IT STARTS WITH CONNECTED DATAHow SMBs can boost productivity in 2020 and beyond

When it comes to productivity, you’re probably too busy maintaining it to step back and work out how to boost it. Getting new technology up and running can be complex and time-consuming. It can disrupt the way you work already. If your employees can’t see the relevance or find a new tool difficult to use, they won’t use it.But what if you could look beyond these obstacles to the future waiting on the other side? What if you could see more of what’s happening, what’s coming up and how you could make your business more productive?

HOW WILL SMBs WORK BETTER IN THE 2020s?

In this e-book, you’ll:• Face and overcome your biggest productivity blockers.• Discover how connecting your data could be the solution.• See a clear future of productivity for your business.Join us as we look at the productive SMB of the future.

CONNECT YOUR DATA

The blockerIt’s not unusual for some departments to use their own tools, keep their own records and manage them manually, with no centralised library. Without aggregation, context, or insight, it’s unconnected data from disparate databases that can leave decision-makers uninformed or, worse, misinformed.

The solutionThe apps we use have to be connected, so let’s move to the cloud to create a connected ecosystem. At the centre, a customer relationship management (CRM) solution. Orbiting it, the apps and services you know and use – like Outlook, LinkedIn and SharePoint – as well as the specialist tools you count on in specific business areas. Because they’re hosted in the cloud, they’re always up to date and secure. And through connected apps, the data your employees collect is stored in one place – securely, responsively and intuitively.

The futureIn your business, connecting your data could give employees more flexibility on the go. Say an engineer is attending a service call – all the information they’ll need to do the job is on a mobile app. The system sends an alert with the time and location. The engineer looks up knowledge materials through their phone or tablet, then completes the sign-off process completely digitally – updating the customer record and submitting the report for approval straight away.

Or, it could mean digitising your visitor records. So, instead of signing in to a physical book, guests can tap their name into a tablet at reception and instantly send an alert to the employee they’re here to see. The system records their visit in the cloud and sales teams or account managers can see the data behind the date.

ACTION YOUR INSIGHTS

The blockerYou’ve connected the data, but what’s it telling you? It’s telling you which clients are growing and which need a bit more focus. What your best people are doing right and where everyone could improve. Along with the quick fixes and the long term goals. It’s all there, but it takes time to analyse, and it only takes a handful of incomplete entries or a small delay collecting results to skew your insight. As a result, your people could miss valuable opportunities or make business decisions based on guesswork.

The solutionWhat if you infused the process with unified reporting tools? Then, you could monitor, visualise and analyse the data in real time and at scale to guarantee fresh insight on the metrics that matter most – on any device.

Unified reporting tools take the data and adapt to it. So, you become nimbler and more proactive, drawing from far and wide across your data library, examining data you might not have had time to check and finding context where you couldn’t before. It’s a cultural transformation – from gut feel to data-driven – and a shorter cycle from insight to action.

The futureIn your business, actioning your insights could start with surfacing contextual relationship and process information in the apps you use – like Outlook and LinkedIn. What’s more, it could be using the added insight from your unified reporting tools with AI-powered prompts to catch opportunities early and choose your next steps. This could identify sales trends in your business and in the wider market. Or track customer relationships to see how they’re likely to develop. Internally, it could help you measure your employees’ progress on their KPIs or answer their performance questions. When it comes to AI, it’s no longer true that you need to be a data scientist to reap the benefits. With natural language queries, your most specific questions return clear answers.

GUIDE YOUR BUSINESS PROCESSES

The blockerUsing connected data and insights to guide your business processes is all about efficiency. For example, being consistent when it comes to qualifying leads or handling cases. Holding the quality of data your people collect to a high standard. Streamlining repeatable processes and reducing manual effort wherever possible.

The problem is, when the data they need is more than a few clicks away and the next step of the process forces them to jump between windows and apps, employees get interrupted. If people get fed up and start taking shortcuts, the quality of your data suffers, too.

The solutionMany familiar apps like Outlook let users enforce rules and set custom preferences. So why not apply similar controls across your business processes, to improve handling and keep standards high? You can use rules to improve any repeatable process, whether that’s responding to service issues, tracking sales enquiries or progressing application requests.

With guided steps and gated stages, you can make sure employees complete actions before moving ahead. For instance, you might want to prompt users to add data to a field. Set a rule that dynamically adjusts steps based on information that’s already been entered. Or automatically approve tasks – else send them on to the next team in the chain.

Once you put rules and logic in place, you’ll find that routine processes are completed efficiently. And that your people can clearly see what actions they need to complete to reach successful outcomes.

The futureIn your business, the rules and logic could guide end-to-end processing. Say you’re picking up a job from a colleague. You’ve got a complete roadmap of the process behind each task – making it easy to check what’s been done so far and what needs to happen next. The rules and logic could also automatically extract data from a standard form to create a new entry in your CRM. With that data, or that in meeting notes, tracked emails, or another source, AI can guide you and your employees through your processes – recommending next steps and best practice.

ENGAGE YOUR CUSTOMERS…

The blockerEveryone in your business wants to add to its success – guiding the customer from first contact to final purchase. However when communications are ineffective and there is little transparency between teams, customers can disappear down the cracks. Take sales and marketing teams, for example. If they’re not working together and sharing their experiences, the teams aren’t pulling in the same direction – and could be missing significant yet very achievable opportunities.

The solutionYour sales and marketing teams are sitting on masses of data. It’s time to put it to work – gaining insights that will save time, reduce admin and deliver better service. Of course, this means connecting the components first.

With centralised business applications and a combined understanding of your customers, you can begin to automate the way you interact with them. Marketers are able to build insightful, repeatable campaigns that salespeople can trigger, guided by embedded insights to see when your audience is most responsive. So, every conversation is timely, engaging, and personal.

The futureIn your business, engaging your customers could mean finding the perfect moment to launch a multi-channel campaign and drive responses. It could even help you find the perfect platform for delivering content – from email to WhatsApp. At any moment, your customers will all be in very different stages of awareness, consideration and purchase. But bring together the data from your sales and marketing teams – what customers have clicked on your website, their history with your business, or the warmth of the lead, for example – and you’ll find every activity is more focused, with greater clarity and higher engagement.

…AND EARN THEIR LOYALTY

The blockerIf they’ve got a question, your customers expect an immediate response through the channel of their choice. But if you’re still answering most of your queries manually, you’re confining service to business hours. Keep them waiting and your customers might go somewhere else.

What if you set up a self-serve portal for your customers? It’d help to prioritise service and reduce the number of inbound service calls. However, portals have tended to come with high costs and demands – from initial build and integration to ongoing maintenance.

The solutionAs a solution to customer management, a great competitive asset and proof of your dedication to service, a self-service customer portal is nothing new. Connecting it to the inner workings of your business, however, could be. By now you’ll know that when your data, content and insights are connected, you can count on your infrastructure having the capacity to take on more of the work.

Thanks to drag and drop functionality and pre-packaged templates, portals are easier to build and manage. Add a content library that draws from your central knowledge database to curate itself in real time and more businesses will find they have the resources to provide an always-on service that strengthens their brand – without spreading resources too thinly.

The futureIn your business, this could reduce the need to manually enter customer data into your system. With a secure self-service portal, you can give your customers limited access to your CRM. With that, they can manage their own profiles and get more transparency around the data you hold on them.

Meanwhile, you can deflect support requests by giving customers everything they need to find the answers themselves. Implement chatbots that don’t require coding, so you can put all of your subject matter expertise into customer service. Use the chatbot to handle routine customer questions, recommend content, or even take actions on the customer’s behalf – and build a better experience that earns their loyalty.

SEE THE FUTUREIn 2020 and beyond, it’ll be connected data that drives productivity in SMBs. There’s no time like the present to prepare your business for a more productive future, by:

Earning their loyalty

Engaging your customers

Guiding your business processes

Actioning your insights

Connecting your data

Want to know more? Get in touch with us at sales@preact.co.uk or on 0800 381 1000.Or click to find out more about Dynamics 365 on our website.

With a suite like Office 365, that combines best-in-class apps like Outlook, Teams and Excel, and the CRM capabilities of Dynamics 365, you’ve got a common data platform on which to move data between apps – and gain insights – with ease. Then, with a full view of your business, your people and your customers, what comes next is really up to you.

Of course, you probably still have some questions. That’s why this guide is the first in a series of two. Here, you’ve seen why productivity starts with connecting your data.

In our next guide, we’ll go into more detail about exactly how Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Preact can help you do it – download your next guide here.

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Connecting your business data, implementing smarter processes and doing more to delight customers.

Working with Preact, you’ll gain access to CRM insight, SMB expertise and Dynamics 365 product knowledge. We will handle all your requirements – from project scoping to customisation and from training to technical support.

It’s why we’ve been:• Implementing and supporting CRM solutions for more than 25 years.• A Microsoft CRM Gold provider since 2009.• Named to 2019/2020 Inner Circle for Microsoft Business Applications.• Made a Microsoft Cloud Business Applications Gold partner.• Supporting 8000+ Dynamics users.• Cited in numerous reference sites and case studies.

Get in touch with us at sales@preact.co.uk or on 0800 381 1000

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