CRM integration ∞ Business Central
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement is Microsoft’s cloud-based customer relationship management solution, made up of integrated, purpose-built applications.
The Sales Professional application, one of the most popular, enables companies to qualify prospects, manage sales opportunities, build customer relationships, optimize e-mail marketing campaigns, and much more.
Dynamics 365 Business Central is Microsoft’s cloud-based ERP solution for small and medium-sized businesses.
Designed to help companies in all strategic business areas (accounting, human resources, procurement, operations, projects, and much more), Business Central includes relationship management functionality to support sales efforts.
Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement are two distinct yet complementary products.
Although they appear to have similar capabilities in some areas, each excels in the particular purpose for which it was designed.
How do Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement differ?
Dynamics 365 Business Central
Dynamics 365 Business Central’s relationship management features can sometimes be enough to meet the lead management needs of some companies.
Its basic functionalities enable you to manage :
- Contacts
- Interactions
- Segment management
- Sales opportunities
- Marketing campaigns
Dynamics 365 Business Central lets you capture prospects to turn them into customers, and enter quotes to place orders using supply chain capabilities.
However, for companies looking for a fully-fledged CRM solution focused on sales and marketing, Business Central won’t offer enough capabilities.
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement will be the ideal choice for sales and customer management for companies with complex business processes that require workflows beyond what is available in Business Central such as:
- More in-depth Outlook integration
- Customer service in the field
- Mobile access to all CRM functions
- Marketing automation to improve, streamline and simplify time-consuming marketing tasks
Unified integration
Dynamics 365 CRM ∞ ERP
Like a single ecosystem, Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement are natively integrated, breaking down the traditional silos between CRM and ERP solutions and offering a unified system for all solutions in the Microsoft Dynamics suite.
Business Central users can therefore get the ERP functionality they need, as well as the full range of sales and customer management features in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement.
For example, ERP – CRM integration enables you to carry out a complete process from quotation to collection:
- Enter quotes in Customer Engagement using Business Central price lists
- Convert quotes into orders, with the ability to view Business Central stock availability in Customer Engagement
- Ship and invoice orders via Business Central
- Receive and send money against invoice from Business Central
- View invoice payment status in Customer Engagement