Microsoft Dynamics 365 vs Oracle ERP

2023. Microsoft brings an AI-powered Copilot to Dynamics 365



Microsoft is launching a new AI tool Copilot, that aims to automate some of the more repetitive sales and customer service tasks. For example, in Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales, Copilot can help write email responses to customers and create an email summary of a Teams meeting in Outlook. The meeting summary pulls in details from the seller’s CRM, such as product and pricing information and combines them with insights from the recorded Teams call. Over in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Copilot can draft “contextual answers” to customer queries via chat or email and provide an “interactive chat experience” for customer service agents that draws from knowledge bases as well as case history. In turn, conversation boosters complements a new “GPT” model in Microsoft’s AI Builder tool that lets organizations embed text-generation features into their Power Automate and Power Apps solutions.


2021. Microsoft announces new tools to modernize supply chain and manufacturing



Microsoft is announcing a new manufacturing solution called the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, along with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Insights, a tool designed to give customers more visibility into what’s happening along their supply chain routes and intelligence to deal with issues as they arise. The manufacturing cloud is designed to help collect these signals and warn manufacturers when they might need additional supplies. The Supply Chain Insights tool is specifically designed to map out supply chain routes and root out issues that could affect delivery of key raw materials before bottlenecks happen. Together they are designed to bring more agility and flexibility to manufacturing companies.


2020. Microsoft introduced its customer data platform inside Dynamics 365



Microsoft announced a major update to its Dynamics 365 product line, which correlates to the growing amount of data in the enterprise and how to collect and understand that data to produce better customer experiences. The company is adding functionality to its customer data platform (CDP), a concept all major vendors (and a growing group of startups) have embraced. It pulls together into one place all of the customer data from various systems, making it easier to understand how the customer interacts with you, with the goal of providing better experiences based on this knowledge. Microsoft’s CDP is called Customer Insights. Microsoft clearly isn’t alone in this type of offering, as every big company that sells marketing tools from Adobe to Salesforce to SAP is offering similar products for similar reasons.


2018. Microsoft launches new AI applications for Dynamics 365 CRM



A year ago Microsoft introduced its first Dynamics 365 AI solutions and today it’s expanding this portfolio with the launch of three new products: Dynamics 365 AI for Sales, Customer Service and Market Insights. Dynamics 365 AI for Sales, unsurprisingly, is meant to help sales teams get deeper insights into their prospects using sentiment analysis. That’s obviously among the most basic of machine learning applications these days, but AI for Sales also helps these salespeople understand what actions they should take next and which prospects to prioritize. Similarly, the Customer Service app focuses on using natural language understanding to understand and predict customer service problems and leverage virtual agents to lower costs. Finally, Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights does just what the name implies: it provides teams with data about social sentiment, but this, too, goes a bit deeper.


2017. Microsoft integrated LinkedIn with Dynamics 365



Microsoft announced some significant integrations between the professional social network LinkedIn (that it bought last year) and Microsoft Dynamics 365, the company’s CRM and ERP suite. First of all, the company is linking Dynamics 365 and the LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool to give sales people access to its database of 500 million users. Microsoft is also announcing a tool for HR pros called Dynamics 365 for Talent, which gives Dynamics 365 ERP users, the ability to search for new talent directly from LinkedIn’s Recruiter and Learning solutions, and manage employees from recruitment throughout their time with company.


2016. Microsoft Dynamics 365 became generally available


Microsoft announced the general availability of Dynamics 365 - the cloud solution combining its ERP and CRM that will compete with Salesforce. It costs from $70/user/month and provides web interface and mobile app, or can be used inside the familiar Outlook apps. Microsoft has also built in a couple of intelligence features into the release designed specifically for sales and service personnel. First, there is Customer Insights, a stand-alone cloud service, which enables users to bring in a variety of internal and external data sources (like Facebook and Trip Advisor). The second piece is called Relationship Insights, which as the name suggests gives sales people information about the status of their customer relationships at any given moment. It’s built on the on the Cortana Intelligence Suite, which Microsoft introduced in 2015 and uses tools like sentiment analysis to check on the likelihood of the deal closing and the next best action to take. So, Microsoft has consolidated its artificial intelligence tools into a single, coherent division and just about every vendor - not just those selling CRM - is trying to build some level of intelligence into its products.


2016. Microsoft to merge CRM and ERP into integrated cloud platform Dynamics 365


Microsoft announced its intention to combine the Dynamics CRM and ERP products into an integrated platform Dynamics 365 on top of which it is hoping third parties will build applications. It will also have deep connections with the cloud office suite, as well as to Cortana voice intelligence and PowerBI data visualization. In order to break down this rather elaborate system into more manageable chunks, the company is offering discrete applications on top of the platform including specific apps for finance, field service, sales, operations, marketing, project service automation and customer service. In addition, the company announced it’s launching the obligatory app store it’s calling Microsoft AppSource where developers can build and distribute their own apps, giving them a complete solution. The store will open with over 200 apps developed by early adopters.


2016. MS Dynamics CRM update targets IoT



Microsoft released the Spring 2016 Wave update of its Dynamics CRM. This new edition of Dynamics CRM is a core element of Microsoft's digital transformation strategy. With it the company is enabling new personalized, proactive and predictive customer experiences. The update comes with a nod to the Internet of Things (IoT) with the unveiling of Connected Field Service, a preview offering that provides out-of-the-box IoT to field service capabilities. It offers enterprises the ability to monitor any IoT-connected device, pin-down anomalies and generate alerts that trigger automated responses to the perceived problem, or threat. Availability and proximity of service technicians with the right skills and tools are then matched against the service requirement and routed to customer locations to take preventive action.


2015. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 - the most comprehensive upgrade ever



Microsoft is billing the next release of its Dynamics CRM 2016 (coming in Q4) as the most comprehensive upgrade ever. The product has been completely redesigned, with the on-prem and cloud versions receiving major upgrades. The latest version involves four main areas that Microsoft wants to emphasize in this release including productivity, mobility, intelligence and customer service. Today’s announcement also included CRM for Outlook, which provides direct integration with the Microsoft email platform, where many sales people tend to live during the day. It’s worth noting that while this is a major release announcement, the company has been making ongoing updates to the cloud version of the product. This announcement is simply the culmination of that work, while the on-prem users will be seeing these updates for the first time.


2014. Microsoft quietly launches Dynamics NAV ERP apps for iPad, Android, Windows 8


Microsoft's Dynamics team has rolled out Dynamics NAV client apps for iPad, Android and Windows 8.x. The new Dynamics NAV client apps are free, but require Microsoft's Dynamics NAV ERP on the back end. Different sets of features are supported in the clients depending on which version of the Dynamics NAV server apps they use. Microsoft is also aiming to deliver its latest major release - Dynamics NAV 2015 release - before the end of this year. Dynamics NAV is one of Microsoft's four ERP apps, is aimed largely at small business users. The Dynamics AX team also introduced earlier this year a touch-first Modern/Metro-Style shop-floor control app for Windows 8.