Dynamics 365 as a Collaboration Strategy tool

As we are starting the new year, there is the reflection of past experience and observations. One of which I want to highlight, is the increasing use of Dynamics 365 (CRM) as a collaboration strategy tool.

Why Collaborate - 

Since the dawn of internet, businesses worldwide are facing ever changing new challenges, like social media, app driven economy, consumer buying behavior, business models…

In order to manage the competitive forces and competition, firms are acquiring, merging or building strategic partnership. Some of the examples of strategic partnership or collaboration are -

• Automobile industry – Global partnership between auto manufacturers and parts suppliers to reduce cost of inventory and enhance quality
• International Air Travel industry - Strategic geographic alliances between airlines to attract the global corporate travelers and increase their market share
• Retail industry – Retailers adding new products and services and co-branding with firms to become the go to store / website / app for the customer.

The need for collaboration is growing and this is resulting in new business processes and systems designed to integrate business partners and customers to meet the shared goals.

How does Dynamics 365 (CRM) help in collaboration – 

Dynamics 365 has a set of built-in tools that can be effectively used for collaboration. The collaboration tools are discussed below.

1. Portals – Partner and Customer Portal in Dynamics 365 is the #1 tool for collaboration. Companies now have the capability of engaging their partners and customers with their core business teams and processes.
   
   1. Partners can be given secure access to the portal. Partners can provide input on sales opportunities, complete an activity or task and add / update documents as needed for the business process
   2. Customers can use the Portal to place orders, check history, request services and provide feedback which will be valuable to the organization
2. Mobility – You can provide mobile based access to partners with a mobile app. Using the mobile app the partners can log into Dynamics 365, access necessary information and update the records. For example a medical services firm can partner with independent nurses who visit patients, review their medical history and complete their annual health checkups at home using a mobile app.
3. Field Services – Dynamic 365 Field Services allows the scheduling of service providers and track maintenance of assets. The service providers can be partner firms who get their schedules from the Dynamics 365 and manage their daily service activities. This helps the services organization provide better service to the customer.
4. Security – One of the most important requirement for a collaboration system is Security. The security can be classified as –
   
   1. System level access – Restrict which employee of the partner gets access what part of the system
   2. Entity & record level access – Restrict what entity and records within the entity the partner can access - read and edit.
   3. Document access – Restrict access to documents and allow to add new documents
   4. Device access – What devices can be used to access and update data

Dynamics 365 with its granular security achieves all of the above and allows further control using business unit, teams, team queues, security roles, web roles (for portal), role based form…

5. Process flexibility – A collaborative system has to be flexible and adaptable to changing business processes. Dynamics 365 allows organizations to build upon an existing business process and add or change the process in the future as needed. Partners can be users of Dynamics 365 or can access the data through Portal or a mobile app. Within Dynamics 365 one can build custom business apps for Partners and provide a customized collaboration experience.

As you can see there are many new ways that Dynamics 365 can be used for Partner and Customer collaboration. I believe that more organizations will use Dynamic 365 as a Strategic Collaboration tool to engage partners and customers, improving the efficiency and productivity in their business process.

Please provide your experiences in using Dynamics 365 for collaboration.

Thanks for reading.

Mihir Shah