Microsoft Dynamics 365 |Sales Manager Highlights in Business Central (Demo)

I want to show you how a sales manager might use Dynamics 365 Business Central. The key component of Business Central that will really help a sales manager is opportunity management. Business Central allows opportunities to be created and managed through your entire life cycle, giving the sales manager a lot of information on how their sales staff is doing and how sales are going overall. So let’s take a look at it.

Interaction Levels

There are different levels in which salespeople can interact with opportunities in Business Central. We’re going to look at three of them. One of them is a fully immersive interaction with an opportunity, tracking all activities that happen with an opportunity, updating on a regular basis. The second type of opportunity we’ll look at is a sales cycle. We’ll set up a sales cycle that goes through five or six different steps and how a salesperson would walk an opportunity through those steps. And finally, we’ll look at a simple one. It’s going to be an opportunity that’s focused on closing. We’ll update the dates, we’ll update the amounts, and when it’s closed, it’s closed. That’s it. We’re not going to track tasks, we’re not going to track different cycles within the opportunity.

Analytical Reports

And finally, we’ll look at a number of analytical reports that are built in Business Central that you can use as a sales manager. So let’s get started.

Viewing Opportunities

I’m logged in as a sales manager to Business Central. Let’s take a look at opportunities. I have a number of opportunities here: some have not been started, others are in progress, and others have been closed. You can see all the opportunities here.

Interacting with Opportunities

Let’s look at this opportunity here. This is a new opportunity created off a campaign. Here’s the opportunity right now, specific to a customer. All these opportunities were created for existing customers. You can also create them for contacts.

Immersive Interaction

Here’s a sales cycle code. This one is fairly immersive, with many sales cycle steps and tasks within those steps. A salesperson can create interactions at every one of those cycle steps.

Managing Tasks

The opportunity lists all the cycle steps at the bottom. For this sales cycle, I’ve set up not only the steps but also tasks. I can see a list of tasks that need to be completed or canceled for this particular opportunity. Every opportunity that has the sales cycle will also have these tasks.

Completing Tasks

Let’s take a look at one of the tasks. I can see what I need to do for this task. As a salesperson, this is pretty easy to go through. Once I’m done, I’ll just close it, mark it as completed, and register an interaction for this.

Updating Opportunity Details

Now, I can start filling in more information about this opportunity. Let’s put a dollar amount in here, change the chance of success, and choose the closing date.

Analyzing Opportunities

Now, you can see the current stage is the presentation. We’ve updated the stage and have more numbers here, making it more interesting for the sales manager to figure out what’s going on with this opportunity.

Creating Quotes

Now that I’ve qualified this opportunity, I want to go ahead and create a quote for this. I’ll add some items into it, complete the quote, and send it to the client.

Advancing the Opportunity

Next, I want to advance this opportunity to the next stage. I’ll update the quote amount, raise the chance of success, and specify the closing date.

Closing the Opportunity

The client calls me back and says they want to go ahead with it. It’s easy to do; I’ll make an order out of it, and the opportunity will be closed because we turn this into a sales order.

Reviewing the Closed Opportunity

Let’s take a quick look at the new sales order created from the quote that was part of the opportunity. Now it’s ready to be managed by the distribution department.

Exploring Different Sales Cycle Approaches

Let’s start another opportunity, this time using the same sales cycle code. We can hover over it to get more information or ask Co-Pilot for assistance. This sales opportunity has the sales cycle code, but this time, I’m not going to record all the interactions. I just want to move the opportunity through the sales cycle.

Moving through Sales Cycle Stages

I’ll activate the first stage. Once activated, it’s an active opportunity, and I cannot delete it. I’ll just keep going through the different sales cycles, updating the opportunity with additional information along the way.

Creating a Presentation

Now it’s time to make a presentation. In this sales cycle, a quote is required, so I’ll create a sales quote first.

Progressing through the Proposal and Close

I’ll update the opportunity to show that I made the presentation, then proceed to the next step: making the proposal. The final step is when the customer signs the contract, and we can close it. By creating a sales order, the opportunity is closed.

Simplified Opportunity Management

Now let’s look at a new opportunity, this time using a different sales cycle called “Summary.” This sales cycle only requires that I initiate it, then add as much information and different stages as I want to.

Updating and Tracking Opportunities

I can update this opportunity as many times as I want. For example, I can update the amount and the chance of success based on new information or interactions with the client.

Creating Opportunities

There are two basic ways to create opportunities. One way is to go to the opportunities list and create a new one, specifying the contact, company, and sales cycle code. Another way is to create opportunities from a campaign and a segment of that campaign.

Utilizing Campaigns for Opportunity Creation

I’ve created a campaign and a segment for that campaign, consisting of existing customers. Now I can create opportunities from this segment, making it an easy way to generate multiple opportunities at once.

Analyzing Opportunity Data

Let’s take a look at some of the reporting capabilities within Business Central for sales opportunities. We can view opportunities on the Role Center, analyze data by quarter or salesperson, and generate various standard reports.

Leveraging Co-Pilot for Insights

Co-Pilot can also help us find relevant sales reports within Business Central, making it easier to access and analyze data for better decision-making.

Conclusion

We explored how a sales manager might use Dynamics 365 in their organization, focusing on opportunity management and different ways to interact with opportunities. Business Central provides robust tools for managing and analyzing sales opportunities effectively.