From Manchester to Miami, people have taken to working from home and embracing ‘the new normal. In fact, 60% of the UK population are currently home-working, which has brought about a new term: The SoHo (small office/home office), but it’s applicable to all businesses.
The British workforce is ready for this change in office life. So how can you make sure that you and your team have everything they need?
Welcome to the new way of working
Remote working is likely to stick around. A recent survey showed that 88% of employees who worked at home during the lockdown would like to continue working at home in some capacity in the future.
Moreover, the same survey noted that 29% of respondents said that they were more productive at home, and 41% said they got the same amount of work done as in the office.
Large offices are becoming destitute, replaced by co-working spaces, hot desks, and, overall, the flexibility to work from anywhere. It seems the British workforce is ready for this change in office life. So how can you make sure that you and your team have everything they need?
At Digital Cloud UK, we think this is through integrating Microsoft Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Teams.
A CRM system, that’s a hub for everything else
As an established CRM solution, we already know the benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365. Missed it? Check it out here.
And if you’re familiar with Microsoft Teams, you’ll know it’s a ‘go-to’ for managing conversations, files and tools from in one team ‘workspace’. You can take advantage of the apps you usually depend on by integrating them into the platform and, if you’re a Microsoft user, gain instant shared access to key Microsoft tools like SharePoint, OneNote, Power BI, and crucially, Dynamics 365.
And crucially if you’re a customer-facing business, integration between Dynamics 365 CRM and Microsoft Teams enables you to manage customer information and customer engagement apps, including Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Service to seamlessly share cross-team files and working documents using Microsoft Teams. Ultimately allowing you and your team to work more efficiently and unifying your whole customer approach across the team, no matter where they’re working from.
Here are the main features of this vital integration:
Cross-functional collaboration: Work with customers and colleagues across functions, even if they don’t have access to Dynamics 365.
Collaboration hub: You might already use Office apps to nurture sales opportunities; now you can access a shared workspace for these apps so the whole team has visibility.
File integration: In the same vein as the collaboration hub, with file integration you can co-author documents and automatically sync with Dynamics 365.
Assistant application for Microsoft Teams: As part of the existing Dynamics 365 app, you’re able to take advantage of the assistant app for Microsoft Teams. The app combines data from multiple sources including Office and Dynamics 365 to provide you with a straightforward experience.
Mobile friendly: And as a business owner you might often be ‘on the go’. All the above features work on mobile devices, with voice recognition making updating your Dynamics 365 dashboard as simple as possible.
Paul Tattum, Founder and MD at Future Projects, a Manchester-based construction project management company discovered that his current CRM system wasn’t maximising value. When he reached out to Digital Cloud UK we were able to implement a full Dynamics 365 package, and connect Paul’s Dynamics CRM with other MS technology like Outlook & Teams as well as with MailChimp and his own website, leaving him with a unified view of his sales and marketing pipeline, across his satellite sales and marketing teams.
Here’s what Paul had to say…
“Digital Cloud UK provided an excellent service and followed that up with training to make sure we were getting the full value of Dynamics 365 CRM. The ability to record, track and manage all of our leads and opportunities in one place is valuable to our business and now underpins all our marketing efforts, across the team.”
What Digital Cloud UK can do for you?
The user uptake of Microsoft Teams soared to over 32 million in March 2020 and has quickly become the default app for remote working. The change to home working has since sparked a new wave of events that have moved online, and it could be here to stay.
Microsoft noted this shift at their annual Ignite conference in September, usually 20,000 to 30,000 people physically attend the event. 2020 was the first year Microsoft held the event digitally, and they were able to attract thousands more viewers through online streaming platforms. Prompting the question, is this the new normal for large scale events?
The benefits of integrating a CRM System such as Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Teams are obvious, yet the link between them isn’t widely known. And it plays a vital role in team productivity, customer relationship management and customer engagement.
So how do you go about integrating them?
If you’re already a Microsoft Dynamics user, by default, the Microsoft Teams Integration for Dynamics 365 (and its family) is disabled. However, the good news is that you can easily switch it on through your system settings. Learn more about how to perform the switch here.
If you’re not quite there yet, but ready to upgrade your Microsoft and CRM systems, Digital Cloud UK can help you every step of the way.
We’re a Manchester-based company who cut through the noise and provide CRM systems that power up your teams’ productivity, at affordable prices. Payments can be split over 6 to 12 months and we’ll always scope our service around your business’s needs.
We’re offering you a live, one-on-one walk-through of Dynamics 365 for Sales to explore how it empowers your business with insights that personalise relationships, predict customer needs and win more deals. Get in touch today.