Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software are both integral aspects of any retailer’s business strategy. With ERP, your business can achieve centralized store management and powerful merchandising. With CRM, employees will be able to delight customers with social listening and service functions. Both systems are equally important in allowing your business to flourish, but more often than not, they operate independently of each other.

So why would you bother trying to integrate an ERP and CRM?

Microsoft Dynamics AX 7 (also known as “Rainier”) will be released by the end of 2015, and the release will bring a change in paradigm from on-premises hosting to the cloud. We’ve already covered the benefits and features that AX 7 on the cloud will bring in a prior post.

Dynamics CRM 2016 focuses on maximizing customer engagement. Dynamics CRM 2015 offered a simple and seamless user experience across the application that focused on improved productivity of customer-facing employees through applications like Exchange, Excel and OneDrive for Business for easier task management. The 2016 version provides additions to CRM for marketing and several enhancements with intelligence and mobility features, including integration with applications like BI and Office 365.

In spite of the success of cloud infrastructure and the popularity of O365, Microsoft is planning to launch an on premise SharePoint Server by the end of the year. According to Microsoft, they are mindful that there are a lot of enterprises across the world who continue to use the on-premises version of SharePoint. In the new release, Microsoft has incorporated some key enhancements and new capabilities that will allow customers to choose from a combination of on-premises, cloud, or hybrid deployment for their business. SharePoint 2016 will help organizations modernize their on-premises deployments and take advantage of cloud innovation, improving speed and agility while enabling new user experiences.

Business metrics are used to evaluate the success of an organization and its activities. But even within an organization, not all metrics are created equally. Individuals, teams, and departments all have different metrics they value over others.

For example: Let’s take a look at the Dallas Cowboys and compare it to how different employees or departments in your organization care about different metrics. Tony Romo, the quarterback of the Cowboys, would focus on metrics that he might be interested in including how many successful passes he makes and, how many interceptions occur, and other such metrics.The same can be said for the rest of the players on the team – they all have role-specific metrics that they’re focusing on, even though their teammates might not share the same metrics.

The coaching staff has more over-reaching stats that they need to monitor.  They also have specific metrics to focus on. Even though the offensive coordinator, Scott Linehan, is interested in the same metrics as the quarterback, he also has to focus on other members of the team too. In addition to passing, he also has to focus on blocking, rushing, and other metrics. He’s reviewing passing yards, rushing yards and receiving yards. Then, defensive coordinator, Rod Marinelli, would similarly focus on multiple metrics spanning across the defensive players and measuring sacks, tackles and interceptions.  While head coach Jason Garrett is looking at a summary of offense and defense stats, in addition to win-loss ratios. 

On an even larger scale than that, is Jason Garrett, the head coach. He is interested in individual metrics, offensive metrics, defensive metrics, and metrics of the entire team – such as their win-loss ratio. If you want to take it one step further than that, we can include Jerry Jones. As the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, the top metrics he’s focused on is looking at their profitability and the metrics that tell that story. Even with all the coaches, the defense and offense teams, and individuals on the Cowboys, Jones’ number one priority is how much money they’re making.

Managing data for so many different teams and so many different metrics can be a hassle. Thankfully, with Microsoft Dynamics AX, you never have to run a report ever again! All of the data you need is available to you instantly.

The user-friendly interface allows you to define your own metrics to fit your individual and team needs – allowing employees to better understand their own accountabilities, their department’s accountabilities, and how those accountabilities roll up to higher level organizational performance metrics. Each employee and department can view their own metrics on an easily accessible dashboard. This data can be analyzed, turned into graphs or charts, and exported to other Microsoft applications such as Microsoft Excel. Below are some examples of what Microsoft Dynamics AX would look like. 

Enterprise collaboration tools enable organizations to increase employee productivity and overall business efficiency. They provide employees unified platforms that facilitate seamless sharing of documents, encourage teamwork and create business efficiencies. Integrating workflows into one central repository and streamlining organization-wide processes aids businesses in ensuring data consistency that enable employees to work faster and more proficiently.

With businesses going global, a large percentage of employees work from multiple locations, which makes collaboration a challenge. Corporate intranets often have communication and integration problems that restrict smooth communication between various departments. Ineffective searches, poor access to tools, and inconsistencies in business data can hamper employee output. By utilizing collaboration tools, organizations can provide up-to-date content to employees quicker.