Looking for PowerObjects? Don’t worry, you’re in the right place! We’ve been part of HCL for several years, and we’ve now taken the final step in our acquisition journey: moving our website to the HCL domain. Nothing else is changing – we are still fanatically focused on Microsoft Business Applications!

PowerObjects Blog 

for Microsoft Business Applications


Leveraging Dynamics CRM Configuration for Business Process Improvements

Post Author: Joe D365 |

Business process analysis and value stream mapping are core competencies and set of tools that facilitate the journey from current-state to future-state. Use of these tools is often part of the journey in enabling improved business performance with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. One of the first steps of this initiative is to detail the current state processes with the goal of removing the processes that provide no value to customers. Below is a diagram showing how these processes are analyzed.

 

Leveraging Dynamics CRM Configuration for Business Process Improvements

Businesses are increasingly focusing on improving customer performance metrics that leverage Customer Relationship Management solution capabilities designed to maximize customer retention, customer service levels, new customer acquisition rates, and lead to opportunity velocity while reducing the cost to serve their customers. Removing non value added activities involves streamlining and automating key processes, aligning management, people and solutions.

Much time is spent moving processes around, analyzing alternatives, and working as a team to optimize future state performance in alignment with the desired areas of performance improvement. This work is often done in a single space with many participants with low tech tools such as a white board and post-it notes.

 

Leveraging Dynamics CRM Configuration for Business Process Improvements

 

 

Making the smooth transition from white boarded optimized processes to actually aligning the business management, teams, processes, and solution configuration is often a challenge. With the latest release of Dynamics CRM there is new process centric configuration capability that can be effectively used as the transition from analysis to action centers on Customer Relationship Management processes and CRM solution capability.

Leveraging Dynamics CRM Configuration for Business Process Improvements

The transition from analysis to action is facilitated as the high level processes and associated details can be taken directly from the future state value stream mapping on the white board and used as foundation for CRM configuration. For example the above models the process from sales lead, through qualification, proposal, and closing the sale.

Processes from lead, to opportunity, as well as optimizing customer service levels, can be taken directly from the white board to configuration as a solid foundation based on future state processes designed to improve customer focused business performance metrics. In the case below the customer service process from identification of the customer's issue, triage, and resolution is modeled.

Leveraging Dynamics CRM Configuration for Business Process Improvements

 

Business and Information Technology teams can work together on a solid and consistent solution foundation as the processes and details that have been hammered out on the white board can be the starting point of solution configuration and capability requirements. Dynamics CRM offers a Solid architectural foundation that can be leveraged when leading the way on streamlining business process improvement via optimizing business processes across teams, solutions, and processes.

Process configuration is a powerful tool and is tremendously valuable capability when focusing on business process improvement. In the future this business process capability would even be more powerful when behavior of business process flows can dynamically incorporate conditional logic and automatically reconfigure the process and required detail. This capability is similar to the configurable expression based logic Dynamics recently released with configurable Business Rules and I am looking forward to when Microsoft incorporates the agility found in Business Logic to the Process Management capabilities they just released.

These new Dynamics CRM process configuration tools are excellent for facilitating the continuous improvement of business key customer focused performance. These new tools enable the team to leverage improved processes from white board to Solution Design, and through solution delivery, enabling the continuous improvement of business performance.

We'd love to talk to you more about process improvement through the implementation of Dynamics CRM. Keep up to date on all our Dynamics CRM blogs, webinars and educational materials!

Happy CRM'ing!

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

PowerObjects Recommends