Digitalization is at work, here and now, in all areas of life, and will continue to be in the future. In her presentation at Inspire 2019 in Las Vegas, Alysa Taylor ? Microsoft Corporate VP, Business Applications in Global Industry ? presented Dynamics 365 as an innovation accelerator and explored the question of how to stay ahead in the market by boosting digitalization efforts.

Corporate IT renewal cycles are speeding up

Historically, decisions surrounding corporate IT were made for years to come and left untouched for many more. And that was absolutely fine ? at least back then. Nowadays, corporate IT renewal cycles have accelerated rapidly. Alysa Taylor spoke of a maximum of 4 years that a modern company has to renew and further develop itself. This incredibly short timescale means that the process of renewal must take place continuously and with foresight.

Organizations need greater precision when defining what sets them apart

Companies that identify their unique potential can make quantum leaps and tap completely new markets. However, the following questions must be addressed in advance:

• What assets does the company have to conquer new business fields, backed by the possibilities of digitization?
• What needs has digitization created in the market that could be satisfied by the leap into a new field of business?
• Which business areas are within reach?

In her Inspire Session, Alysa Taylor cited the US pharmacy chain Walgreens as an example, which is at home in retail but is now also using its well-developed branch network to serve the healthcare market.

Technological opportunities must be fully utilized and data unleashed

Companies spend a lot of time and money collecting data. However, this data still remains too often in the tools used to collect it and is of no use to the organization. This phenomenon is also known as data silos, which regularly lead to companies failing in their digital transformation. A few years ago, Microsoft set itself the goal of breaking down these data silos, unleashing the data and finally making it usable. This is already possible today and will be standard tomorrow thanks to Microsoft?s Dynamics 365 business solutions, since Dynamics 365 offers a single platform for all business activities, enabling business applications and data to communicate barrier-free with each other.

Dynamics 365 and Power Platform: Innovations for all business areas

Once these steps have been taken, Power Platform, native to Dynamics 365, offers companies even greater options to achieve pure digitization. Here are some of the highlights of Power Platform which Alysa Taylor presented at Inspire 2019 to accelerate digital transformation:

Sales

• Product Visualize
  Enables your sales staff to use Mixed Reality to place and interact with digital images of the product directly in the customer’s premises.
• Sales Insights
  Helps your sales team sell more and better with AI-driven insights that promote personalized interactions and proactive decision making to build customer loyalty.

Service

• Remote Assist
  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and HoloLens devices allow technicians to collaborate and troubleshoot problems from multiple locations without being on site.
• Customer Service Insights
  Improves decision-making and proactively increases customer satisfaction with AI-driven insights.

Operations

• Fraud Protection
  Protects your e-commerce business and your customers from fraud to lower costs, increase revenue and improve your customers’ shopping experience.

Marketing

• Customer Insights
  Unifies your data from multiple sources to provide a consistent view of your customers, optimize customer retention, and gain insights that lead to a personalized customer experience.
• Market Insights
  AI-based insights help you gain a competitive advantage by gathering relevant information about what consumers say about your brands, products and competitors.

Finance

• Business Central
  Helps you unify your business – from data to people to processes – with modern, intelligent business applications that adapt to your changing needs.

Talent

• Guides
  Helps your employees learn new skills faster – the Dynamics 365 Guides preview is now available with HoloLens devices.
• Forms Pro
  Captures and analyzes feedback to improve business interaction with this simple yet comprehensive survey solution.

Power Platform

• AI Builder
  AI Builder is a new Power Platform feature that allows you to easily automate processes and predict results to improve business performance.
• Power Apps
  Customize Office 365 and Dynamics 365 to your needs with powerful apps that combine productivity and business data. Customize SharePoint Online, use PowerApps with Microsoft Teams, and create apps in Dynamics 365.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, you can implement innovations faster. Contact us today to discover how your organization could benefit from Microsoft Dynamics 365.