The Microsoft Cloud has a Silver Lining Professional Services Excellence

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1 GAP CONSULTING WHITE PAPER The Microsoft Cloud has a Silver Lining Professional Services Excellence 10 reasons why the Microsoft cloud platform, including Office 365, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the right strategy to better focus on your customers and collaborate with your colleagues to deliver exceptional service levels and outstanding customer experiences. The Microsoft Cloud has a Silver Lining Professional Services Excellence INTRODUCTION Globally, companies that are successfully delivering outstanding customer experiences are going from strength to strength. Technology has long been recognised as a necessity, and the cloud is now seen as the next step forward for organisations to fundamentally change how people live, work and engage with each other. They want to be more agile, and gain a competitive advantage across all aspects of their business. However, enhancing business performance through this game changing technology is never going to be easy, and the path is not necessarily always clear. It has a direct impact on the applications, infrastructure and professional services organisation you run today. Transitioning a professional services organisation from an existing on-premise technology environment into a cloud model enables you to reset, and rethink, your future technology roadmap. The Cloud can if delivered correctly provide productivity improvements at every step of the journey, empowering your organisation with the promise of unlimited access to critical data no matter where they are. Whether you need improved back office communications, an enriched end-to-end sales process, or overall effective project management, there are opportunities for incremental gains across all aspects of the business by operating in the Cloud. We look at 10 reasons why the Microsoft cloud platform, including Office 365, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the right strategy to better focus on your customers and collaborate with your colleagues to deliver exceptional service levels and outstanding customer experiences.

2 1. Win back time: A more efficient team focused on what matters Microsoft has invested $15 billion to build its massive cloud infrastructure. (Source: Microsoft) Being efficient with your people s time has an obvious and direct correlation with your ability to deliver to your customers. Professional Services organisations need to focus their efforts on value add activities, irrespective of their location. Efficiency improvements come from a number of sources, but when you are working in an environment that is $15 billion invariably not your own office, you need to work unhindered. You need access to timely, accurate information and supporting documentation to deliver to your clients. An effective mobile strategy is essential to be able to continue being efficient on the move. Working in the Microsoft Cloud, users can benefit from a fully mobile, device agnostic experience. The Microsoft Office 365 cloud service and Dynamics CRM Online will give you secure on-the-go access to all your critical client information to help plan resources. Integration with Office 365 and SharePoint will surface vital documentation and applications from the Microsoft Office suite. You will benefit from real time visibility of your project detail and milestones, and your team will be able to access and share data and reports at any time, and make updates wherever they are. What s more, you are in an informed position to make decisions that keep the business moving; stopping the things that don t work and promoting those that do. With consistent Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 experiences across all your devices, easy adoption means immediate efficiency gains. 2. Collaborate in the cloud: A more profitable way to work In this increasingly digital and social world, client relationship managers and client engagement teams can no longer afford to live in a silo. Operating in the Microsoft Cloud will take collaboration across your workforce to new levels. Cloud technology will enable you to instantly share updates and communicate with clients and colleagues in a connected manner wherever they are, and whatever the device. Team members can co-edit sales proposals in real-time to accelerate the sales process. Using SharePoint online, you can open and share documents with just a few taps on your mobile whilst queuing for a coffee; Skype a client from your laptop on a train; start a document on your office PC, finish it on your tablet at home; access your CRM solution securely from a client site, without unpredictable VPN Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 will drive a more connected and highly collaborative platform. connections; and write up notes during the meeting that are instantly saved and backed up in the cloud. Having a reliable technology platform in place that will help manage how you collect, store and secure any developed IP is a critical component of your business. Operating in the Microsoft Cloud provides the opportunity to collaborate, share and develop IP with colleagues quickly, easily and securely. At the same time, the investment in the technology will translate into a satisfied and motivated workforce. Online integrated applications such as Yammer provide Instant Messaging solutions that allow you to share IP, and bounce ideas around your network within teams and the wider organisation. Duplication of effort is removed through collaboration, and the cloud enables Professional Services organisations to be innovative in the way that services are delivered. Sales and project teams will enjoy better collaboration to understand the overall cost model, and as such manage customer expectations within profitable work. Win rates are increased with a more streamlined workforce contributing to the bottom line. 02

3 3. Fine Tune your operations: Achieve service excellence in the cloud Having a complete view of the customer does not necessarily mean you are able to respond to their requirements effectively. Operational excellence comes from all the combined internal operations needed to deliver exceptional customer service. Operating in the Microsoft Cloud environment enables Professional Services organisations to be far more responsive, integrating all the necessary resources and data together. Reports, documents and timely information are all available at your fingertips any time of day, from within the office, working from home or travelling on business. Achieving excellence across your business is about fine tuning how you work, improving the way you operate at every level, and ensuring your customers realise and can see the step change in your performance as well as direct value to their own business. Microsoft Cloud technology has 73% of sales people using social media to sell outperform those who don t. a direct and positive impact on operational effectiveness giving you the platform to focus on incremental improvements in every aspect of your operation, and achieve that competitive edge. As a Professional Services organisation, customer service levels improve through the ability to provide client feedback anytime and anywhere. At any point, you can understand, very quickly and simply, the full view of the client no matter where or how the engagement happens. You can record issues or interactions, track and aggregate these as they occur, and access consolidated information at all times. Successful Professional Services organisations have always focused on a quality service delivery and the enriched client experience. The question is how best to make significant improvements and capitalise on evolving technologies and tools to refine client engagement practices and processes. You will be more available, more responsive and more engaged. This will be reflected in service excellence and have a direct impact on the overall reputation of your firm. 4. Connect your operations through CRM: Achieve visibility across the organisation Professional Services organisations must be able to allocate resources effectively to ensure project delivery, profitability and high utilisation which drives the need for resource management. For those organisations looking particularly at CRM for sales, service and marketing, this can be a fairly discreet deployment. However Dynamics CRM Online within the Microsoft Cloud is now far reaching, and can be used across the organisation. It can be designed as an operational platform to consolidate data, systems and processes, such as HR and Project Management. Effectively run Professional Services organisations aim to connect all functions to achieve end to end visibility: Enhanced governance and reporting associated with each project, helping to understand the resources required and the profit potential. Accounts department need visibility of the status of any project in order to record revenue Project Managers need employee timesheets to understand and forecast project budgets xrm moves Dynamics CRM beyond the traditional in that it can be used to manage any relationship across any department. It becomes the DNA for the organisation, with access to crucial data and processes at all times. The x, literally means anything that has a relationship. So, xrm is any relationship management, whether that s project management, event management, supplier management, fleet management or whatever x management that best suits your business. In this way, CRM can become your operational platform, providing line of business solutions to automate business process, and share data where it s required, enabling the cross-organisation insight that we re seeking. 03

4 5. Benefit from predictable performance on tap It s always on You can be confident you can respond to clients demands at all times. When working in the Microsoft Cloud it s straightforward; you subscribe and it works. It removes the need for multiple suppliers, and you can count on predictable costs. It involves minimal investment and is generally a fast implementation. The end result is always on IT that can quickly scale to support your business. It is a single, integrated platform that reduces overall TCO by reducing complexity and risk. The cost of availability in other scenarios can be significantly high. The initial capital outlay, the cost and time to implement an on-premise solution and the on-going investment to maintain, are all completely replaced with a Cloud solution. Professional Services organisations can now rely on predictable and affordable costs from the outset, safe in the knowledge that the systems will always be current and up to date. Technology updates are delivered to you, providing discipline and governance around your infrastructure avoiding an unmanageable, stale IT landscape. You can be confident you can respond to clients demands at all times. Historically, it was necessary to capacity plan and forecast what your business would be doing in the future, potentially spending money on technology that might never be realised. Cloud technology lets your business scale up and down, responding to your needs, quickly and cost-effectively. No matter how your business evolves, the Cloud can flex to support your business strategy. 6. Get access to the next generation of the customer 360 degree view it s more than CRM 8% higher win rates when PSO s are provided internal and external data CSO Insights. Having visibility of profitability aligned with individual service lines and specific customers at any given time is regarded as a holy grail in professional services. Having that 360 degree view of a particular client has always been a challenge, especially when the demands of the client are 24x7. Being in a position to respond and provide feedback to the customer when required, and being confident that the information you are using is the very latest has not always been easy. We may have felt that we had achieved this full 360 degree view in the past, but given the way people currently engage through technology and specifically their social/ digital engagement, the 360 degree view continues to evolve. The depths that a real time 360 degree view can achieve are dynamic due to how organisations (and individuals within them) decide to interact with everybody and anybody. It used to be about getting a full view of what was inside the organisation s CRM system. Now it s about understanding so much more to ensure you can deliver the very best service for each client s requirements. You need information across your business, and you need to have information and visibility of customer interactions at every level. As a result, you need to be on a technology platform that is always available, can evolve with and keep once step ahead of customer engagement. We have always been able to pull together our internal data which is great. Now we also want to use what customers share socially such as LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter and find out what more people are saying about us and be able to respond. This is the true 360 degrees of our generation. Dynamics CRM Online helps to simplify these connections. 04

5 7. Streamlined customer lifecycle. Enhanced productivity in the cloud Customers can now select from a more comprehensive menu of application deployment and hosting options to suite a wider business strategy. Being able to view a customer from any angle and achieve complete visibility of the total engagement at any time is only half of the challenge. You need to develop a comprehensive end to end customer engagement experience mapping the full length of the customer lifecycle. Although all of these processes may already be in place in your business, a credible CRM cloud solution will help enhance productivity, deliver incremental gains at every level, and help provide a service that makes your organisation an outstanding player in the market. Operating in the Microsoft Cloud enables you to have a clearer view of your customer lifecycle and efficiently and consistently engage at all levels. From initial qualified lead generation to professional sales engagement, and from exceptional project management to outstanding customer support, Professional Services organisations must improve business processes at every step of the journey to deliver incremental performance and profit. By consolidating systems and integrating them across the Microsoft Cloud platform, improvements can be made across every activity. Enhanced productivity is achieved through minimised operational costs where users have anytime access to a consistent and maintained application and data set and automated processes in order to deliver and maintain the best customer lifecycle possible. 8. Invest in leading technology. Attract and retain top talent How do you attract and retain the best talent? The future of your organisation relies on it, and these exceptional people are no fools. They want to join a company that is innovative, forward thinking and can support their aspirations and lifestyle. What s said on the website and in interviews needs to be reality. Successful Professional Services businesses concentrate on the people that work for them, and invest in the right technology to support them. Their expectations of the technology they will be using within the business are high. A forward thinking company will attract and retain forward thinking people. No one wants to be held back by outdated systems and hardware. The Microsoft Cloud enforces regular and efficient technology refreshes ensuring you always have the latest technology without the worry and cost of doing it yourself. The enhanced productivity that this cloud technology provides not only motivates and helps staff members do their job faster, it allows them to remain productive for longer, supports a healthy work/life balance, and can support a positive internal network of engaged, internal advocates. Give your people the best tools for their role. 05

6 9. Capture your content and connections. Protect your greatest assets For any Professional Services organisation, the most important assets are the people that work for you and the customers that you have built up over many years. As much as you may strive to retain people, the workforce is very mobile and your business cannot pause when people move on. How do you then protect the customers you have? At the end of the day, People buy 37% Increase in project collaboration through the social network. (Source: Yammer Business Trends Customer Survey 2013) from People. It is imperative to maintain full visibility of the client engagement so that it can be managed effectively and profitably, delivering to your agreed service levels. At the same time, with any attrition or new joiners, the client account needs to be handed over easily and seamlessly. Working in the Microsoft Cloud enables a seamless transition. It is important to capture every piece of content created and every detailed connection and relationship made during the course of each client engagement. This way, no matter what changes occur inside your organisation, or who leaves your firm, you can ensure a high level of continuity to the client experience. Your technology platform can help with this collaboration of data, and a cutting edge Cloud solution ensures technology never gets in the way of the relationship between you and your clients. It lets you concentrate on the job in hand rather than worrying about the technology. 10. Keep on innovating. Lead with the Microsoft Cloud Customers are becoming more and more informed. All the information they need is available online, and they are empowered to conduct a comprehensive due diligence process. The majority of them have done their homework before they make their initial contact with you, and will have a good view whether you are an organisation worth partnering with. Innovation is perception, and being in a position to quickly respond to potential prospects with information that wows in a format that quickly delivers will help raise your game and put you one step ahead of the competition. Forward thinking organisations have already moved to a cloud platform. Likewise, there are many CRM cloud solutions in the marketplace, but what gives it that wow factor? It s not just what it looks like it s what it can do for your business, and how can it support client engagement. Like other solutions, Dynamics CRM Online can fully integrate with customer billing solutions and other back office systems to provide a total view of the client. However it goes one step further. Operating in the cloud, and with complete native integration with the Microsoft product portfolio makes Dynamics CRM Online stand out from the crowd. It integrates with a wide range of front office to online tools such as Yammer, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Office 365 and Skype. Running a professional Services organisation has just become a whole lot easier and a lot more affordable. No need for video conferencing and managing costly hardware in the office. No longer is it difficult to collaborate and come up 06

7 80% of the Fortune 500 are on the Microsoft Cloud. with the best solutions for your customers. Overall customer service is improved with more accurate billing and better engagement all round. Organisations such as Microsoft keep coming up with the latest innovative ideas, functionality and products, and now deliver them directly into their online cloud platform. Reporting, dashboards, Business Intelligence and being able to monitor what your clients are doing are enhanced in the cloud with Microsoft Power BI. You can now respond to specific questions by delivering answers directly, anytime, rather than having to delve through piles of data yourself. These tools enable normal users to achieve great results. It s real time data at your fingertips. With more knowledge, you can quickly meet the client where they are in the process. That means you need a system that allows you to get up to speed in no time and quickly develop the insights you need to engage in a relevant way. Your teams are empowered to manage new and existing client engagements on a more personal level. They can share data with customers, and can deliver consistent and distinctive experiences that help build your reputation in the marketplace. 07

8 Summary Advancements in technology are creating a shift from the traditional workplace and people are now working in a different way. At the same time sales & project teams need to collaborate at all times to understand the cost model and manage customer expectations. Professional Services Organisations need to focus on increased productivity and improved insights as well as delivery costs across the organisation to achieve competitive advantage at all levels. Your organisation s brand and reputation is directly linked to client perception which in turn is shaped through sales & project engagement. The Microsoft Cloud establishes an integrated technology platform at the core of your business, encouraging processes and ways of working to be fine-tuned, with people collaborating in different and better ways. The end to end sales process is improved from better qualified opportunities, teams collaborating more successfully, and resources planned with improved visibility of the client engagement. All round, the customer feedback loop is improved and project management moves up a level with improved project visibility and real time billing and payments integration and communication with the back office. Overall, working in a cloud environment helps remove the pressures faced by Professional Services organisations, and delivers on improved customer service. It s all about Marginal gains. SharePoint document management and Office 365 enables multiple authors to access documents with ease and co-edit in real-time, without issue. About Gap Consulting Founded in 1999 as a CRM Consultancy, Gap Consulting has worked exclusively with Microsoft Dynamics CRM since As a leading Microsoft Gold Cloud CRM partner, their largest Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online customer is 830 users. Gap Consulting is a member of the prestigious 2014 Microsoft Dynamics President s Club, awarded to the top 5 per cent of Microsoft Dynamics partners worldwide for outstanding business growth and commitment to customer satisfaction. Gap Consulting is also Microsoft Partner of the Year 2015 finalist. Gap Consulting s cloud solution for Professional Services provides the insight, reporting capability and decision making platform needed to run your organisation as efficiently and profitably as possible. The solution provides everything needed to make relationship management as effective as possible. We fully understand the challenges Professional Services organisations face and, more importantly, know how to overcome them. Gap is highly referenceable in this industry with customers happy to share their experiences. In addition, we have the largest base of experienced CRM consultants in the UK, and as such are able to provide solutions from a position of deep, relevant expertise. For further information contact Gap Consulting Ltd, 1 Royal Court Gadbrook Way, Gadbrook Park, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 7UT Tel: info@gapconsulting.co.uk 08