8 reasons why your business needs Dynamics 365 CRM

Last November, Microsoft announced a new pricing model for their Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) product. Along with these pricing changes came new product enhancements to make Dynamics a “cloud first” CRM solution.

Now that it’s 5 months since the announcement of Dynamics 365 and about 3 months from availability, we thought it timely to do a review of what changed from a purchasing perspective. If you are an existing Dynamics CRM user who has not yet upgraded to Dynamics 365 then there are some very special prices available for a very short time that you don’t want to miss; if you aren’t and want to know more then this information might pique your interest.

1. If you don’t need the full CRM Online platform (Sales, Service, etc) you can now purchase just a single module. If you need 2 or more modules you are better to buy a plan level (Enterprise Plan 1). Retail is $95 – $115/user/month but you can get as low as $40/user/month depending on maximum number of users and module(s) required. This pricing will only be available for a short time.
2. The Dynamics AX product is now available as an extra Operations module (Enterprise Plan 2). It can also be purchased as a stand-alone module.
3. A new Business Edition is slated for some time in the next few months. This will be a simplified version aimed at making it easier to deploy within small and medium-sized organizations.
4. The new Dynamics Financials product (based on Dynamics NAV) is a fully functional financials solution worth taking a look at least because it can give visibility within your CRM of customer status (money owed, outstanding invoices, etc.) which saves the need for your sales people to ask the accounts department. The Dynamics Financials product is available as part of the Business Plan or you can also purchase it as an extra module to an Enterprise Plan.
5. All versions have a new Team license available for occasional/light users. For example, you may have 3 people in your organization requiring the Financials product but the rest could have a team license to view the information. Team licenses are new and significantly less at around $5 – $10/user month depending which plan you are on.
6. The mobile (all mobile platforms supported including iOS and Androd) and Outlook integration has been significantly enhanced. The new CRM App for Outlook is fantastic – fast, easy to use and significantly enhanced from previous versions.
7. There are some great add-ons included with Dynamics 365 depending on which version you purchase which may include a Voice of the Customer survey solution, a single customer portal, Insights from Inside View to ensure you have the most accurate information for your customers and more.
8. Dynamics CRM was always intended as a platform and it’s now even more so with the add-ons available for field service organizations, professional service companies, etc. This allows even better alignment with how your business operates and interacts with customers and other key relationships to your business.

How Does This Affect You?

If you currently have or are considering the purchase of a Customer Relationship solution in 2017, you need to know about these changes. Regardless of the number of users or how you deploy and use CRM, the move to Dynamics 365 in the cloud does have complexities you need to know about in advance.

For example:

1. New pricing for Dynamics will be applied for any new users, features or renewals no matter how you currently deploy Dynamics CRM. Timing is critical, if you wait to move you could miss the special pricing currently available.
2. All current customers need to transition to the new pricing model and there are multiple ways to complete an organizational transition
3. Depending on how you licensed Dynamics CRM, improper planning and execution of a move to Dynamics 365 licensing could result in a loss of critical business data or a significant increase in pricing.

Make A Seamless Transition to Dynamics 365

Reach out to Amaxra for a clear and honest explanation of how the new Dynamics 365 model can better support your organization. We help customers to migrate their existing customer information to the cloud or we can provide you an optimized Dynamics 365 solution for your desired business outcome.