In a world where consumers have more choices than ever, businesses must find ways to forge connections a customer can’t get elsewhere. Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions give small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) a way to understand customers and prospects to help them provide better service. Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides a customer service CRM platform that helps track, manage, and store customer-related information.

Retailers today need the ability to adapt to changes, whether driven by supply chain challenges or shifts in consumer behavior. However, many still rely on outdated technology that doesn’t help the complexity of modern commerce. Consumers today expect flexibility around how and where they make purchases. Accomplishing that means finding optimal retail CRM software that scales as a business grows.

The need to become as customer-focused as possible has companies large and small looking to implement CRM software. However, executing a successful Dynamics CRM implementation takes more than willpower. Getting it done correctly requires that organizations take the time to lay out a Dynamics CRM implementation plan. That way, you avoid mistakes that could lead to costly business downtime and dissatisfied customers.

2019 has been the year that enterprise organizations finally moved to the cloud. TechRepublic reports that nearly 70% of enterprise organizations moved data to an off-premise data server this year. This encroachment by cloud vendors into the formerly on-premise space has led many software companies to add cloud software options to previously installation-only software.

The old Dynamics CRM received an upgrade in 2016 to the new rebranded Dynamics 365. The new platform combined the existing customer relationship management (CRM) software with Microsoft’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform and a full suite of tools covering finance, marketing, sales, operations, and more. The goal of the upgrade was to eliminate the silos between these departments in a repacking of some of the Dynamic suite of products into one integrated whole.