Many of you might have been surprised to see Microsoft being called on to the main stage at the biggest event of the year by Apple last week on Wednesday.
“Yeah, these guys know productivity,” said Phil Schiller of Apple to the astonished crowd.
“Productivity” is certainly what Microsoft is perusing with a passion these days. Only a day earlier (and less than a week before Salesforce’s Dreamforce) Microsoft announced the new capabilities planned for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016.
So what is Microsoft planning for us?
Well they are attempting to allow customer-facing employees to manage their daily activities in a single experience, with some of the following new capabilities:
An enhanced Excel experience within CRM, so that users gets analysis and insights directly in their processes, without the need to export or switch – just easy toggling to reduce countless steps and eliminate the complexity.
CRM app for outlook will be upgraded and enable people to track emails, add contacts from within an email or even create new records to track emails through the browser on PC, Mac or mobile browser on a phone.
Contextual documents across SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, and Office 365 Groups for any CRM record. Microsoft is making it easy for people to open a document in the CRM app using different application on various devices like Microsoft PowerPoint for iPad or Microsoft Word for iPhone.
And my ever favorite one – the Cortana integration will be enhanced by embedding sales activities, accounts and opportunities into Cortana to surface what’s most relevant to user at any time – across both personal and professional sources.
Here is a video of the new features:
Microsoft quotes the Journal of Experimental Psychology, from 2001 that every time a user switches programs or applications, there is a 40 percent reduction in productivity. Whether or it is now 20% or still 40% is less the issue. It is clear that Microsoft has identified a productivity challenge and market demand and that it is tackling it head on.
More information by Microsoft on the new capabilities of Dynamics CRM 2016 you can find in the Release Preview Guide .