Microsoft Dynamics is a product from one of the most renowned software companies in the world – Microsoft. In a nutshell, it is a combination of both the CRM and ERP solution. ERP stands for ‘Enterprise Resource Planning,’ and CRM stands for ‘Customer Relationship Management.’ Many companies are offering Dynamics 365 developmental services these days.  You need to do partner with a professional Dynamics 365 application development company like us that has the best name and reputation in the market. Because using this software, you can increase the efficiency of most of the departments in your organization such as finance, marketing, operations, project management, customer services, sales and so forth.  You can beat the competition when you use this software solution as it will help you to better organize the company. You can scale your business when you pick this software.  Dynamics 365 and Its Editions ‘Project Madeira,’ is the business version of this software. This particular cloud-based software helps SMBs or small and medium-sized business that has a staff of 1 to 250 employees.  There are three different offerings from the Microsoft Dynamics 365 namely — Financials for SMB, Operations for Enterprise and Sales for SMB. They help the company to focus on the three pillars that enable a business to sustain itself and to progress.  The best part about this software is that people can access it using various devices including phones that run on Android, iOS, and windows. Using the cloud, people can access the files remotely and in real-time.  Benefits of Dynamics 365 Here are some unique benefits that you will get to enjoy when you use Dynamics 365: Run the operations of your business using a cloud-based application that is well integrated with CRM and ERP software solutions and system.   Downtime is significantly reduced when you use this particular software package.  You can reduce the maintenance costs by hiring an expert IT technician to handle the technical snags.  With streamline processes and structured workflows, your business is well-organized and ready to scale up.  Integrating your website, loyalty program, ERP, and customer chat support with Dynamics 365/CRM is quite possible. Senior management teams can make their decision using accurate data that you can obtain using this system. It uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to integrate and unify the sales and marketing efforts of your firm.  Enhance the experience of your customer the moment they contact you via phone call or an email.  Migrating to Dynamics 365 is not a difficult task. If you like the benefits that are listed above, you need to work with the Dynamics 365 application development company like us to take things further.  Microsoft Dynamics 365 Development At CloudFronts, we have experts that have the knowledge and expertise in Dynamics 365. They can customize the best or superior solution to you, by using plug-ins, world-class developer toolkit, VS environment, workflow assemblies, and web services. Undoubtedly, we are the best Dynamics 365 development services provider in the world.  Microsoft Dynamics 365 For All the Industries Mentioned Below Here is a quick list of industries that can greatly benefit using Microsoft Dynamics 365: Telecommunications Manufacturing Footwear Retail Textiles and Apparels FMCG/Consumer Packaged Goods Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Media Finance and Banking Oil and Natural Gas

Most of the businesses that are now using Dynamics NAV are slowly migrating to 365 business central. You need to find and engage with a Dynamics 365 Business Central development company likes us that has vast experience and a good reputation in the market. Since it is cloud-based software, a lot of companies are ramping up their migration efforts. But, there are so many other companies that are still unsure if they should make this move, they are asking if it is worth the penny that they are going to spend on it.  Here are five key reasons why Microsoft Dynamics NAV upgrade to Dynamics 365 Business central  is necessary: Microsoft Cloud Data security is something that most of the IT professionals these days worry about. The best part about Microsoft Cloud is that is not only stable but is also safe and secure. Microsoft is the leader in the industry and they have more than 3,500 cybersecurity professionals working with them. The level of support and guidance that they provide is beyond imagination. It will not only easy to out but will make the IT professionals working with you a lot more productive. You do not have to worry much about the security regulations that change every now and then as well as the managing servers.  Price of the Product It is true that Dynamics 365 is a bit more expensive than the Dynamics NAV. The best part about Dynamics 365 is that it will provide you with a better understanding of the monthly expenses so that you can plan your budget carefully. Shifting to the cloud is a costly affair as you need to take care of various aspects such as licensing fees and so forth. Now, this is the final upgrade that your company requires.  Modern Platform Dynamics 365 Business central is very easy to use as it has similar features as that of Dynamics NAV. Now, this means, you do not have to spend any money on training or other activities to assist the employees that are going to use the system or the software. The best part about Dynamics 365 Business central is that people can access the software from almost any device they have from almost any place they are in using the internet. Users have more flexibility when they use this software.  The New Features Dynamics 365 Business Central relies upon the core functionality of Dynamics NAV. Apart from that, it also has some of the best new features that you do not find in Dynamics NAV. Some of the notable features that you can find in this software are fuzzy search, focus mode, late payment prediction, and a lot more. Since many new add ons and apps are getting added onto AppSource Daily. It helps companies to expand their functionality substantially when they use this software. Business Insights Your business will embrace and adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to become efficient and effective in the way they operate things. Machine Learning can assist with activities such as spam filtering, equipment monitoring, image detection, forecasting, ad targeting and so forth. Microsoft Power Platform which works on Power BI, Power Apps and Flow will provide you with all the relevant data that is timely and accurate so that you can make better decisions related to business. If you are planning for Microsoft Dynamics NAV upgrade to Dynamics 365 Business central, you need to partner with the best company. We are one of the leading and the best Dynamics 365 Business Central development company in the world. Contact us to learn more about the process.

Dynamics 365 portal helps you to provide additional support to your customers, partners, employees, and others. It helps you to stay connected and provide the necessary assistance. The best part about the whole thing is that you can get the portal if you have an active Dynamics 365  subscription. You need to follow simple steps to active the demo portal. Here are the steps that you need to follow if you want to activate the demo version.  Step # 1: Navigate and find the Dynamics 365 Administration Center. From the Office 365 home (open link: https://portal.office.com/), you need to open admin centre. Step # 2: After opening it, you need to click the applications, and then look out for Portal Add-On. Step # 3: Here you need to click ‘Manage’ and then input the following parameters Name — This names should help you to identify the portal. No need not worry much as you can change the information as and when required.  Url for the Portal (You can change this information as well later.) Select or choose the CRM instance Pick a Language Select the Administrator Pick the Audience Partners — Though they are not your employees, they will need some sort of interaction with the CRM to close deals or in delivering the services 2. Employees — You can provide the necessary support to your employees by tailoring the portal by using features such as Employee Self-Service 3. Customers —  Since they are external parties, they can benefit through your portals such as community building or customer service Pick the Portal Template  Community Partner Employee Self-Help Customer Self-Service Custom Portal Step # 4: Wait for some time – now this takes at least 20 minutes to a few hours to work. Click on Solutions Link under Instance in Admin Center under Dynamics 365 to check the status. It may show the status as ‘installing,’ if the download did not complete. In a few minutes, you will have the demo Dynamic 365 Portal working. In Conclusion Always think from the angle of your customers, partners, and employees when creating the portal. It should make their life easy. What kind of support can you provide them? This question should haunt you when creating the portal.

The best part about Dynamics 365 is that you can now launch portals related to customer, support or the prospect. Now, 100 per cent of these things including maintenance and integration can be controlled using Dynamics 365. The Dynamics 365 portal allows the audience to collaborate and communicate via an online location.  It also permits people to get the necessary support pertaining to issues, how-to guides, and search knowledge guides to name a few. Now, the information that the audience is going to get depends on the category they belong to such as customers, internal team members or the business partners to name a few categories, Thus people can learn a lot about the products and services that are available. You do not need any additional software, hardware, licenses or certificates to make this work.  If you already have a subscription for Dynamics 365 Enterprise, you have access to at least Dynamics 365 portal. Using it, you can differentiate yourself from others or more specifically your competitors.  Do I Need a Dynamics 365 Portal If I Have a Website If you already have a website, that’s wonderful, Dynamics 365 portal is not going to supplant it anyways. Just in case, if you are thinking that it is going to replace it. No doubt, your company’s website is a lead generating machine. But, it helps you in extending your web presence from a homepage and a few service pages to a territory that allows people to engage and communicate actively. Here are the benefits that you are going to enjoy when you properly leverage a portal which comes with pre-packaged templates. Customer Engagement Customers that are going to engage are going to become repeat customers. Those who become repeat customers are the ones who will soon turn to advocates to spread the good news about your products and services. For example, a community portal will encourage prospects and customers to share and discuss your products online. Plan to field questions on these portals so that people can stay engaged.  Encourage questions related to your product on this portal and respond to these questions publicly so that people can trust your brand. Apart from these things, you can host blogs on it so that people visiting the portal can enhance their knowledge about the products that you offer.  Customer Self Help Customer Self Help portals are very beneficial to you if you are already using a CRM. it provides the necessary support to your clients so that your frontline can relax a bit. Before the customer submits his case to you, he can give all the details pertaining to the product that they did buy. On top of it, knowledge-based articles will help the customers to solve most of the minor problems without even registering their complaint. Now, this is the best way to reduce the number of cases from being reported.  Engage Your Partners In case, you want to quickly scale up your business, you need partners such as reseller, distributor, and supplier to assist you with this task. Using the Partner Portal, you can trace the sales channel data. It is just like how you would get information from your sales staff. You can also use it to empower your partners and make quick and better decisions to move your business.  Employee Engagement The employee portal will work similarly to the intranet that you use to connect your staff with others. You can permit them access to certain CRM features that are at for specific groups. In a similar manner of how customer service portal can be used to tackle issues related to customers, this portal can focus on raising tickets and solving issues that customers are facing.  Framework for Custom Portal  If you are one that thinks out of the box, this framework is quite beneficial. You can customize the portal as per your vision and plan. For example, if you are planning to use it to manage a franchise, you can create one for franchise portal. Or you can use it to manage other things such as independent agents, professional relationships, investments and so forth.

Businesses can become quite successful when they do things right. 365 Digital Transformation Solutions is one such solution that can help a business to streamline not only their business but also to connect various teams, resources, and staff together. Creating new business value is entirely possible when you integrate this product into your business. A lot of companies from different industries are using this product to transform the way they were doing things in the past.  It is one product that is easy to install and learn. Once it is up and running, there is no need to turn back. It will not only change the way you do things but will change the way your business is performing for better. How Dynamics 365 Can Help Companies Digitally Transform? As a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, we at CloudFronts Technologies are well-versed in the leading Microsoft products. Our mission is to help clients around the world digitally transform their companies by building robust business processes through a range of offerings, such as Power BI analytics, Azure Infrastructure Services, and Dynamics 365 implementation. In this article, we’ll focus on three major tips to help you get started with Dynamics 365. What is Dynamics 365? Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based software suite that features both CRM and ERP solutions in a service-as-a-software (SaaS) format. This makes it particularly useful for: Project service automation Sales Customer service Marketing Financial analytics With its customizable integrations, Dynamics 365 is ideal for interpreting data around your employees and products as well as your customers to discover key insights. Those insights can help businesses refine their processes, empowering employees to work more efficiently, further innovating products, and facilitating more intelligent customer engagement. Streamline Workflows with the Business Process Flow Business Process Flow is a Dynamics 365 tool that allows companies to visualize their business processes as a set of stages. Each stage consists of steps to complete, which can help guide employees through an unfamiliar process. Source: Microsoft The Flow Editor is also a useful feature to show the employee’s progression. It tracks how much time they’ve spent on a task and ensures that they don’t skip crucial steps. This makes the tool particularly adept at instructing remote teams on moderately complex tasks. Integrate Power BI to Visualize Data When it comes to business intelligence, Power BI is unmatched. It’s a comprehensive tool that helps businesses effectively analyze large amounts of data from a wide range of sources and formats, including Excel, Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics, Salesforce, and more. Source: Microsoft   You can visualize data through interactive reports and dashboards, dragging and dropping elements to suit your needs. This is ideal for tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and keeping up to date on core metrics, whether that be for employees or product.   Improve Customer Engagement Using Cortana Intelligence   By integrating Cortana Intelligence, businesses can process data from various sources to extract actionable insights. The tool is especially convenient for sales and marketing teams because it can predict the products and services that a customer might need based on behavioral data. Source: Microsoft This offers sales reps an opportunity to quickly address customer concerns before they come up. Enhanced customer service, lead identification, and customer data monitoring are all potential use cases to boost customer engagement. Digitally Transform Your Company Using Dynamics 365 With such a comprehensive suite of services and integrations, Dynamics 365 can be an immensely useful tool to transform your business. Contact us now to visualize and harness your data to improve internal workflows, track product performance, and better engage with customers. You can also learn more about best business practices through Clutch’s sister sites: The Still want more tips? Check out our customer success stories for more technical look or contact us today for a consultation!    

There are tons of CPA software solutions that CPAs, accounting firms and other business professionals use to simplify their complex tasks. However, when it comes to mid-sized CPA firms, the only technology that will streamline processes in a good way is Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation (PSA). It is well-known that PSA is one of the most trustworthy and best CPA software solutions designed and developed by Microsoft. More than a utility software, it is more like a CPA Firms practice management software. Let me take you through an example of how U.S. based CPA Firm BPM is leveraging PSA to streamline their sales process and enhance their internal operations. About BPM Certified Public Accounting Firm: BPM is one of the largest California-based public accounting and advisory firms. Ranking amongst the 50 major firms in the US, they have offices across Oregon, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands. They serve a range of sectors from financial services, technology, life science and consumer business to real estate, non-profits, wine, and craft beverages. You can read more about BPM at https://www.bpmcpa.com/. Business Requirement: BPM wanted a solution that would streamline their sales processes and make customization and enhancements in their existing D365 for PSA for greater capability. Solution Delivered: CloudFronts commenced its professional journey with BPMC in December 2017 and continue to work with them. We worked with them every single day to cater to their existing Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation capabilities. The team rectifies and modify their reports, along with adding functionality to their existing PSA deployment. Further, the team had a review of the critical entities within the Sales module of Dynamics 365 and customized them as per the client requirements and specific business needs. Till date, the CloudFronts team is working with them to upgrade their D365 environments from v8.2 to v9. SSRS report was developed for Managers to view the availability of Team and their allocations on different Projects. Key Technologies 1.       Dynamics 365 Sales 2.       Dynamics 365 for PSA (Project Service Automation) 3.       SSRS Reporting Post Go Live: BPM went live with the project on 20 July 2018. With the ongoing support and maintenance of Dynamics 365 for PSA provided by CloudFronts, the BPMC team is now able to deliver projects on time without any obstructions while increasing employee productivity tremendously. By leveraging the enhanced capabilities of D365 Sales module, the BPMC team is now able to provide a robust end-end overview of the streamlined sales process thus increasing productivity and get actionable insights. Professional Services Automation software offers CPA’s digital tools they need to streamline and standardize their project accounting activities, even though each project is distinctly different from all the others. Fundamentally, every CPA firm is a business that sells the services of accounting, so mastering its business practices is key to its success. Several PMI studies reveal that adopting a standardized, structured approach to operations and practices was the strongest indicator of corporate success. Want to know how we can prove beneficial to you? Contact us now for free consultation and demo here. https://www.cloudfronts.com/contact-us/    

Introduction: Are you one of those traditional company who has been reeling under the burden of undergoing digital transformation just because there is enough buzz around and every other organization including your competitors are taking on their operational, human and several other business challenges head-ons with this digital transformation thing? You have no idea of where to begin with? Then this article is just for you. I am going ahead and listing down THREE factors you MUST consider even before riding your company through the much-hyped Digital Transformation process. Data Magic!! Leverage Your Data First! Nothing beats customer data when it comes to gaining critical insight into how to execute a digital transformation program. This depends on factors like the volume of data, the volume of business transactions and the daily operations, and how they have been able to dive deeper into a prospective customers’ specific demographic’s needs and wants, understand everything about their expectations, and then being able to target them effectively is the best way to begin a digital transformation initiative. Recent McKinsey research concluded that the executive teams that make extensive use of customer data analytics across all business decisions see a 126% profit improvement over companies that don’t. What types of data metrics come into play? Data metrics vary from one company to other. For example, in the case of retail industry, factors such as demographics, products purchased by category and type, the frequency of purchase and purchase value can really prove to be a great head-start. In this case, your technology consulting partner should provide a right consultation. In modern technological jargon, a business intelligence tool such as Microsoft Power BI would act as a catalyst in terms of accumulating data, grinding it and giving a critical insight into it which can fuel your business decision making. Its Desktop, but then Its Mobile too!! Today, customers and employees across the globe expect the flexibility of mobile (or portable device) platforms whenever they are engaging with brands. They expect the ability to access the responsive microsites, apps, or SMS, and to be constantly engaged and kept in the loop. Hence, to verify that a digital strategy is mobile-first, to avoid alienating modern platform users. Today, the digital platforms from Microsoft like Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement have availed separate apps for Field Service, customer service, sales and several other tasks which can be easily done when you are on the go. With just one download from the app stores, you’ll automatically gain access to all apps. Consult, Revamp Your Existing Platforms NOW! Digital Transformation programs thrive on the understanding of the company, industry, right audience and the need to increase their profitability. Then it may be by slicing human intervention costs or by increasing operational efficiencies.  In some cases, it is both.  Here, I am stressing a fact that a right customized solution is essential to drive the business decision making. For small and medium enterprise, it takes a great deal to undergo a digital transformation especially when there might be a profound investment involved. A minor rejig may also make a huge difference. For instance, in my experience, there is a company called as Eternity Lifestyles, which is a pioneer in the Indian sports eyewear industry. This company consulted its new solution partner to overview the existing systems and restructure it with an objective to reduce the overall operations cost. The result was such that they registered an 80% of the reduction in the existing systems’ licensing costs. Read the whole success story here. Another example, I would suggest is of a South Asian sporting goods retail company ‘House of Sonee Sports’, who underwent a huge digital transformation and registered a 22% ROI within just few months of the deployment of the new business platforms. You can check out more about how it went through this process in a simple way and ensured a successful future journey here.

Introduction: In my personal experience over the years, whenever I dealt with business owners, directors, and CTOs in the technology conferences and events, I come across many of them who always hold some misbeliefs about the Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP system. This persuaded me to pick and share some experiences and demystify topmost 3 myths regarding ERPs in this blog. Myth #1: Ah! ERP is expensive! The primary concern for any company prior to implementing ERP is its cost. But contrary to the belief, there are tons of other ERP solutions available in the market which are affordable. This sounds like a paradox, however; low-cost ERP system brings along the same impact to the firm as compared to high-cost ERPs. Many enterprises here fail to realize that choosing a right ERP partner is as much as important as selecting an ERP. Firstly, there are thousands of ERP software providers who may offer variable packages depending on the usage. Different ERP modules are used as per the different needs and requirements.  For example, few ERP software as a SAAS solution or Cloud solution reduces the entire cost of acquiring a whole new ERP for your business. Several factors like below contribute to the cost of an ERP. 1. ERP Development cost 2. ERP Implementation or customization cost 3. Cost of Licensing and finally, 4. Annual Maintenance cost The above costs can be drastically reduced by essentially considering planning and methodology which will result in optimizing the resources working with the ERP implementation. Here a choosing a right consulting partner would guide you perfectly into selecting a right ERP as per your business needs. Myth #2: ERP is not my cup of tea! It’s for Big Businesses! Although ERP systems are typically well known in the big enterprise domain, there are plethora of small and medium enterprises across the globe who are actually leveraging ERP system.  This is solely dependent on the variations of the ERP system that you choose to deploy. While it was a case a few years ago, that the ERP systems are more applicable to larger firms, it’s not applicable today given the similarity in the nature and scalability of operations. Today the world and market place is growing at a pace and to gain competitive edge, several small and medium organizations are making use of the latest technologies. To deal with those large organization, small and medium enterprises need to have a digital technology that can help them overcome problems faced during daily operations. For example, in a country like India, there is a diverse base of SMEs which need to benefit from the technology. The best example here can be of a company called ‘FarmLink’, which is backed by Swiss company called Pioneering Ventures. It is impressive to see how this agro startup focused on modernizing and transforming the supply chains across the Indian geographical region. Their key challenges were related to the handling of Supply chain operations, Inventory and vendor management, Provide them reports and easy to use dashboard. Post deploying a suitable ERP system, their entire operations was automated from inventory management to vendor management, generation of deep and critical insights due to reports and dashboards enabled them to execute faster and accurate decision making. The software was also implemented with an easy-to-use smartphone interface for the sales team. Hence it is just a myth that ERP software is only for big businesses and not for small and medium enterprises. Myth #3: ERP? Oh no! It’s too complicated! Many business owners, managers, and high-level executives have this fear in the mind that the ERP deployment might change the course of their regular tasks and disrupt the whole rhythm of the everyday operations. However, this is just not the case! An ERP is an enterprise, resource, and planning technology. It is developed with the fact in mind that numerous companies should be able to implement them easily and commence its operations flawlessly. The complexity of the ERP depends on range of factors such as the number of users, the degree of customization, size of business etc. Although its successful implementation requires a commitment from the system users, right training from an ERP provider is essential to ensure its smooth running. Hope the above myths are now eliminated and I would be happy to respond to any of your queries.