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Showing posts from May, 2017

Microsoft Announces LinkedIn Sales Bundle

As I discussed in my previous blog post , the Microsoft acquisition of LinkedIn is likely to bear significant fruit.  We are starting to see changes such as the new user interface of LinkedIn.  Now Microsoft has announced a sales bundle which included Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Microsoft Relationship Sales solution bundle  will be priced at $135/mo. compared to purchasing Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 separately at $64.99 user/month and $95 user/month. The solution helps sales professionals: Identifying prospects based on predictive intelligence Use Office 365 and Dynamics 365 data to reveal relationship health and risk  Build trust with customers with product recommendations Engage your customers in more personalized, effective ways  Easily collaborate and share conversations, events, notes, and sales content with colleagues—even if they aren’t using Dynamics 365 for Sales Work on the go—anytime, anywhere—with rich, mobile apps that provide conte

Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Office 365 for Contract Management

Many organizations need automation to streamline the contract management process.  You may already own many of the products you need to help your legal department respond more quickly to requests. Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics 365 offer a set of tools which offer: Employee self-service to request legal documents Document and approval tracking Contract authoring Execution Compliance monitoring Retention The contract management process typically involves several steps such as: The process starts with a request for a contract from an end user via email, phone, or the intranet. This is really just a special case for customer service, so Dynamics 365 Employee Self-Service provides the capability to accept requests and turn them into cases for the legal department. Next, the contract is assigned based on the type of contract and availability of staff.  Dynamics 365 includes the queues feature which meets this requirement. Microsoft Dynamics 365 includes a work

Options for Reviewing Sales Opportunities in Dynamics 365 (CRM)

Using a customer relationship management (CRM) system is a great way to get a better handle on your sales efforts.  If have have a CRM, one of the best ways to drive adoption among your sales force is to use it as the basis of sales pipeline meetings. Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers several options for how you can use it to review sales opportunities. At my company InfoStrat, we prefer to log into Dynamics 365 and examine the sales pipeline rather than generate static reports.  That way we can update information on the fly as we discuss each opportunity. My favorite is to start with the sales funnel graph in the standard Sales Activity dashboard: The sales funnel shows the estimated dollar value of each opportunity, segmented by the sales stage. Next, click the center icon in the upper righthand corner of the chart: Now you can see the chart alongside the underlying opportunity records. By default, the chart shows all opportunities, but if you click on a segment of t

Microsoft to Host SharePoint Virtual Summit – Register Today

My company InfoStrat has been working with Microsoft SharePoint since it was first announced as “Tahoe” server and released in 2001.  The product has come a long way in all the versions since then but today there is more SharePoint news than ever. Microsoft Office 365 incorporates SharePoint and related collaboration tools, with so many new features and integrations released that it may be hard for users and system administrators to keep track of them.  That’s why you should sign up for this free event: SharePoint Virtual Summit Tuesday May 16, 2017 10 am PDT Register here Microsoft Corporate Vice President Jeff Teper will unveil the latest SharePoint product innovations and roadmap. You’ll hear from industry-leading customers on how they use SharePoint and Office 365 as part of their digital transformation. Jeff will be joined by Microsoft corporate vice presidents James Phillips and Chuck Friedman to discuss how Office 365, connected with Windows and Azure, is r

When Government Contractors Know They Need Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Government contractors, even those that sell high tech software solutions, are not always the first to embrace automation.   Many regard tracking the capture management (sales) process with suspicion because they recognize the importance of personal relationships and high touch sales techniques for winning government contracts.  Therefore they wait until something happens to bring the need for CRM such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Salesforce to the top of their priorities. What are the top signs that you  need customer relationship management (CRM) for your government contracting company? Growth of sales people .  If you only have one or two sales people, you can get by emailing spreadsheets with a list of opportunities and notes on their status. High transaction volume .  If you are a reseller and handling a large number of small transactions, you need a system to keep track of them.  Proposal deadlines . Federal proposal deadlines are constantly changing, so you need a s