Microsoft CRM Email Marketing Options

Microsoft Dynamics GP Statement of Direction Released

The first half of 2012 has generated exciting opportunities and challenges for the Microsoft Dynamics community - issues that will define success in enterprise software planning for years to come.  From new product releases to the evolution of cloud opportunities to new industry trends.

Join us at Decisions Spring 2012, MSDynamicsWorld.com's next FREE virtual conference, June 18-21, for a chance to learn from and connect with Dynamics experts from around the world, including Microsoft officials, MVPs, and more.  

Dedicated Dynamics Product Days  

Decisions Spring 2012 features dedicated product days for AX, GP, NAV, and CRM. Attend the day that matters to you from your own desktop to:

Learn from Dynamics product experts Explore the latest related solutions from top vendors Network with your peers, prospects, and subject matter experts Register Here Now!

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Sales managers usually have no problem grasping the value of CRM (Customer Relationship Management).  It presents sales data in an easily-digested format that allows managers to adjust programs, processes and people to optimize selling.  For sales people, however, CRM is often viewed as a new burden, a hindrance and an example of the sales manager shifting his work on to them. In reality, it’s as helpful to sales staffers as it is to managers, if used right.  But perception is reality, so sales managers need to help overcome preconceptions of their sales staff.  In other words, sales managers need to sell CRM to their sales staff.  However, CRM brings so many benefits up and down the sales ecosystem that it becomes an easy sale if those benefits are articulated properly.

But what’s in it for the sales staff?

This post has some great information on Word Templates in Microsoft Dynamics GP

Microsoft has released an official document on the Microsoft CRM Q2 release and a video with a good summary

This is the third of a 3 part series on 1) Increasing Inventory Turns, 2) Reducing Inventory and 3) Improving Service Levels.  

In today's competitive environment, companies want to place the customer #1.  Part of placing the customer #1 means providing sales service excellence - fulfilling a customer order within the customer's desired lead time.  The degree to how quickly you plan to fill a customer order can have a major impact on inventory investment, working capital, and carrying costs. Therefore, it is critical that a company balance the level to which the customer is served against the investment required to meet that commitment. Fortunately, there are statistical models available that provide a quantitative basis for this decision. The inputs to these models are discussed below, but it is important to note that these methods should not replace open dialogue with your customers to determine their actual lead time needs and projected demands.     

We recommend the following 5 steps to determine...

Don't miss this exciting AXUG Workshop repeat from this highly rated interactive discussion session, IDAX04, at Convergence 2012 in Houston. This session will review best practices for setting up the Enterprise Portal in Dynamics AX.

This webinar is part of the AXUG Convergence Encore series. The best AXUG led interactive discussion sessions from Convergence 2012 are being offered as AXUG webinars and are open to all AXUG members.

The Enterprise Portal is an organization's window to their business. Extending the reach of the business application to more users in the organization leads to better data management and access to information. In this session we'll focus on building and extending the portal to optimize for the best user experience. Find out how to set up Enterprise Portal from both a technical and functional perspective and learn the steps to follow, the software licenses needed, and the potholes to look out for during set up.

This is an open AXUG event. All members are invited to...

This is the second of a 3 part series on 1) Increasing Inventory Turns, 2) Reducing Inventory and 3) Improving Service Levels.   It is clear to most business people that reducing inventory levels, if done properly, can save money and hence allow you to make more money.   More specifically, reducing inventory allows you to tie up less money in working capital inventory.  It also reduces what's susceptible to obsolescence, spoilage, theft and damage.  Less inventory means less time moving inventory around.  Less insurance.  High levels of inventory can make it hard to find the inventory you need in a timely manner, reducing your operating speed and throughput.   However, if you decide to have lower levels of inventory, you are exposed to the risk of not having a finished good for a customer order or a component for a production order.   It is not easy to balance the need to have enough inventory to satisfy this demand with the desire to reduce inventory to save money.  Fortunately, there are some proven...

This is the first of a 3 part series on 1) Increasing Inventory Turns, 2) Reducing Inventory and 3) Improving Service Levels.

The industry term “Inventory Turns” means the number of times inventory is consumed (used or sold) over some period of time.  Most of the time, turns are measured per year.  For a manufacturing business, it’s important to look at how quickly raw materials, work in process and finished goods are turning over.

Academically, Inventory Turns can either be measured on a unit or dollar basis.  Unit-wise, Turns equals units sold divided by average units on-hand over a given period.  Dollars-wise, Turns equals Cost of Goods Sold divided by Average Inventory over the same period.  Finally, some organizations find it better to use retail sales numbers over average retail inventory.  It is important for your organization to look at these three methods to determine what makes the most sense to your company.

In addition, it’s important for a business to understand its true cost of inventory, and of holding inventory, since this will drive the appropriate level of time, effort and financial resources before running into the law of diminishing returns.  For example, perishable items requiring refrigeration have relatively high carrying costs.  Manufacturing or distribution centers sitting on expensive real estate locations also have high storage costs.  Finally, the local labor cost also factors into these total costs.  All of these elements, along with utilities, insurance, etc., comprise the holding cost, and increasing turns helps reduce this holding cost.

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