This week, thousands of manufacturers will gather at Hannover Messe 2025 for insights into solutions to unprecedented challenges, from rising energy costs to supply chain disruptions, workforce shortages to geopolitical conflicts. Top of mind for many attendees is how AI agent-led automation, production, and supply chain processes can help empower a high-performance and sustainable industry.

To help answer these questions, Microsoft leaders and industry partners will showcase the very latest AI innovation for manufacturers designed to help address today’s most critical challenges.

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AI agents will transform manufacturing in 2025 and beyond

Moving forward, four transformative trends will set the pace of growth and success in the evolving manufacturing landscape:

• Improving supply chain operations
• Driving operational excellence with operational technology data from siloed sources
• Delivering great customer experience
• Increasing energy efficiency and employee productivity

At the Microsoft expo booth, manufacturers will learn how they can achieve these trends by using agents across critical business processes and workflows with Microsoft Dynamics 365 autonomous ERP solutions.

Improving supply chain operations with AI agents

Manufacturers face increasing supply chain challenges, from fluctuating customer demand to geopolitical uncertainties that can pressure organizations to restructure supply chains or reshore operations to unaffected regions. It’s imperative to have the agility to adapt to rapid demand shifts while operating profitably and keeping costs in check.

AI agents can play a crucial role in manufacturing operations, autonomously monitoring processes for potential disruptions, with the ability to proactively mitigate potential issues before they’re serious issues.

The Supplier Communications Agent in Dynamics 365 autonomously manages interactions with vendors and suppliers to help ensure on-time delivery of purchase orders helping to avoid downstream delays to customers. The agent provides visibility into the supplier’s supply chain and allows teams to spend more time improving supplier relationships and negotiating better contracts, rather than firefighting shortages.

Lifetime Products—a global manufacturer of products ranging from basketball hoops to picnic tables, sheds, and kayaks—depends on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to optimize operational capabilities. In addition to handling logistics and supply chain management more effectively, the manufacturer is implementing AI agents to “rebalance” its knowledge workforce to do more with same and be more efficient rather than reduce labor.

“One of our biggest learnings has been to let the autonomous agent run its own calculations. You’ll get a more comprehensive, better result.”

—Sinahi Lopez, Global IT Functional Manager at Lifetime Products

The company is now preparing to deploy the Supplier Communications Agent in Dynamics 365, to autonomously communicate with suppliers to proactively mitigate order delays and supply chain disruptions.

Based on study with IDC, $3.5 million in annual inventory-related cost savings, using Dynamics 365, optimizing working capital​.¹

Achieving operational excellence with operational technology data from various silos

To stay competitive, manufacturers need to optimize operations by reducing costs, minimizing downtime, improving agility, and ensuring efficient production. This requires data-driven decision making that takes advantage of the industrial Internet of Things (IoT), AI-driven automation, integrated data clouds, and edge-to-cloud architectures to enable real-time insights, predictive maintenance, and quality control. Microsoft Dynamics 365 includes applications to manage finance, supply chain, sales, and customer relationships, designed to unify business data, improve efficiency, and simplify decision-making. The applications work seamlessly with Microsoft 365, which enhances productivity and collaboration with leading applications like Word, Excel, and Microsoft Teams, while Azure provides cloud infrastructure and IoT capabilities.

A key innovation is the AI agent, powered by Microsoft Copilot Studio, that automates tasks and streamlines workflows, securely grounded on data sourced from various systems by using Microsoft Dataverse as a central hub. Microsoft Fabric enhances analytics, helping businesses turn data into insights. For customization, Microsoft Power Platform offers low-code tools to build apps and automate processes, while Microsoft AppSource provides industry-specific solutions from Microsoft partners.

Together, these technologies create a connected ecosystem, reducing data silos and enabling businesses to operate more efficiently. With everything working seamlessly, organizations can focus on growth, innovation, and smarter decision-making.

Enerjisa Üretim, Türkiye’s largest private electricity generation company, replaced its legacy asset management system with Dynamics 365—a modern, user-friendly solution that provides end-to-end lifecycle management of all 312,500 assets across 29 power plants.

The organization is also transforming operations with Dynamics 365 and Azure, achieving efficiency, cost reduction, and workforce empowerment. Integration of asset management, IoT, and Microsoft Azure Digital Twins provides real-time insights for predictive maintenance. Unified systems improve data consistency, streamline workflows, and enhance collaboration, setting new standards for operational excellence in energy.

“Our equipment data is the key to operational efficiency. The Asset Management [capabilities] in Dynamics 365 extends the lifespan of critical infrastructure. By leveraging real-time data and advanced analytics, we can predict equipment failures before they happen.”

—Alper Serçe, Deputy General Manager, Enerjisa Üretim

Dynamics 365 integrates seamlessly with Enerjisa Üretim’s external systems like SAP, streamlining operations and enhancing efficiency. Real-time inventory updates from SAP into Dynamics 365 helps ensures that technicians have the right materials. And integration with HRweb and Yüklenici Entegre Sistemi (YES) optimizes resource allocation, matching skills and qualifications to work orders.

Based on study with IDC, 85% reduction in unplanned asset downtime, using Dynamics 365, ensuring smoother operations​.¹

Deliver better customer experiences

Manufacturers are facing intense global competition, making customer experience essential to maintain relevance. To differentiate and retain customer trust, they must reconsider traditional business models and explore new revenue streams like product-as-a-service and aftermarket services.

Dynamics 365 assists manufacturers in transitioning to a product-as-a-service (PaaS) model by integrating IoT, AI, automation, and flexible financial frameworks.

• Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Microsoft Azure IoT enable real-time product performance monitoring and predictive maintenance, reducing downtime, helping to ensure timely spare parts delivery and streamlined logistics, which are important for service-based models.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service uses AI and IoT data for a predictive service model, enhancing efficiency and optimizing service contracts to improve customer satisfaction.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance supports flexible pricing, pay-per-use, and subscription models, converting products into ongoing services.

Hobart Corporation, a provider of commercial food equipment, needed to modernize its field operations to better support nearly 400,000 customers across the United States and Canada and solve inefficiencies in service delivery.

By adopting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Field Service, Hobart standardized processes, improved dispatch accuracy, and provided field technicians with mobile access to real-time inventory and customer data. This transformation enabled quicker response times, improved first-time fix rates, and better parts availability. The solution also facilitated predictive maintenance, ensuring proactive issue resolution before failures occurred.

As a result, Hobart significantly enhanced operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and workforce productivity, reinforcing its reputation for high-quality service.

Organizations facing similar issues can also use the recently announced Scheduling Operations Agent (SOA) for Dynamics 365 Field Service, now in preview. This AI agent creates optimized schedules for technicians, even as conditions change throughout the workday. Whether it’s traffic delays, double bookings, or last-minute cancellations, the SOA helps ensure that schedules remain efficient.

The SOA uses advanced algorithms to address common scheduling challenges. By considering factors such as technician skill sets, territories, and promised time windows, the SOA maximizes technician utilization and prioritizes work orders effectively. This enhances productivity and helps ensure that customer commitments are met accurately.

Based on study with IDC, 40% faster order and product delivery times, using Dynamics 365, increasing customer satisfaction.¹

Operating sustainably by driving energy and employee efficiencies

Manufacturers are under increasing pressure to improve energy efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint while maintaining productivity. By integrating Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP solutions and Sustainability Manager in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, manufacturers can gain real-time visibility, AI-driven insights, and automated tracking to drive sustainability at scale.

Dynamics 365 ERP collects energy consumption data from IoT sensors, smart meters, and production systems, offering a comprehensive view of energy usage across facilities. This data flows into Microsoft Sustainability Manager, where AI-powered analytics identify inefficiencies, benchmark performance, and recommend optimizations. Manufacturers can track carbon emissions in real time, ensuring they meet sustainability targets.

With predictive analytics and AI-driven workload balancing, manufacturers can optimize machine usage, reduce energy waste, and lower costs. Additionally, optimized supply chain operations help minimize environmental impact through smarter logistics and material sourcing.

Camfil, a leading manufacturer of premium clean air filtration solutions, is using Dynamics 365 to enhance sustainability and profitability. By implementing Dynamics 365 with a standardized data model, Camfil has harmonized its processes across more than 30 production facilities and nearly 6,000 employees.

The integration of Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, and Dynamics 365 Sales has improved operations such as ordering, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, and invoicing. This harmonization enabled by Dynamics 365 has led to better resource utilization, improved energy efficiency, a more connected and collaborative culture, and enhanced customer satisfaction through continuous innovation in air filtration systems—all contributing to a more sustainable and cost-effective manufacturing operation.

A well-empowered workforce can better manage inventory, demand planning, and supplier interactions, reducing waste and inefficiencies.

Based on study with IDC, 27% more manufacturing processes automated, 20% improvement of productivity across supply chain, procurement, and inventory management teams by using Dynamics 365 AI-powered ERP solutions.¹

Future-proof your manufacturing operations in 2025 

AI-powered solutions for ERP and service systems are more than a technological upgrade. They’re a strategic imperative for manufacturers aiming to improve the supply chain, drive operational excellence on the factory floor, deliver great customer experience, and operate sustainably and efficiently.

If you’re registered for Hannover Messe, we invite you to visit the Microsoft booth (#G06, hall 17) and join Sameer Verma, Microsoft’s GM, Dynamics 365 AI ERP, to learn how Dynamics 365 drives manufacturing excellence with AI agents. The session will take place on Monday, March 31, 2025, at 12 PM Central European Time (UTC +1).

Also, continue to visit the Dynamics 365 blog to learn more about how Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform are helping retailers reimagine the road ahead; and feel free to contact us to learn more about the Dynamics 365 AI-powered ERP system solutions. 

Source

¹ IDC White Paper, sponsored by Microsoft, The Business Value of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Manufacturers, doc #US53226425

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AI transforms the way people work, the way every function operates, and the way businesses drive competition and growth. It’s also transforming the business application landscape as customers adopt Microsoft 365 Copilot as the UI for AI and agents for every business process. Nowhere is that more true than in sales. The combination of Copilot, agents, and human ambition can free time to focus on closing deals, help teams build a stronger pipeline, and drive new levels of profitability. That matters because in sales, time is money.

We’re announcing a new program—Microsoft AI Accelerator for Sales—to help more customers rapidly transform their sales organization with Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents, as well as two new agents—Sales Agent and Sales Chat—to help scale the team’s ability to nurture and close deals.

Read on for more information on each of these announcements.

AI Accelerator for Sales

We’re announcing AI Accelerator for Sales, an exclusive program designed to help more customers experience a new way of working with Copilot and agents, help transform your sales organization, and migrate off legacy CRM system vendors. This program includes:

• Microsoft 365 Copilot to empower every salesperson with an AI assistant.
• Prebuilt agents to accelerate time to value for common sales processes, including the Sales Research Agent, new to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, that uses deep research to help drive strategic decisions.
• Custom agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio to automate bespoke sales processes.
• Model fine-tuning by Microsoft AI experts, further tailoring AI models and agents to your unique business needs.
• Dynamics 365 Sales to manage customer accounts and drive sales from lead to close.
• White-glove engagement, working hand in hand with Microsoft’s AI experts.

This program will be available for eligible customers on April 1, 2025. Contact your Microsoft representative to learn more.

Customers are making the change

Customers are already realizing the transformative impact of Microsoft’s platform within their sales organization. Lenovo, a global powerhouse in technology solutions, has experienced a streamlined and shortened sales cycle and improved customer service and responsiveness, boosting productivity—and profitability.

 “We’re seeing the benefit of having one standardized system and a global view to all geographies’ activities. This is the foundation for Lenovo’s sales digital transformation—enabling better connections and an increase in sales productivity and actionable insights.”  

—Wei Bi, Business Strategy Senior Manager, Lenovo

Lexmark, a global leader in innovative, cloud-enabled printing, imaging, and Internet of Things (IoT) products, software, solutions and services set out for a sweeping transformation, looking to replace their legacy Salesforce system. With Lexmark’s migration to Microsoft’s platform, the company now has a unified, omnichannel platform that centered the customer experience, standardized service delivery systems, offered user-friendly interfaces, streamlined sales and account management and reporting, and increased efficiency.  

“There is magic in a single source of truth with standardized data. Data analytics, coupled with operational excellence, provides the level of service that only Lexmark can offer to customers, allowing real-time access to actionable data and insights to increase revenue generation and customer satisfaction.”  
—Billy G. Spears, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Delivery Officer, Lexmark 

New sales agents to help close more deals, faster

We’re also announcing two new agents that can free sellers’ time to focus on higher-value activities and help close deals.   

Sales Agent can research and prioritize leads, set up meetings, and reach out to customers. Sales reps can focus time on closing the biggest deals while the agent ensures that no lead is left behind. Sales Chat provides actionable takeaways from CRM system data, pitch decks, meetings, emails, and the web—so sales reps can spend less time digging and more time selling.

Both of these agents, which will be in public preview in May 2025, work with first-party and select third-party CRM systems and integrate with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. Learn more about the capabilities of these agents on the Microsoft 365 blog.

In addition, Customer Intent, Customer Knowledge Management, Case Management, Scheduling Operations, and Sales Order agents for Microsoft Dynamics 365 will be available in March 2025. Please note that use of these agents during public preview will require Copilot Studio capacity packs.

The post Accelerate your journey to AI-first selling with Microsoft AI Accelerator for Sales and new sales agents appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We’ve published the 2025 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Role-based Copilot offerings. These plans are a compilation of the new capabilities planned to be released between April 2025 and September 2025. With advancements in agents, automation, intelligence, and seamless integrations, this release is designed to address the evolving needs of modern enterprises while driving efficiency and innovation across industries.

Key areas of focus include expanding AI capabilities and agents to automate routine tasks, provide actionable insights, and improve decision-making at every level. This wave introduces enhancements to user experiences, enabling more intuitive workflows, smarter resource management, and greater collaboration. Businesses can benefit from intelligent tools that optimize operations, improve customer engagement, and support strategic growth initiatives.

In addition to productivity and efficiency, this release prioritizes security, governance, and extensibility, helping to ensure businesses can scale confidently while maintaining compliance and control. With these advancements, organizations can take advantage of the full power of AI and agents to transform their operations and deliver exceptional value to their customers. Watch a summary of the release highlights for 2025 release wave 1.

Dynamics 365 release wave 1

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Highlights from Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales brings the power of AI to help sellers meet their targets while boosting seller productivity. Copilot and agents enhance performance and simplify tasks, to help grow your pipeline, sharpen strategies, and accelerate deals. A reimagined user experience ensures sellers never miss the best move. Automated research, ongoing follow-ups, and prioritized tasks provide continuous guidance, allowing you to focus on the right actions to drive success and grow your business. Watch this video to discover the new and enhanced features included in this release wave.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service will enable agentic capabilities for case and knowledge management, as well as AI-driven routing, while extending Copilot capabilities for customer service representative and supervisor experiences, with a focus on productivity improvements. Watch this video to discover how the latest enhancements to Customer Service can benefit your business.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center will transform service experiences with new features to deliver effortless self-service, accelerate assisted service, and drive efficiency. The 2025 release wave 1 introduces Copilot and agent capabilities to automate intent determination for evergreen self-service and autonomous knowledge management.  Additional key features include multi-modal support in customer intent agent, enhanced unified routing features, and new workforce and quality management capabilities.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service introduces Copilot-first experiences that enhance service operations and deliver exceptional customer experiences in 2025 release wave 1. Key features include automated inspection generation from templates, actionable insights for schedulers, quick access to vital information for frontline workers and managers, plus seamless integrations with Microsoft Teams and Outlook.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance capabilities are designed with a copilot-first experience, delivering enhanced automation and agentic capabilities. This release focuses on simplifying complex tax management and regulatory compliance, automating account reconciliations with agents, improving bank reconciliation processes, and adding intelligence to planning, along with extensibility and data refresh updates for business performance analytics. Discover how the latest enhancements to Finance can benefit your business in this video.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management advances autonomy by integrating intelligence, automation, and analytics to improve productivity and organizational adaptability. This update enhances operational efficiency by automating supplier communications, improving demand planning accuracy with cell-level explainability and generative insights, and taking advantage of AI in manufacturing to align production data with actual processes.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations is focused on enhancing usability, performance, and scalability in key areas such as project planning, contract management, invoicing, time and expense entry, and core transaction processing. The spotlight is on AI-assisted core functionality improvements in what-if analysis, proposal generation, time and expense and approvals. This release will introduce a mobile app for time management and deliver scale improvements to support larger projects and handle higher invoice volumes.

Finance and operations cross-app capabilities will continue enabling AI and autonomous enterprise resource planning (ERP) with capabilities that support ERP application suite in Dynamics 365, including Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, Human Resources, and Project Operations. We’re infusing agent experiences across applications, including chat, embedded AI, and intelligent process automation, and enabling extensibility for agent scenarios along with enterprise-grade security and compliance at scale.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources enhances intelligence, automation, and analytics across the hire-to-separate process to boost productivity and enable business agility. We’re advancing recruiting with AI-driven assessments and integrations with external job boards, including LinkedIn. Additionally, we’re improving benefits and people management experiences for employees and HR business partners through AI-first solutions and automation. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce advances in-store experience by providing a mobile-first point-of-sale that reduces store hardware footprint and boosts sales conversion. The improvements to the payment connector allow modern payments methods, further reducing hardware requirements and offering more purchasing options for customers. Additionally, omni-channel unified pricing enables retailers to establish more intricate pricing structures, helping them remain competitive.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central introduces intelligent AI agents to enhance efficiency and automation for small or medium sized businesses (SMBs). These agents seamlessly integrate to execute complex tasks, generate reports, automate processes, and optimize order creation using natural language processing. This release focuses on manufacturing, sustainability, and electronic document capabilities, along with enhanced Shopify and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service integrations.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data powers Copilot and agents with the latest customer insights, enabling your teams to take advantage of this data directly within their daily workflow. Enriched with the latest marketing behavioral interactions and streamlined data ingestion, your business can access up-to-date customer profiles without delays to build each experience upon the last.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys brings the power of AI to engage your customers on new channels so you can create new scenarios and business opportunities. Thanks to advanced journey capabilities, you can optimize interactions with your customers, helping to ensure that each touchpoint is meaningful and impactful. The new forms and event management features not only streamline the lead generation process but also help ensure that high-quality leads are captured and nurtured effectively.

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Highlights from Microsoft Power Platform

Microsoft Power Apps changes how software solutions are built with the plan designer where makers can provide a business problem, and a set of agents helps them build a Microsoft Power Platform software. Apps created using Power Apps are intelligent, powered by a set of extensible agents that support most common tasks like exploring, entering, and summarizing data. Makers can automate common tasks by creating agents from existing apps and deploying them to take care of work autonomously. With integrated ability for users to understand and monitor agent actions, and easy ability to resolve issues when agents hit roadblocks, Power Apps is accelerating the shift to intelligent AI-driven solutions at scale. Watch this video to discover the exciting features launching in this release wave.

Microsoft Power Pages enables businesses to build secure, data-driven portals effortlessly. Recent updates include AI-driven features like Web Agents for multi-platform engagement (email, Teams, WhatsApp), AI-assisted form filling for improved productivity, dynamic list visualizations for better insights, and enhanced governance policies to strengthen security and streamline site deployments.

Microsoft Power Automate is transforming how enterprises automate complex business processes through new human-in-the-loop experiences, including advanced approvals and AI native capabilities, such as generative actions and intelligent document processing. A comprehensive suite of governance, observability, and security controls coming to the automation center and Microsoft Power Platform admin center help to manage complex automations at scale. Watch this video to learn about the new features releasing in Power Automate in this wave.

Microsoft Copilot Studio brings new autonomous agent capabilities; extension of Microsoft 365 Copilot with Custom Agents; new capabilities for the Copilot Studio embedded builder in Microsoft Copilot including support for actions, new enterprise knowledge sources, and the ability to upgrade a declarative agent to Copilot Studio custom agent to access additional capabilities and new conversational channels for custom agents including WhatsApp and SharePoint. Watch this video to discover how the latest enhancements to Microsoft Copilot Studio can benefit your business.

AI Builder in Copilot Studio brings the power of advanced automation to routine processes like email handling, document processing, and image management, helping businesses run smarter and more efficiently. AI Builder has multi-modal content processing capability, which allows businesses to handle various data types—including text, document, and images—within a single natural language instruction. Enhanced Prompt builder tools empower makers to customize AI actions with diverse inputs, expanded data sources from Microsoft Dataverse, and support for generating multiple content types, including documents.

Dataverse is continuing to extend maker experiences by enriching app and agent building capabilities across the platform. Dataverse can seamlessly connect all your data together with an ever-expanding set of external data sources. And with your data together, Dataverse can convert your enterprise data into knowledge, which you can use to customize and extend agents that are built in Microsoft Copilot Studio and the agent builder experience in Microsoft 365 Copilot. These investments are aimed at grounding AI-driven experiences with enterprise knowledge across Microsoft Power Platform.

Microsoft Power Platform Administration and Governance continues to provide enhanced tools and insights for admins to get the most from Microsoft Power Platform. In this wave. We’re focusing on security, easing adoption and governance of Copilot and agents, and helping enterprises boost the adoption of Microsoft Power Platform at enterprise scale with a modernized admin center experience and a new admin connector for automating admin tasks.

Highlights from Role-based Copilot offerings

Role-based Copilot offering release wave

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Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales continues to drive innovation with advanced generative AI capabilities designed specifically for sales-focused roles. In this release, we’re enhancing our assistive features by surfacing further CRM platform insights and recommendations to the sales team across the Microsoft 365 product suite. We’re also streamlining SalesChat™ experiences and driving new agent workflows to put organizations in control of automation experiences and notifications.

Microsoft 365 Copilot for Service continues to deliver and enhance cutting-edge generative AI capabilities for agents within their flow of work. In this release, we’ll be introducing connectivity with any CRM system and inline email summary and drafting.

Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance enhances efficiency for finance professionals by providing insights that aid strategic decision-making and reduce manual tasks. The 2025 release wave 1 focuses on intelligent automation of variance analysis in Excel, access to external data sources, extending functionalities through Copilot Studio, supporting collections calls in Teams, and taking advantage of generative AI to summarize macroeconomic conditions. Visit the release planner to learn more about upcoming features.

Early access period

Starting February 3, 2025, customers and partners can validate the latest features in a non-production environment. These updates include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled in production environments by April 2025. Take advantage of the early access period to test these updates and effectively plan for your customer rollout. Explore the 2025 release wave 1 early access features for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform or visit the early access FAQ page for more information.

For a complete list of new capabilities, please refer to the Dynamics 365 2025 release wave 1 plan, the Microsoft Power Platform 2025 release wave 1 plan, and the Role-based Copilot offerings 2025 release wave 1. We also encourage you to share your feedback in the community forums for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

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We’ve launched 2024 release wave 2 for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and role-based Microsoft Copilot offerings—introducing a rollout of new features and enhanced capabilities releasing between October 2024 and March 2025. These updates include advanced Copilot capabilities for Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, and Copilot for Finance to empower your workforce, optimize business processes, and enhance customer engagement.

Catch all the highlights and demos from today’s Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event. In addition to newly-announced features, you’ll learn how companies like Lynk & Co, Lifetime Products, Stoneridge Software, AIS, and Schneider Electric are leveraging these new features to drive transformation.

Copilot and agents are the future of AI for business

2.1 million users engage with Copilot across Microsoft business applications every month, including employees at companies like PayPal, HP, Lumen, and McKinsey & Company. These Copilot experiences can drive new levels of productivity and efficiency while offering high standards of privacy, security, and compliance.

Moving forward, we envision AI-first organizations will comprise people, Copilot, and agents. Copilot is your AI assistant, designed to work for you. With Microsoft Copilot Studio, you can create, manage, and connect agents to Copilot. Organizations will have a network of agents, ranging from simple prompt-and-response systems to fully autonomous entities, that will operate on behalf of individuals, teams, or functions to execute and orchestrate business processes. Copilot serves as the interface for interacting with these agents, which can handle tasks such as accelerating lead generation, processing sales orders, and automating supply chains. At the Business Applications Launch Event, we showcased new features across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform that demonstrate what’s possible with Copilot and agents.

Thrive with customer experience applications

2024 release wave 2 brings exciting new features to Dynamics 365 customer experience apps designed to deliver connected and personalized experiences for both customers and employees. These innovations focus on optimizing customer interactions and streamlining sales processes across your organization.

New capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales include a multilingual bot (supported languages), Copilot-generated prompts, in-line email functionality, and more. These features are set to transform how businesses engage with customers and manage internal processes.

During the launch event, we showcased how Lynk & Co, an innovative car company, is leveraging the multilingual Copilot Studio bot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service. By using AI-powered voice recognition and Copilot-generated prompts, they’ve been able to optimize customer wait times and improve case resolution speed. These tools have enabled Lynk & Co to significantly reduce case review times while keeping their sales team in the loop, thanks to seamless data sharing between service and sales teams.

With Copilot’s intelligent automation, sales managers at Lynk & Co can now focus on building customer relationships rather than manually sorting through documents. By streamlining workflows and providing actionable insights, Copilot empowers sales professionals to work more efficiently and drive business growth. These new capabilities—combined with tools like real-time prompts, the Sales Qualification Agent, and account summaries generated by Copilot—offer businesses a modern, intuitive way to stay connected with customers and make smarter decisions faster.

Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Contact Center, and Dynamics 365 Sales.

Defining autonomous enterprise resource planning (ERP) with innovative agents

Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP solutions introduce significant enhancements aimed at improving both core functionalities and autonomous capabilities. These updates include the introduction of five autonomous agents for Dynamics 365 designed to streamline processes and boost organizational efficiency. By automating routine tasks, businesses can focus more on strategic decision-making and adapt to the dynamic market landscape.

For Lifetime Products, a leading global producer of outdoor consumer goods, these improvements have substantially enhanced the productivity of their finance team. The Account Reconciliation Agent for Dynamics 365 Finance autonomously identifies discrepancies between subledgers and ledgers, offering actionable recommendations and reducing manual effort. Additionally, automated bank reconciliation now matches transactions and summarizes histories, saving time and improving accuracy. These features have streamlined their month-end close process across multiple legal entities, enhancing both efficiency and compliance.

In parallel, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central updates have improved operations for more than 40,000 customers. The Sales Order Agent enables businesses like Stoneridge Software’s clients to manage sales orders without needing additional staffing, speeding up order processing while maintaining service quality. Interoperability between Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service has streamlined service order management, reducing manual data entry and errors. This automation allows technicians to work more efficiently, improving the overall customer experience and ensuring timely service delivery.

Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources, and Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Unlock value everywhere with Microsoft Power Platform and Copilot Studio

Microsoft Power Platform offers new capabilities that enhance automation and app development using AI-powered tools. Copilot simplifies workflows, generates apps, and assists with complex processes, enabling businesses to manage tasks more effectively. With new AI-driven features across Microsoft Power Platform you can create solutions across your organization in record time.

At the launch event, we highlighted how Applied Information Sciences (AIS) is improving workforce efficiency in vendor invoice management using AI-enabled features in Microsoft Power Automate. With Copilot, automating processes such as routing and approvals based on predefined rules, AIS can handle a large volume of invoices daily, reducing manual input and increasing productivity. Users can easily update workflows with a few clicks, and the new summary functionality ensures clear tracking and sharing of updates.

AIS’s onboarding process for new consultants supports ongoing training with Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps. “Search with Copilot” allows users to retrieve records using natural language queries, while the AI-enabled paste feature efficiently fills out onboarding forms, reducing manual data entry. Copilot Studio improves IT Helpdesk automation with task assignment and grounding third-party data sources through knowledge management.  This provides analytics for monitoring agent performance and improves accuracy while also enabling a continuous improvement process.

Explore the release plans for Power Apps, Microsoft Power Pages,  Power Automate, and Copilot Studio.  

Bring automation to your business with Copilot

The latest improvements in Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, and Copilot for Finance focus on enhancing user experience by automating routine tasks and providing actionable insights through autonomous agents. These advanced functionalities allow sales teams, customer service representatives, and finance professionals to offload repetitive activities, enabling them to concentrate on strategic initiatives. As a result, organizations can optimize efficiency and improve overall productivity.

For instance, companies like Lumen and Genpact have experienced significant time savings with Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales and Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance capabilities. Lumen reported a 94% reduction in research time for sales data, while Genpact achieved over a 50% decrease in payroll processing time through automated reconciliation. These enhancements demonstrate how Copilot agents are not only improving workflows but also positively impacting the workforce’s efficiency.

Schneider Electric is another example of a company benefiting from these advancements. Its sales team can now effectively prioritize leads with the help of the Lead Intelligence Agent, which analyzes customer interactions and external data to deliver enriched insights. This streamlined approach allows sales representatives to engage with prospects more strategically, ultimately supporting their goal of enhancing efficiency and driving revenue growth.

Explore the release plans for Microsoft Copilot for Finance, Microsoft Copilot for Service, and Microsoft Copilot for Sales.

Business Applications Launch Event

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Watch the virtual Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event

Join us for the on-demand Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event to discover the latest enhancements in Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Microsoft Copilot apps. The event features in-depth demos of new autonomous agents and other capabilities designed to optimize your workflows and streamline operations.

Don’t forget to review the detailed release plans for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. Stay updated on the latest features and upcoming enhancements, and create your personalized release plan using the release planner to ensure you’re equipped with the knowledge needed to maximize these new capabilities.

The post 2024 release wave 2 launches with hundreds of Copilot capabilities appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

As Microsoft Copilot features continue to roll out across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, it can be easy to get overwhelmed and lose track of critical new capabilities. Thankfully, the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event is just around the corner.  

Register today for the virtual launch event on Tuesday, October 29, 2024—a showcase of new and enhanced capabilities releasing between October 2024 and March 2025. Packed with demos and a live Q&A chat with Microsoft experts, you’ll get a sneak peek at innovation that can empower your workforce, optimize business processes, and enhance customer engagement.   

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event

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Explore the future of business with Copilot

Microsoft product leaders and engineers will be live at the event to give you an in-depth look at the latest Copilot capabilities for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, including new ways to automate business process across your organization and scale your team. Our team will also showcase organizations across industries using new Copilot and Dynamics 365 features to drive transformation.

Top 4 reasons to attend the launch event

Twice a year, the Business Applications Launch Event gives you a sneak peek at product news, demos and insights into upcoming features and capabilities across Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Copilot. Here are four top reasons to attend the October 2024 event:  

1. Get a sneak peek at highlights from the 2024 release wave 2. Discover what’s new and improved in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. Hear from Charles Lamanna, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Business and Industry Copilot, and other leaders as they guide you through dozens of new Copilot and core platform capabilities releasing over the next six months.  
2. Personalize sales and service experiences. Learn how to elevate customer experiences with demonstrations of new capabilities across Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales. You’ll also discover how Sweden-based automotive company, Lynk & Co, is using Dynamics 365 to drive highly personalized experiences.
3. Transform business operations with AI-enabled enterprise resource planning (ERP) processes. Get a sneak peek at the enhancements that improve both core functionality and autonomous capabilities across ERP applications like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central through the lens of our customer Lifetime Products, as well as the latest features for Business Central.  
4. Exploring the future of Microsoft Power Platform. Learn how Copilot is transforming how you build, what you build, how you automate, and get a first-hand look at how Applied Information Sciences is innovating business solutions using the newest capabilities for Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Power Automate, and Microsoft Copilot Studio.

That’s not all. You’ll also hear from other Microsoft leaders about their roadmap for the future of AI, customer service, and operations and how to use these new technologies to take on your organization’s most time-consuming tasks.  

The Business Applications Launch Event streams live on Tuesday, October 29, 2024 starting at 9:00 AM Pacific Time and then available on-demand. Be sure to register for updates and reminders as the event day approaches. We’ll see you there!    

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event 

Tuesday, October 29, 2024 
9:00 AM-10:00 AM Pacific Time (UTC-7)  

The post Explore what’s new for Copilot and Dynamics 365 at the Business Applications Launch Event appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Successful sales is and always will be about human interactions, and the building of familiarity, comfort, and trust. But getting to those moments—all the searching and compiling and preparation—can take a lot of drudgery. Ensuring that an entire team of sellers has the time and capacity to strengthen those human relationships can be an enormous feat.

Sales also is and always will be competitive. Catching a change in the tone of a customer’s voice, sensing some enthusiasm for a feature your product offers that others don’t, anticipating a pain point and solving it before it comes up—these are all small advantages that can create big wins. Your competitors know this, too.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

Take advantage of Dynamics 365 to deepen customer relationships with next-generation AI.

Learn more

That’s where generative AI changes the game. For sales—and the customer relationship management (CRM) systems or platforms that drive them today—forgoing AI is not an option anymore. Implementing AI in ways that fit naturally with your business puts your sales teams at a competitive advantage. Forrester Research expects businesses that invest in enterprise AI initiatives to boost productivity and creative problem solving by 50 percent this year.¹ This expectation is predicated on the involvement, commitment, and understanding of leadership. Without leadership’s involvement in the planning and implementation of AI, organizations face difficulties realizing the technology’s potential and their own.  

While it’s true that most sellers are deep in digital debt, struggling to sip from a fire hose of data, emails, meetings, and notifications, AI should not be seen as merely a productivity tool. Rather, it’s a driver of growth, an enablement engine that transforms enterprises and primes them for innovation and future evolution. AI accelerates problem-solving by enabling data-driven decision making in real time, with far greater visibility at any moment in time. It also creates opportunities for unprecedented levels of personalization, creating the understanding among customers that you know them and their challenges.

By now you’ve probably heard about how AI can automate mundane tasks and allow employees to focus on higher level activities. In this blog post, we’ll show you specific use cases where AI can empower the innate skills of sellers to make CRM systems even more powerful and effective sales tools.

How generative AI lets sellers be more human

Prompt: “What are the pain points [Company] faces in the [industry] sector?”

In previous blog posts, we’ve pointed out how AI punches up personalization in the marketing and sales process, automating the production of tailored email templates and social media messages.

But AI personalization is not limited to content creation. It also means parsing data to ensure that a proposal is fine-tuned to address the specific customer pain points. Using information that might previously have taken hours to search, AI can test exactly which phrases and words resonate with specific sets of customers or sales segments. In essence, AI can make your customers feel heard. 

In part, that’s because you can spend more time listening. At its best, AI allows us to be more human. With Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales, for instance, AI automatically collects and summarizes all pertinent details of sales calls and meetings in real time so sellers can be fully present during those valuable one-to-one conversations.

During a call, Copilot collects a wide range of information—pertinent pain points, customer sentiment, and action items triggered during the call—so sellers don’t have to be distracted by note-taking. Instead, they can bring to bear their situational awareness, focus on reading the moment, and react to context clues. Copilot creates the call summary and makes it available immediately, complete with action items triggered by the discussion.

But it’s not just about freeing sellers to be their best professional selves in those critical one-on-one conversations. AI can help sellers at every point it takes to get to those meetings—and well afterward, too.

Before the call: Bringing sales targets into sharper focus

Prompt: “Which of my accounts are most likely to close this quarter?”

The sales process in a nutshell involves knowing who to sell to, then knowing how to sell to each account identified. AI accelerates and enhances both processes.

Most sales leaders would agree that sellers spend too much time on non-selling activities. Research commissioned by Microsoft that included 31,000 workers across 31 markets found that sellers spend less than a third of their time actually selling. The same study indicated sellers spend more than 66 percent of their day managing email and other menial administrative tasks.² Their bosses support these findings.

Built to aggregate and refine massive amounts of data, AI can help from the very earliest stages of the sales process to investigate potential targets, providing data that sellers would take hours to collect on their own. And it’s not just time—AI creates utility by providing information sellers might fail to consider. Data that is already in a CRM system is continually augmented with relevant input from market research databases, news from the marketplace, or recent developments involving customers or their key decision makers.

This enriched information allows AI to help sellers score their prospect list based on a likelihood to convert historical engagements and other organizational data. With the right connected data source, a simple query like: “Which of my accounts are most likely to close this quarter?” generates accurate rankings that allow sellers to more effectively prioritize their efforts.

In addition to ordering target lists, AI provides valuable details about each specific account in a preparation brief, equipping sellers while slashing research time. Using natural language prompts, sellers can surface key details about new potential customers like pain points and purchasing patterns. In the case of existing customers, AI can populate account and opportunity summaries with names and titles of meeting participants, pending tasks, and highlights from recent meetings, email threads, and service or support tickets—so sellers come to each call primed with effectual information. AI can even predict the most optimal time to contact a customer and suggest the best channel for connecting. 

The presale time savings and utility of AI are significant. As per Gartner®, “By 2026, B2B sales organizations using generative-AI-embedded sales technologies will reduce the amount of time spent on prospecting and prepping for customer meetings by over 50 percent.”³

Optimal calls: Bringing persuasive information to every interaction

Prompt: “What does the [industry] say about our competitor’s products?”

AI’s ability to summarize and transform content allows AI-enabled CRM systems to process countless transactions and recommend approaches that work best. Sellers using AI can quickly accumulate compelling information, guided by best practices that help create a winning approach.

As we’ve noted, time is a limiting factor for sales teams. CRM systems enabled with AI, like Dynamics 365 Sales, can create dozens of pertinent, opportune introductory emails in seconds—a chore that used to take hours. 

But time-savings is only part of the picture. The quality of the emails produced by AI may include elements—active verbs, clear sentence structure—that not every seller excels in. For example, a seller from Company A might prompt an AI program to: “Draft a personalized email to [Company B] congratulating them on their recent product launch and suggesting a meeting to discuss how our solution can enhance their new product’s market performance.”

The resulting email can be personalized, note a recent development in the market, speak directly to an initiative that the customer is excited about, arrive at an opportune moment, and highlight features of the seller’s product tailored to address the customer’s pain points.

Furthermore, a simple query like: “What does the [industry] say about our [competitor]’s products? Once you collect that information, please provide me with five bullet points on how our [product] is differentiated”, would provide differentiating points to use at an appropriate moment in a sales call. In preparation for an important one-to-one, AI can surface key talking points, identify needs and pain points, and generate similar use cases and success stories.

Dynamics 365 Sales, for instance, tailors sales pitches with industry-specific insights, then personalizes, reviews, and refines them. But the utility doesn’t end in preparation. During a sales call, the system can identify sentiment triggers and suggest next-best actions, helping to close more deals.

After a meeting, thoughtfully composed follow-up emails build trust and goodwill, and open a door for further communication. In the past, writing these emails and making them specific enough to be valuable has eaten a huge chunk of sellers’ time.

Create a greater customer impact with Dynamics 365 Sales

These examples only scratch the surface of the ways AI can allow sellers to lean into the intuitive capabilities that allow them to excel at their jobs. The more you work with generative AI as a team, the more efficiencies you can find in your processes.

Automating menial tasks returns potential to where it belongs—to the human in the loop. Seamless integration into your CRM system and tools that your teams already use enables more opportunity for innovation and sales acceleration. Your teams can grow their skills even as the process of selling becomes easier and more human—which means each interaction can create greater impact with your customers.

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Sales.

Sources:

¹Forrester 2024 Predictions: Exploration Generates Progress, Forrester Research, Inc., October 2023.

²Microsoft Work Trend Index Annual Report, Microsoft, Inc., May 9, 2023

³Gartner, Multidimensional CRM: How GenAI Will Revolutionize Sales Force Automation Platforms, By Adnan Zijadic., 13 July, 2023. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc.
and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with
permission. All rights reserved.

The post How generative AI in customer relationship management emphasizes human skills to drive sales appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms were designed to help integrate the fragmented processes that comprise the operation of a large enterprise. But the way we do business keeps fundamentally changing. New business models disrupt the way companies sell products and services, blurring industry lines and transforming customer experiences.

Business complexity continues to intensify, and the rise of data as a driver of business—plus the attendant proliferation of data streams—means reaping the full promise of comprehensive ERP platforms can still be elusive.

In fact, according to a Gartner® Research report, “by 2027, less than 30% of customers who adopted new solutions from ERP platform mega-vendors will have proven their original adoption business case.”¹

The arrival of generative AI brings hope of renewed promise. AI is elevating performance and creating advantages for those who understand how to apply it to data-centric systems like ERP platforms. By 2027, according to the same Gartner report, at least 50 percent of ERP systems with AI-enabled features will be enabled through generative AI capabilities.¹

People often think of generative AI as a tool to automate routine tasks, but its capabilities are so much broader. Improved decision-making is an area where AI becomes a valuable tool. In fact, a report from the market research firm IDC found that, by mid-2024, 30% of global organizations will take advantage of human-like interfaces in their enterprise applications to gain more insights quickly, improving decision velocity.²

While AI can inform and enhance any number of operations across an enterprise, it’s worth looking at some specific processes in detail to see how much AI can elevate ERP solutions. Learn more about current trends in ERP platform modernization in the age of generative AI in this webinar.

How AI creates a better plan-to-produce process

Most manufacturing firms implement a plan for how they will schedule production runs to meet materials capacity, deliver quality products on time, and maintain cost-effectiveness.

Sometimes, though, this plan-to-produce process becomes an accretion of good ideas at the time, a fragmented assemblage of tools and strategies trying to work together to paint the big picture of what’s happening on the production floor. This can lead to quality control issues, and manpower and equipment shortages that fail to meet production surges, or inaccurate forecasts that waste resources or leave customers high and dry—among other issues.

Generative AI integrated with a robust ERP system can aggregate data from across an enterprise—even data residing in multiple clouds—in real time, so managers have a clear picture of the state of play at any given moment, allowing them to reduce lead times necessary to plan or alter production runs.

The complicated interdependence of tasks on a manufacturing floor—for example, Part A must be installed before Part B can be attached—is a perfect puzzle for AI to help solve. The predictive analytics capacity of generative AI allows it to better forecast demand and synch production with supplies, and then optimize timing to match resource availability with manpower. AI can also forecast and build scenarios for supply chain disruption or changes in demand.

Whether a manufacturer needs to increase production volume to meet increasing demand or build whole new facilities, AI excels at building scalable networks, finding efficiencies, and reducing costly interventions.

Learn more about how Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and other applications optimize the plan-to-produce process.

Optimizing the procure-to-pay process

Another process most large organizations seek to optimize is the integration of procurement with accounts payable. When you need to spend the money, it’s good to know that you have the money. IDC reports that, by mid-2025, 70% of global businesses will use embedded financing to collect and make payments.²

More than most industries, healthcare organizations must reckon with a complex field of myriad payers, purchasers, and suppliers. Healthcare organizations face layers of challenging regulatory compliance and the need to control ever-rising costs. Many organizations in this field still rely on antiquated, paper-based invoicing and payables.

Fragmented processes and siloed data make regulatory issues more fraught, while also increasing attack surfaces to create security risks. AI can remove complexities by integrating processes in one ERP platform, helping to reduce vulnerabilities. By mapping operations to standards, AI supports compliance efforts, efficiently creating the audit trails and tedious reports that often take staff hours to produce.

AI streamlines procurement, reducing the potential for human error present when ordering supplies and equipment from a diverse range of providers. It tracks expenses to help control costs, providing easily accessible price information about competing products and services so the organization can continually find cost efficiencies.

An ERP solution enhanced with AI allows planners to automate the maintenance of inventory with both real-time and predictive information, reducing the risk of stockouts or overstock situations and more effectively communicating with suppliers.

Quicker quote-to-cash with personalization and automation

AI integrates and improves the sales, finance, and supply elements of an ERP platform by increasing automation in negotiations, contract lifecycles, production, order management, billing, and delivery. For businesses with retail components, making the quote-to-cash cycle faster and more accurate creates efficiencies—which can help keep customers happier.

Automating price and quote information speeds up the resolution of even highly complex deals. The same is true once a quote is accepted—an accurate, automatically generated proposal follows immediately. AI-generated purchase orders and invoices free sellers to spend more time interacting with customers and accounting teams to focus on tasks that increase the organization’s productivity.

AI’s predictive analytics ensure on-time delivery of products but also allow firms to quickly identify current and future trends and make data-driven decisions about ordering and pricing. Automating invoicing tracks payments accurately and creates a real-time picture of cash flow. AI can continually improve cash flow forecasts by comparing projections with results and adjusting from the outcomes over time. And analytics enabled by AI offer suggestions for improving sales performance and strategic decisions.

Learn more about how Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance optimizes the quote-to-cash and other retail business processes.

Get more from your business data with AI-enabled ERP processes

Across the organization, optimizing finance and supply chains can create a connected enterprise that allows enterprises to infuse AI, automation, and analytics into ERP processes. Today, companies can confidently move to the cloud with AI-powered ERP solutions, modernize business processes, and unlock the agility needed to lead the way in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace. 

A recent Forrester Research study interviewed IT leaders and professionals who had experience using Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software.³ Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that has 5,000 employees and generates USD1 billion in annual revenue. Forrester found that, over a three-year period, the value added to the composite included:

• USD1.2 million in increased profitability from real-time visibility and enhanced decision-making.
• USD8.9 million in increased productivity from unified data access, streamlined processes, automated workflows, and other gained efficiencies.
• USD3.9 million in reduced infrastructure and IT operations spend from cloud migration.
• USD8.9 million in productivity improvements in finance/accounting, supply chain/logistics, and other personnel.

The study estimated a net present value of USD8.1 million and an ROI of 106%, as well as additional benefits like an improved cybersecurity posture and enhanced employee experiences. The composite organization would pay back its investment in Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software in 17 months.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software

Learn more about the total economic impact of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP software

Read the report

AI-enabled ERP platforms allow you to protect, connect, and get more from your business data while gaining security. With the right ERP solution, you can scale globally to drive business expansion and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) while ensuring regulatory compliance, supercharging productivity, and realizing the business impacts of generative AI even faster.

Sources

¹ Predicts 2024: ERP Evolves Planning With Automation and AI, Denis Torii, Gartner Research, April 5, 2024

² IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Intelligent ERP 2024 Predictions, doc #US51300923, October 2023

³ The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP, Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Dynamics 365 ERP, a Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study commissioned By Microsoft, April 2024

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

The post Transforming ERP, and the speed of business, with generative AI 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.

Upcoming Hitachi Solutions webinar

Learn how to make your AI vision a reality in field service.

Register for the webinar

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.

On June 4, 2024, we introduced the latest milestone in our journey towards modernizing customer engagement: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, a Microsoft Copilot-first contact center solution that delivers generative AI to every customer engagement channel. This standalone Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solution enables customers to maximize their current investments by connecting to preferred customer relationship management systems (CRMs) or custom apps.  

Dynamics 365 Contact Center

A complete solution for contact centers

Learn more

Today, we are excited to announce that Dynamics 365 Contact Center is generally available, offering a complete but fully-composable solution for contact centers. Organizations will benefit from new native capabilities such as generative AI, technology from Nuance, and much more all built from the ground-up to power mission-critical service operations with extensive scale and reliability on the hyperscale cloud platform of Azure.    

Key benefits of Dynamics 365 Contact Center

Dynamics 365 Contact Center key capabilities include: 

Effortless self-service 

• Customers have the freedom to engage in their channel of choice across voice, SMS, chat, email, and social media apps.
• Sophisticated pre-integrated copilots for digital channels drive context-aware, personalized conversations for rich self-service experiences. 
• Provide a frictionless conversational interactive voice response (IVR) experience in real time through natural, human-like interactions. 

Accelerated human-assisted service 

• Intelligent unified routing steers incoming requests that require a human touch to the agent best suited to help, enhancing service quality and minimizing wasted effort. 
• Agents gain a 360-degree view of customers and AI tools for real-time sentiment analysis, translation, transcription, and more to help streamline service. 
• Let Copilot automate repetitive agent tasks such as conversation summary, drafting emails, suggested responses, and knowledge search. 

Operational efficiency 

• Generative AI based real-time reporting allows service leaders to optimize contact center operations across all support channels including their workforce. 
• Maximize Copilot by connecting it to an organization’s existing data and business applications using more than 1,200 pre-built connectors that eliminate the need for expensive IT integration. 
• Empower employee helpdesk and human resources functions using Microsoft Teams as a secure, integrated engagement channel. 

Dynamics 365 Contact Center customer stories

We’re thrilled to see the initial impact that our early adopter customers and partners are having with Dynamics 365 Contact Center:  

“With Lenovo’s Premier Support Plus and Dynamics 365 Contact Center, we’ve established a transformational partnership that strives for customer satisfaction, alongside operational excellence”

Lishuang Xu, Executive Director, Customer Engagement Center, Lenovo.  

“Sales and marketing thrive on smooth customer interactions. With Dynamics 365 Contact Center, early adoption means we’re ahead, modernizing our approach with AI for increasing effectiveness and improving customer satisfaction”

Ian Au-Yeung, Chief Revenue Officer, Synoptek 

“With Dynamics 365 Contact Center powered by Copilot, we see tremendous potential for significant enhancement in contact center staff productivity, ensuring quicker and precise responses that elevate our customer service and affirm our leadership in the insurance industry.”

Ritu Thakur, Head of Group Operations, AIA Group   

Take the next step 

Available now for $110 per user/month, Dynamics 365 Contact Center includes digital and voice channels as well as individual channel options for purchase.¹   

Additionally, we are introducing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Premium—a new offer combining Dynamics 365 Customer Service Enterprise with Dynamics 365 Contact Center for customers seeking to consolidate on an integrated, generative AI-powered contact center and CRM service solution that delivers personalized customer journeys. Dynamics 365 Customer Service Premium is available now for $195 per user/month.² Customers with existing Dynamics 365 Customer Service Enterprise licenses adopting Dynamics 365 Contact Center will have the ability to move to Dynamics 365 Customer Service Premium. 

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Contact Center. 

^1,2 Pricing is accurate as of June 2024. For additional pricing information, see here.

The post Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center is now generally available  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In today’s rapidly evolving service landscape, organizations must manage their entire operations lifecycle efficiently—from initial client interaction to final service delivery and profitability. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations stands out as the comprehensive solution designed to meet the unique needs of service-centric organizations. It seamlessly integrates service-based operations, from sales and project management to resource allocation and financials, ensuring a smooth journey from prospect to profit.

Dynamics 365 Project Operations: Connect your service-centric organization, effortlessly 

For service-centric businesses, managing operational complexities requires a robust platform that provides end-to-end visibility and control over the entire service lifecycle. Dynamics 365 Project Operations is engineered to fulfill this need. It brings together crucial functions into a single, connected solution, including deal management, project delivery, financials, resource planning, and customer engagement.

With Dynamics 365 Project Operations, service organizations can:

• Enhance client engagement: Manage customer relationships effectively from initial prospecting to project delivery, ensuring consistent and personalized client experiences.
• Streamline project execution: Coordinate and manage complex service delivery processes, ensuring projects are delivered on time, within scope, and on budget.
• Optimize resource allocation: Allocate resources efficiently, balancing demand and capacity to maximize productivity and reduce costs.
• Boost financial performance: Gain deep financial insights to manage project profitability, from budgeting and forecasting to billing and revenue recognition.
• Facilitate collaboration: Connect teams across geographies and functions, fostering collaboration and ensuring access to real-time data and insights.

The crucial role of time tracking

Accurate time tracking is a cornerstone of operational efficiency for service-centric organizations. It directly influences key aspects such as billing, project costing, and overall profitability. Delays or inaccuracies in time entry can ripple through the organization, leading to postponed invoicing, misalignment in project cost tracking, and ultimately, a negative impact on profit margins. Ensuring that time entries are precise and timely is not just a matter of administrative accuracy; it’s a critical factor in maintaining financial health and operational integrity.

Recognizing the importance of efficient time management, Microsoft has introduced a groundbreaking feature within Dynamics 365 Project Operations that aims to revolutionize how service organizations handle time entry.

Introducing Copilot in time entry: Elevating efficiency and accuracy

To address the complexities and challenges associated with time tracking, Dynamics 365 Project Operations now includes a time entry feature, equipped with Microsoft Copilot abilities. This AI-powered assistant is designed to simplify and enhance the time entry process, making it more intuitive, accurate, and less burdensome for employees.

Copilot in time entry

Simplify the time entry experience and reduce steps for project team members

Find out more

Revolutionizing time entry with AI

Traditional time entry can be a significant pain point for service organizations. It often involves manual, time-consuming processes prone to errors and inaccuracies. This not only affects financial accuracy but also disrupts project management and resource planning.

Copilot in time entry addresses these challenges by offering an intelligent, AI-driven solution that simplifies the entire process. Here’s how it revolutionizes time entry for service-centric operations:

1. Intelligent suggestions: Copilot uses AI to provide intelligent time entry based on projects and tasks, making it easier to capture time accurately.
2. Context-aware assistance: It offers contextual recommendations, allowing users to input detailed and precise time entries without having to recall every task manually.
3. Streamlined process: By automating repetitive and administrative aspects of time tracking, Copilot frees up employees to focus on higher-value tasks.
4. Reduced errors: The system’s automated checks and suggestions help minimize errors, ensuring that time entries are accurate and compliant with project requirements.

Business outcomes and benefits for service-centric organizations

The Copilot in time entry feature is a game-changer for service-centric organizations, delivering substantial benefits that enhance operational efficiency and financial performance:

1. Boosted productivity and efficiency: By simplifying the time entry process, Copilot allows employees to save time and focus more on delivering high-quality service to clients. This boost in productivity translates into better project outcomes and increased client satisfaction.
2. Enhanced accuracy and compliance: Automated, AI-driven time entries can lead to greater accuracy, reducing the likelihood of discrepancies and errors. This leads to more precise billing, better compliance with contractual terms, and improved financial tracking.
3. Increased employee satisfaction: By reducing the administrative burden associated with time tracking, Copilot improves employee satisfaction. This allows them to concentrate on their core responsibilities, enhancing their engagement and performance.
4. Actionable insights for strategic decision-making: Reliable time tracking data provides valuable insights into resource utilization, project costs, and operational efficiency. This empowers service organizations to make more informed decisions, optimize their processes, and drive strategic growth.

Embracing the future of service operations

The introduction of Copilot in time entry to Dynamics 365 Project Operations highlights Microsoft’s commitment to innovating and enhancing service-centric operations. It showcases how AI can be harnessed to streamline complex processes, reduce administrative overhead, and improve overall efficiency.

For service-centric organizations, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, enriched with Copilot capabilities, is the key to managing the entire lifecycle effectively—from initial client engagement to project completion and beyond. By adopting these advanced tools, businesses can enhance their operational excellence, boost financial performance, and sustain a competitive edge in a rapidly changing market.

Discover how Copilot in time entry can revolutionize your service operations. Learn more about Dynamics 365 Project Operations and explore the transformative potential of AI-driven time tracking by visiting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations.

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