDC, 28% of organizations are investing significantly in generative AI.¹ This is what’s exciting about the introduction of Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service.

No doubt about it: modern solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service have already come a long way in helping frontline workers be more productive and efficient in helping customers. But Copilot takes things to the next level by bringing the power of next-generation AI to the frontlines, enabling faster resolution and better service.

Streamline Field Service operations with Copilot

Copilot provides a leap forward in the field service space.

Read how

Enabling next-level support with Copilot for Field Service in Outlook and Microsoft Teams

Email has long been a critical communications tool for frontline managers and technicians. New data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report reveals that over 60% of frontline workers struggle with having to do repetitive or menial tasks that take time away from more meaningful work.² Now, the Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service Outlook add-in can streamline work order creation with relevant details pre-populated from emails.

So, what does that mean, exactly? Copilot can also optimize technician scheduling with data-driven recommendations based on factors such as travel time, availability, and skillset. Frontline managers can see relevant work orders and review them before creating new work orders, and they can easily reschedule or update those work orders as customers’ needs change. In addition, organizations can customize work orders for their frontline needs by adding, renaming, or rearranging fields. Even better, Copilot can assist frontline managers with work order scheduling in Microsoft Teams, saving time and effort to find the right worker for the job.

Frontline managers can also easily open the Field Service desktop app directly from the Copilot add-in via Outlook or Teams to view work orders. There, they can see booking suggestions in the work order and book a field technician without opening the schedule board. The booking is created in Microsoft Dataverse and also gets recorded on the Field Service schedule board automatically. All this saves frontline managers valuable time because they can stay in the flow of work, reduce clicks and context-switching between apps, and create work orders quickly without copy/paste errors. In the Field Service app, they can also review work order list views and edit a work order right in the list without having to reopen it.

Getting answers faster with natural language search with Copilot in Teams

Searching work orders to find specific details about customer jobs or looking for information about parts inventory used to mean switching between apps and searching across different sources for information. Now, to search for work orders or other customer data, agents can ask Copilot through a Teams search. They simply ask what they’re looking for using natural language, and Copilot will return specific information related to their work orders in Dynamics 365 Field Service including status updates, parts needed, or instructions to help them complete the job. The more agents use Copilot, the more the AI assistant learns and can assist agents at their jobs. The future is now.

Empowering field technicians with modern user experience

Frontline managers aren’t the only team members getting a productivity boost from more modern tools. The new Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile experience, currently in preview for Windows 10 and higher, iOS, and Android devices, empowers field technicians by giving them all the relevant, most up-to-date information they need to manage work orders, tasks, services, and products and get their jobs done thoroughly and efficiently. This modern user experience supports familiar mobile navigation, gestures, and controls to streamline managing work order Tasks, Services, and Products. Technicians can save valuable time by quickly updating the status of a booking, getting driving directions to a customer site, and changing or completing work order details. They can even get detailed information about tasks with embedded Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides, which provide step-by-step instructions, pictures, and videos.

Changing the game for frontline technicians with Copilot in mobile

For field service technicians, having Copilot generate work order summaries that include concise, detailed descriptions of services as well as pricing and costs is a game changer. Work order summaries are generated by Copilot on the fly, synthesizing information from various tabs and fields to break down tasks, parts, services, and problem descriptions into a simple narrative, making it easy for technicians to understand job requirements. And because field technicians often need to work with their hands, they can use the voice-to-text feature to update work orders by describing details including exactly what they did on a job, when they started and finished, and what parts they used. When the work is completed, they can use the app to collect a digital signature from the customer or use voice-to-text to capture customer feedback.

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service is a leap forward in the field service space. Can’t wait to see what’s next!

Learn more about the AI-powered experiences in Dynamics 365 Field Service, Teams, and Microsoft’s mixed reality applications for your frontline workforce announced at Microsoft Ignite 2023:

• Transforming service organizations with generative AI 
• Reimagine the frontline with next-generation AI and fast deployment 

[1] IDC Analyst Brief sponsored by Microsoft, Generative AI and Mixed Reality Power the Future of Field Service Resolution (Doc #US51300223), October 2023

[2] The Work Trend Index survey was conducted by an independent research firm, Edelman Data x Intelligence, among 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed workers across 31 markets, 6,019 of which are frontline workers, between February 1, 2023, and March 14, 2023. This survey was 20 minutes in length and conducted online, in either the English language or translated into a local language across markets. One thousand full-time workers were surveyed in each market, and global results have been aggregated across all responses to provide an average. Each market is evenly weighted within the global average. Each market was sampled to be representative of the full-time workforce across age, gender, and region; each sample included a mix of work environments (in-person, remote vs. non-remote, office settings vs. non-office settings, etc.), industries, company sizes, tenures, and job levels. Markets surveyed include: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

The post Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service helps take field support to the next level appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post was co-authored by Caroline Dent, Senior Solutions Consultant, Velrada.

Due to fierce competition and increasing customer expectations, many organizations are looking to transform their field service operations to increase customer satisfaction, drive greater efficiency, and ensure higher service effectiveness. Digital transformation for field service operations is often focused on providing modern tools for service dispatchers who manage customer requests and create and dispatch work orders. But what about the people on the frontlines—the service technicians in the field?

Consider a utility provider with field service technicians who may work in remote areas with low network coverage or sometimes brave challenging weather conditions to support customers experiencing outages. Like any other organization, that provider needs a solution that enables it to streamline field service operations as much as possible, not only for controlling costs but also for providing the best possible experience for its customers. But when bad weather hits, it also needs a solution that ensures its field support can be productive even in extreme conditions and from the most remote locations.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, organizations with service technicians on the frontlines can help maximize productivity with AI-driven assistance and remote expert support in the flow of work. And specifically for service technicians on the frontlines, Dynamics 365 Field Service offers a comprehensive Field Service mobile app for Windows, iOS, and Android devices that provides a set of digital capabilities that extend far beyond the traditional scheduling and dispatching of work orders.

Dynamics 365 Field Service

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Implementing Field Service to optimize operations

As a long-term Microsoft global partner, Velrada has emerged as a pioneering force in implementing Dynamics 365 Field Service to empower frontline workers. With a rich history of innovation and a strong commitment to business transformation, Velrada has consistently demonstrated its expertise in implementing Dynamics 365 Field Service to help its customers optimize operations.

“The field service industry is undergoing a profound transformation, and at its forefront is the demand from our customers for innovative solutions that go beyond the scheduling and dispatching of jobs,”

David Conti, Product Director, Velrada

Let’s take a closer look at how organizations are empowering field service workers with more innovative solutions by deploying Dynamics 365 Field Service.

Empowering technicians with real-time information for better service

A primary benefit of Dynamics 365 Field Service is the Field Service mobile app, available on Windows, Android, and iOS devices. Service technicians can see their workdays at a glance in Microsoft Teams, including their latest work orders. They simply click on a work order to launch the Field Service mobile app, so they can view and update work orders, customer assets, accounts, and more, no matter where they are working—even in areas with limited connectivity. This means that even during the worst weather events, workers can get real-time dispatch updates from service agents that keep them informed about the latest outages and ready to tackle challenges regardless of the weather conditions.

Using the Field Service mobile app can also help organizations like the utility provider equip field technicians with digital workstations right on their mobile devices, so they can conduct digital inspections, manage forms, and complete service checklists—everything they were previously required to do on paper, often at the end of a long work day.

Enabling efficient on-site assessments

Using the Field Service mobile app, technicians can conduct on-site assessments with unmatched efficiency. They can capture photos, record notes, provide customers with immediate estimates, and even get their sign-off by capturing their digital signature in the app. This accelerates decision-making and facilitates faster service delivery, a crucial advantage in remote and challenging locations.

Ensuring seamless inventory management

Technicians can also easily access up-to-date inventory information on their devices. This eliminates the need for cumbersome manual inventory checks and reduces delays caused by missing parts because technicians can ensure they’re well-equipped for their service calls before they leave the service center.

Prioritizing safety and compliance

The Field Service mobile app incorporates safety checklists and real-time reporting, helping to ensure compliance with safety regulations. This not only upholds safety standards but also improves the well-being of service technicians who often work under hazardous conditions, such as near high-voltage transformers or natural gas compressors.

Revolutionizing service with Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and mixed reality

For many organizations, enabling service technicians on the frontlines with digital tools that help eliminate inefficient paper-based processes and ensure workers can be productive even in the most remote locations or extreme conditions is just the beginning. Conti says, “Our customers are constantly looking at ways to innovate, and our next step is to help them give technicians access to more than just transactional information by incorporating mixed reality on top of Field Service solutions.” Organizations using Dynamics 365 Field Service can also be integrated with Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on HoloLens, HoloLens 2, Android, or iOS devices to enable technicians to collaborate more efficiently by working together from different locations. This means service technicians can find and connect with technical experts working at other locations to share what they’re seeing, receive remote assistance, and quickly resolve customer issues. This is especially critical during outages that affect a large number of customers, but it can also help substantially reduce the need for on-site visits even for routine maintenance or smaller issues, resulting in improved first-time fix rates and elevated customer satisfaction. Using mixed reality in this way helps service technicians make well-informed, real-time decisions. In addition, Remote Assist call data can be securely stored in Microsoft Dataverse and accessed for future analytics on service performance.

In addition to Remote Assist, Dynamics 365 Field Service can also be integrated with Dynamics 365 Guides to attach mixed reality guides to Field Service tasks. This makes tasks like equipment maintenance more precise as service technicians can use mixed reality to overlay digital instructions onto physical machinery, which helps them perform field inspections and review the areas that require maintenance. ensuring efficient upkeep and field inspections are enhanced through annotated issue documentation, improving accuracy and record-keeping. In addition, technicians can benefit from immersive training experiences, reducing onboarding time and accelerating skill development.

Overall, the integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, Dynamics 365 Guides, and tools like HoloLens helps to elevate field service operations by enabling them to optimize processes and deliver unparalleled customer experiences in today’s dynamic business environment. They can empower technicians with immersive training experiences, precise equipment maintenance guidance, and real-time remote assistance. Field inspections become more accurate, data-driven decisions become the norm, and customer interactions reach new heights.

Next steps

Learn how Dynamics 365 Field Service can help you optimize your service operations and deliver exceptional service. And read how Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service can help you accelerate service delivery, boost technician productivity, and streamline work order management with next-generation AI.

The post Enable faster, more impactful frontline services with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post was co-authored by Lax Gopisetty, Vice President, Global Practice Head, Microsoft Business Applications & Digital Workplace Services, Infosys Ltd.

In an age defined by single-click purchases, instant deliveries, and personalized experiences, customer expectations continue to rise, and frontline technicians are expected to meet these ever-changing demands. When customers face a problem, they want it fixed fast and right the first time. For many organizations, customer experience is both a challenge and an opportunity to differentiate from the competition.

It is no longer acceptable for technicians to operate on disparate technologies that individually are good enough to execute work orders, manage assets, and dispatch resources with real-time support. Timely resolution is key in field service, and arming frontline technicians with intuitive solutions that combine workflow automation, scheduling algorithms, and mobility can significantly enhance the customer experience. Tools that empower field technicians with timely inputs to focus on their core responsibilities and enable processes to track each work order closure, along with billing, are now becoming existential.

For example, solutions that unlock efficiencies for telecommunications providers with field service automation, empower medical device service technicians with improved downtime, maintain safe and highly automated facility management operations, and manage smart elevator service with Internet of Things (IoT)-driven field service are all recipes for greater customer satisfaction.

Dynamics 365 Field Service

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service integration supports positive customer experiences

Dynamics 365 Field Service integrates with Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Viva Connections so that frontline workers and managers can create, view, and manage work orders within Outlook and Teams. This integration enhances collaboration between dispatchers, frontline technicians, and managers by enabling work order data to sync automatically between Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. Additionally, frontline technicians can quickly start their day with access to key workday information at a glance, with work orders visible as Tasks from the Viva Connections homepage in Teams. Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 empower technicians with the right information to resolve issues the first time, which adds a great deal to creating a positive customer experience.

For example, a leading energy supplier based out of the UK partnered with Infosys to establish itself as a leader in the energy-as-a-service market by offering best-in-class customer experience. The connected field service-based solution unified the capabilities of Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 to unlock a leaner and flexible business model that also enabled future scalability to ensure:

• Better workforce management through flexible scheduling, route optimization, and quota management.
• Field job execution via remote supervision, site awareness/recording, and offline mode.
• Customer intimacy powered by service history management, technician visibility, voice of customer, and closed loop tracking.
• Superior job outcomes powered by higher first-time resolution rates and reduced job aborts.

Connected field service helped redefine the leading energy supplier’s customer engagement model with a seamless work order management process. From streamlining work order creation, scheduling the best suited frontline technician, receiving remote expert assistance, and integrating asset management, Dynamics 365 enabled the customer to transform their field operations. Additional engagement highlights include:

• Seamless migration from more than 20 legacy disparate business apps onto Dynamics 365.
• Implemented core business functionalities with over 75 percent out-of-the-box feature fitment.
• Six phased incremental rollouts to enable more than 1,500 field technicians and more than 600 internal users.
• On track to reduce overall cost of IT operations by over 25 percent.

The leaner, AI-powered, and truly automated business, has unleashed novel revenue streams with infinite potential for the client:

This UK-based leading energy supplier is now well-positioned to drive its future growth. The organization is supported by a skilled and engaged workforce that works seamlessly with connected and leaner processes that together offer a sustainable competitive advantage.

Standardizing and automating processes through connected field service

Field Service continues to break ground into unexplored industries. Capabilities like GPS and routing, which enable timely visits and quicker resolution, are saving the day for thousands of field service professionals. They are now able to summarize completed tasks with inline Microsoft Power Apps component framework (PCF) capability.

Field service solutions must always be driven by an organization’s unique priorities, pain points, and process nuances. Partners like Infosys are co-innovating with clients to address these challenges with Microsoft Power Platform and its extensibility components. They are enabling nontechnical business users to build applications that cater to their unique requirements without the aid of IT experts.

The emergence of AI-embedded innovations like Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service will enhance service further. From creating work orders with the right information and assigning them to the right technicians, to equipping technicians with sufficient support to successfully complete jobs, Copilot will help streamline critical frontline tasks. These advanced functionalities will help companies genuinely standardize and automate field service processes.

Organizations competing in a market with high turnover are using mixed reality-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides for remote support and collaboration. This results in accelerated training with context and seamless transfer of information, insights, and skills, which help in lowering overall costs.

Technology is key to building a scalable and efficient field service operation. However, a significant portion of success still rides on the technician who is delivering the service. So, it is imperative for service organizations to unify field operations, frontline technicians, and customers with connected digital platforms, to unlock value—because service is no longer a cost center for organizations.

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Field Service

Learn how Dynamics 365 Field Service can help you transform your service operations and deliver exceptional service. And read how Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service can accelerate service delivery, boost technician productivity, and streamline work order management with next-generation AI. Watch the video below to see it in action.

The post Unlocking customer value with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service through connected services appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

This post was co-authored by Michael Mendoza, Director of Service Transformation, Hitachi Solutions.

The era of AI is here, and it’s transforming how companies service customers in the field.

The field service industry is always evolving. Shifting customer preferences and demands, unpredictable economic forces, and tight labor markets have all required field service leaders to continuously adapt and innovate to succeed.

That said, Michael Mendoza, Director of Service Transformation at Hitachi Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Partner, expects that AI will bring about the most dramatic change yet for the field services industry: “It’s no exaggeration to say that the advent of AI promises to completely redefine what is possible, offer groundbreaking new opportunities to delight customers, and differentiate and reinvent service delivery for every organization on the planet.”

Dynamics 365 Field Service

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Helping to drive that redefinition is Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, an AI-powered assistant that helps accelerate field service productivity and deliver the proactive, “always on” support that customers expect. Three key areas where Copilot impacts field service organizations include:

• Personalizing service experiences for customers to address issues quickly.
• Helping frontline technicians work more efficiently.
• Optimizing service operations for increased productivity.

Let’s walk through a common service scenario to see Copilot’s benefits in action.

Personalizing service experiences

New data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report reveals 63 percent of frontline workers struggle with having to do repetitive or menial tasks that take time away from more meaningful work. Let’s say a service manager for a parts manufacturing company receives an email in Outlook from a customer asking for a technician to come fix a broken circuit on an assembly machine. Before Copilot, the service employee had to find and review the account information and then create a work order separately in Dynamics 365 Field Service. This meant manually copying and pasting or re-entering information from the email into the required fields. The service manager also had to search for past work orders to better determine which service technicians had the right skills and knowledge to fix the issue, as well as which tools and parts were needed for the job.

But now, with Copilot’s AI capabilities and seamless Outlook integration, work order management is streamlined and available at the service manager’s fingertips.

I’m looking forward to providing customers with the ability to work with Field Service features directly in Outlook and Teams without having to switch applications while working with the tools they already use to communicate with customers and technicians.

Bill Caldwell, Director, Service Delivery at Hitachi Solutions

Now, Copilot processes the language in the customer’s email content to identify that creating a work order is the best next action, and suggests the service manager create a work order—all from their Outlook view. With a quick tap, the service manager can create the work order that Copilot has automatically generated (based on its historical knowledge of past work orders pertaining to that machine and incident type) by inserting the customer information, incident, parts needed, technician skills required, and service activities needed. It can also prioritize work orders by intelligently assessing even vague language to determine whether something is urgent or not based on customer language in the subject or the body of the email.

Hitachi Solutions has been privately previewing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service and is already seeing benefits for customers. One particular benefit is that, with Copilot’s work order capabilities in Outlook, its service managers can immediately assign resources to solve customer issues, without leaving the flow of work. This means customers experience faster response times and enhanced service delivery. In addition, service managers have an easier time managing customer service requests, resulting in greater efficiency. And, most importantly, Hitachi knows that Microsoft is guided by our AI principles and Responsible AI Standard and decades of research on AI, grounding, and privacy-preserving machine learning. That means it can assure customers that it has measures in place to help protect against data leakage.

Helping frontline technicians work more efficiently

The most recent interaction a customer has with your company is also their final impression. Giving your frontline workers the information and tools, they need to be more productive, effective, and efficient in the field ultimately translates to happier, more loyal customers. New data from Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report reveals that 65 percent of frontline workers are optimistic that AI will help them in their job.

With Copilot, the technician no longer wastes valuable time determining what tools they need, making wrong guesses, or finding experts who can provide helpful information. Instead, the technician has the relevant information from the Copilot-generated work order and can focus on completing the service tasks at hand. For example, because Copilot uses next-generation AI to create a properly worded and concise description of the work the client needs performed in the work order summary, the technician has a clear understanding of the problem and what needs to be done to complete the task. This means technicians can resolve issues faster and with higher accuracy, minimizing customer downtime and inconvenience, and creating a better customer experience.

Optimizing service operations

Whether dealing with an inspection, installation, or maintenance issue, a happy field service customer is one who receives high-quality service, feels valued, and has a positive overall experience with the service provider—factors that are all ultimately rooted in operational excellence. Timeliness is crucial in field service, and customers value service organizations who prioritize their requests and strive to resolve their issues quickly and effectively without the need for multiple visits or repeat service calls. Now, right in Outlook, the system leverages the power of the Field Service scheduling engine to provide suggestions, so the work order can be dispatched immediately upon creation and even create a reply to the customer with available times for technicians with the appropriate skill set to solve their issue. That means faster, more efficient service.

With Copilot and the power of next-generation AI, service organizations can deliver the personalized and proactive support that customers demand and expect.

Next-generation field service with AI—are you ready?

Service in the era of AI is an exciting time, and Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service is an innovative new capability for empowering field service teams to do their best work and deliver an exceptional customer experience. This is just the beginning of AI for field service, and we can’t wait for what’s to come.

Take a guided tour, or watch a brief video of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service in action.

The post AI at your service with Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.