In today’s rapidly evolving manufacturing landscape, staying ahead of the curve is not just an option—it’s a necessity. A new white paper titled “The Business Value of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Manufacturers” analyzes how manufacturers are using Dynamics 365 to enhance their operations, drive innovation, and achieve significant cost savings. A treasure trove of insights and data, it’s an essential read showing how Dynamics 365 is revolutionizing operations and driving innovation for manufacturers.

“There are many benefits of Dynamics 365, but the largest for my organization has been using task automation and process automation to improve productivity, streamline workflows, and reduce manual errors. Another large benefit is that the software has become a single source of truth for data. Having centralized data has enabled my organization to have more actionable insights through dashboards and reports. The real-time data visibility has made it easier to steer and improve our customer interaction.” 

Dynamics 365 Customer

Why this analysis matters 

The white paper is a result of extensive research by IDC, which conducted in-depth interviews with seven organizations that have implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 to evaluate the value that Dynamics 365 brings to the manufacturing sector. The study provides a clear picture of the financial, operational, and strategic benefits of adopting Dynamics 365. With the increasing complexity of manufacturing operations and the need for digital transformation, it’s crucial for organizations to understand how Dynamics 365 can help them meet the challenges they face.

The findings from the study aren’t just theoretical. They’re backed by real-world data and experiences of companies that have realized tangible benefits from using Dynamics 365. Here are some highlights from the white paper: 

1. Significant financial benefits: The research reveals that organizations that use Microsoft Dynamics 365 achieve an average annual benefit of $20.6 million each, which translates to $7.4 million per 1,000 active users. The return on investment is substantial, with a three-year ROI of 301%. 

2. Enhanced operational efficiency: Dynamics 365 lead to a 27% increase in manufacturing process automation, a 15% boost in production floor team productivity, and an 85% reduction in unplanned asset downtime. These improvements translate to quicker order and product delivery times, reduced scrap costs, and more productive supply chain and procurement teams. 

3. AI-powered business processes: One of the standout features of Dynamics 365 is its integration of AI and machine learning. The platform’s AI agents can autonomously coordinate complex workflows, turning insights into action. With this capability, organizations can anticipate and mitigate disruptions, driving business performance in today’s dynamic landscape. 

IDC’s key discoveries about Dynamics 365 

The white paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the key benefits and capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics 365. Here are some of the key points that IDC found: 

1. More efficient manufacturing: Dynamics 365 enhances team performance, minimizes downtime, and optimizes supply chains and product delivery operations. This leads to significant improvements, revolutionizing operations and driving innovation in overall manufacturing efficiency. 

2. Cost savings: Dynamics 365 improves scrap utilization, enhances quality management, and provides better project cost estimates, with substantial cost savings for organizations. 

3. Enhanced financial operations: Dynamics 365 reduces the time needed to close monthly accounting books and improves the performance of inventory finance and accounts payable teams, leading to more efficient financial operations and better financial management. 

Maximizing the value of this analysis  

The white paper isn’t just a collection of data points—it’s a roadmap for manufacturers looking to transform their operations. Here are some of the benefits for readers: 

1. Informed decision-making: The detailed analysis and real-world examples can help business leaders make informed decisions about investing in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Financial metrics such as the average annual benefits provide a clear picture of the potential returns on investment. 

2. Operational insights: The white paper offers valuable insights into how Dynamics 365 can streamline manufacturing processes, improve inventory management, enhance financial operations, and optimize supply chains. These insights can help organizations identify areas where they can achieve significant efficiency gains. 

3. Strategic planning: The white paper discusses the broader implications of digital transformation in the manufacturing sector. It emphasizes the importance of connecting multiple data models across the organization to ensure consistent synchronization of go-to-market, R&D, production, supply chain, and service initiatives. Such a holistic approach is crucial for achieving a true life-cycle approach to innovating, producing, and delivering products to customers. 

4. Future-proofing operations: The analysis demonstrates how manufacturers can position themselves for future success by adopting Microsoft Dynamics 365. The platform’s AI-powered capabilities and cloud-based infrastructure enable organizations to grow faster, deliver meaningful impact, and drive business performance. The white paper also discusses the importance of building economies of intelligence to collate, analyze, and consume business data, critical for manufacturers looking to the future. 

Discover the benefits

MANUFACTURING BENEFITS 

• 15% more production floor team productivity 

• 85% less unplanned asset downtime 

• 40% quicker order/product delivery time 

• 10% reduction in scrap costs 

• $467,000 in annual scrap cost savings 

• 20% more productive supply chain and procurement teams 

• $2.8 million in revenue generated from improvements in the accuracy of project costs 

INVENTORY AND SALES BENEFITS 

• 20% more productive inventory management teams 

• $3.5 million in annual inventory related cost savings 

• 14% more productive sale and marketing teams 

FINANCE BENEFITS 

• 29% less time required to close end of the month books 

• 18% more productive invoice, finance and accounts payable teams 

Conclusion 

“The Business Value of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Manufacturers” is an invaluable resource for business leaders looking to transform and future-proof their manufacturing operations and drive meaningful business performance. It not only highlights the significant benefits of adopting Dynamics 365 but also provides a clear roadmap for achieving these benefits. Discover for yourself how Dynamics 365 is revolutionizing operations and driving innovation for manufacturers.

“Dynamics 365 helps to automate a lot of processes to reduce transactional work for the business, especially for the sales and purchasing departments. We have really shifted the focus of these people to do more business with their suppliers and customers rather than spending time in transactional business.” 

Dynamics 365 Customer

Learn more 

Not yet a Dynamics 365 customer? Take a tour and start a free trial. 

Source 

¹IDC White Paper, sponsored by Microsoft, The Business Value of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Manufacturers, doc #US53226425, March 2025 

The post Transforming manufacturing with Microsoft Dynamics 365: A comprehensive analysis  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We’re thrilled to introduce the public preview release of Scheduling Operations Agent, a feature for Dynamics 365 Field Service enabling dispatchers to improve technician schedules quickly and efficiently. Transform dispatching in Dynamics 365 Field Service today!

In field service organizations, scheduling is not just an operational task, it is a promise to customers about when their issues will be addressed. Traditionally, this complex process requires dispatchers to juggle numerous factors including technician skillsets, travel time, and promise windows. As conditions change throughout the day, such as traffic delays or appointment cancellations, dispatchers spend a lot of manual effort with time-consuming and intricate workflows to update schedules. 

The Scheduling Operations Agent allows dispatchers to quickly and easily optimize technician schedules within seconds, ensuring that your customers receive timely and efficient service. You can enable this agent to transform dispatching in your Dynamics 365 Field Service environment using the instructions here. 

Optimizing technician schedules with custom settings 

Wherever you are in the Dynamics 365 Field Service application, reviewing work orders or analyzing the schedule board, you can use Copilot to bring up the Scheduling Operations Agent. After specifying the technician for whom you want to optimize the schedule, you can select among the optimization goals: 

• Maximize utilization: suggest a schedule so that the technician completes more work orders, taking priority and promise windows into consideration while minimizing travel time. 

• Front-load high priority work: prioritize the inclusion of more high priority work orders, at the expense of more travel time.  

When optimizing the schedule, the agent considers existing bookings as well as additional unfulfilled requirements. You can influence the schedule generated by the agent by crafting requirement views according to business objectives. For example, if you are trying to compensate for cancelled bookings, you may want to select requirements which have promise windows which are soon to expire. 

You can optimize the schedule over a time range that can be up to 72 hours in duration. 

Also, you can further influence how the agent produces a suggested schedule by specifying whether or not it should: 

• Match the characteristics of the bookings and requirements with those of the technician. 

• Match the territory of the bookings and requirements with those of the technician. 

• Consider the time constraints of the bookings and requirements. 

• Consider the historic traffic information (e.g. rush hour patterns) when calculating travel time.  

Read our documentation to learn more about adjusting the behavior of the agent. 

Optimize with confidence

When there are dozens of jobs to be scheduled, dispatchers need to have confidence in the optimization result. With each autonomous scheduling recommendation, dispatchers can delve into the details to review and approve, combining the efficiency of AI with the crucial oversight of experienced eyes. This collaboration ensures that every schedule is optimized and locked in with confidence. 

When using the Scheduling Operations Agent, the dispatcher can compare the original schedule with the suggested schedule in a Gantt chart and compare the travel routes. 

Learn more 

The Scheduling Operations Agent is now available in preview to customers with Dynamics 365 Field Service. Its use requires Copilot Studio capacity packs. To learn more about enabling the agent and using it, read the documentation. 

The post Transform dispatching in Dynamics 365 Field Service with Scheduling Operations Agent  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Today, we’re introducing updates that will help centralize user license management and provide clarity for administrators. Starting April 30th, administrators will have access to license usage reporting that shows seats available and seats assigned. For users that have not yet been assigned a license, they will start to see an in-product notification asking them to contact their administrator to request license assignment. Beginning August 30th, users will require an assigned license to access the Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations applications. We are giving customers time to prepare with tools and training to support any action needed. For users that already have licenses assigned, there will be no disruption, and no action needed from their administrator.   

Key Dates and Actions for Simplified License Management 

Starting April 30, 2025, we will introduce enhanced license reporting in the Power Platform admin center, offering comprehensive insights into license usage across all security roles. Users who do not meet license requirements will receive proactive notifications directly within the Dynamics 365 application, instructing them to request proper licensing through their administrator. This improvement supports your efforts to maintain precise control and ensures compliance while reducing administrative overhead. 

Beginning August 30, 2025, all Dynamics 365 customers will be required to assign user licenses directly through the Microsoft 365 admin center for the following applications: 

• Finance 

• Finance Premium 

• Supply Chain Management 

• Supply Chain Management Premium 

• Commerce 

• Project Operations (in Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations) 

• Human Resources 

This shift toward centralized license assignment underscores our commitment to simplifying administrative processes, providing greater visibility and governance, and enhancing the overall licensing experience across the Microsoft Cloud. 

To maintain continuous access and avoid disruptions in the future, we recommend organizations proactively review and assign licenses in advance.  Users without assigned licenses will no longer have access to these applications and will instead receive prompts to request the appropriate licenses from their administrator.  

Preparing for a Smooth Transition 

As we approach this important milestone, we encourage you to: 

1. Review the “Finance and Operations User license level overview report” in the Power Platform admin center. 

2. Begin assigning your Dynamics 365 licenses in the Microsoft 365 admin center today. 

Taking these steps will help ensure a smooth transition before August 30, 2025, and position your organization for success in managing licenses across Microsoft Cloud solutions. 

Take control of your license reporting: 

Now, administrators can better understand and govern licenses with the improved license reporting capabilities available in both the Power Platform admin center as well as in Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS). We have also introduced in-product reporting to provide further control. 

1) In the Power Platform admin center 

Within Power Platform admin center (PPAC), administrators will have access to comprehensive license reporting for required seats. This report also reflects the number of assigned seats from the Microsoft 365 admin center and provides recommended actions to help remediate assignment gaps.  

2) In Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) 

Similarly, in LCS we will be directly integrating the same reporting information from PPAC as part of our admin unification efforts.  This ensures that administrators from both the customer and their system implementation partner will have access to the same reporting details and actions as administrators in PPAC. 

3) In-product reporting 

User Security Governance is also now in Public Preview with Dynamics 365 version 10.0.43, providing administrators with even greater visibility and control. General availability for these features is targeted for July 2025 with version 10.0.44. Customers can opt into these features through Feature Management and test them in sandbox environments ahead of broad deployment. 

Learn More 

Ready to get started with a centralized license assignment? Learn how to assign Dynamics 365 licenses through the Microsoft 365 admin center or explore the recent FastTrack Tech Talk | User Security Governance Overview. 

Microsoft remains dedicated to empowering your organization with the tools and resources needed to thrive in today’s complex business environment. These license management improvements are just one more way we’re working to simplify your experience and help you focus on what matters most—delivering value to your customers and driving operational excellence. 

The post Simplifying License Management for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations: Improved User License Validation appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In today’s fast-evolving customer service landscape, the integration of AI, such as Copilot and autonomous agents, is transforming how businesses interact with their customers. However, this advancement brings about the need for clear and precise terminology to avoid confusion.

Renaming the apps

To ensure our AI experiences align with Microsoft’s AI-first vision, we will differentiate our brand accordingly. This approach provides consistent yet distinct user experience and introduces Copilot-related features with appropriate branding and user onboarding.

As a step toward creating an autonomous contact center, we are renaming Customer Service workspace and Contact Center workspace to Copilot Service workspace. Additionally, we are renaming Customer Service admin center and Contact Center admin center to Copilot Service admin center.

How we use the terms “agents” and “bots”

Currently, the term “agent” refers to both AI bots and human representatives within Dynamics 365 Customer Service products. This leads to confusion and possible friction. Additionally, to align with Microsoft’s technological direction and ensure clarity, it is crucial that our terminology is helpful and consistent.

Moving forward, “AI agent” will exclusively refer to autonomous agents. “Customer service representative” will be adopted for the human consultants across Copilot Service admin center and Copilot Service workspace, marketing materials, release notes, videos, documentation, and customer interactions. Where “customer service representative” is too lengthy, we will shorten this term to “service representative” or simply “representative.” Specific features that have used “agent” have also been renamed to either become more generic or to a version of this change (e.g., Agent Scripts to Scripts, and the Agent Experience Profiles to Experience Profiles) but are still located in the same areas.

How we use the term “customer service representative”

We adopted the term “customer service representative” as a replacement for “agent” in our products. This term broadly applies to various roles within customer service, support, and success, making it the most suitable alternative. While “agent” remains prevalent in the industry, we want to be at the forefront of our mission towards the new age of AI agents. The role of customer service involves direct interaction with customers and includes titles like agent, representative, and technician.

What’s next

We will be rolling these changes out in the next few weeks by April 2025 Wave. Through implementing consistent use of these updated terms across all platforms and materials, we aim to eliminate confusion, enhance clarity, and align with industry standards, ultimately improving our customer service interactions and relationships.

If your app name is already customized, it will not be affected. If you’d like to customize your app name, description, or icon, use app designer.

The product names for Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Dynamics 365 Contact Center will remain the same.

The post Naming updates to Copilot Service workspace and service representatives appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Customer expectations continue to grow, with rising demand for seamless, connected, and personalized experiences across sales, marketing, and service. However, meeting these demands can be a complex and expensive undertaking, and legacy applications accessing siloed data cannot keep up. This is why we are seeing many organizations move from point solutions and fragmented application stacks. To further improve customer experiences and operational efficiency, organizations are also looking for ways to harness the transformative potential of generative AI.

The Forrester Wave™: Customer Relationship Management, Q1 2025

Microsoft has been recognized as a Leader

Read the report

​To help organizations accomplish these goals and deliver better business outcomes, Microsoft Dynamics 365 brings together a complete customer relationship management (CRM) platform driven by our latest advancements in generative AI. Today, we’re delighted to announce that Microsoft has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Relationship Management, Q1 2025.

A unified platform for marketing, sales, and service

The industry and our customers recognize that we’re developing an integrated and autonomous CRM platform that reduces the complexity of meeting customer expectations and uses groundbreaking generative AI to transform sales and service experiences—for customers and employees alike.

​Dynamics 365 CRM applications (consisting of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights) are underpinned by a common data layer in Microsoft Dataverse, which reduces the integration burden and serves as the foundation for Microsoft’s generative AI leadership. Data from across sales, marketing, and service engagements fuels Microsoft Copilot and AI agents, allowing them to deliver more personalized and effective self-service experiences and automate tasks to assist human reps.

Investing in next-generation AI with Copilot and agents

We’re helping organizations improve customer experience and support reps to be more productive by infusing generative AI in the places where it will have the greatest impact in sales, marketing, and service journeys.

Copilot is fully integrated into Dynamics 365, allowing marketers to target the right prospects, empowering sellers to close more deals, offering customers engaging self-service interactions, and supporting service reps to accelerate issue resolution.

As part of our continuing investment in helping our customers achieve more with AI, we’ve recently augmented Copilot with AI agents. Copilot acts as the interface for AI, working as a personal AI assistant, with agents functioning like apps, automating common tasks or autonomously completing entire business processes.

Microsoft has announced 10 agents across the Dynamics 365 portfolio of business applications, including agents for sales qualification, deep research in sales, intent determination, knowledge management, and case management. These agents are designed to streamline workflows, reduce manual effort, and enhance decision-making by providing intelligent insights and recommendations. It’s also fast and easy for organizations to build their own agents using the generative AI and low-code tools in Microsoft Copilot Studio. With these tools, businesses can create custom agents tailored to their specific needs, allowing them to automate unique processes and improve overall efficiency.

A secure CRM platform built on responsible AI principles

Importantly, the AI capabilities in Dynamics 365 are developed with a steadfast commitment to trustworthy AI, guided by our responsible AI principles of fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability.

In addition, generative AI features in Dynamics 365 utilize Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, which offers the highest levels of data privacy and security. By developing AI that is responsible and secure by design, we’re furthering our mission to help every person and organization on the planet achieve more.

First West Credit Union accelerates issue resolution

One of the organizations achieving more with Dynamics 365 is First West Credit Union. As one of Canada’s largest credit unions, it aims to forge authentic connections with its members, but this mission was hampered by a patchwork of legacy CRM platform deployments across different parts of the business.

With Dynamics 365, First West Credit Union now has a single platform to help it engage members more effectively while meeting federal regulatory requirements for complaints management. Because Dynamics 365 functionality mapped so closely to the needs of users and the business, First West Credit Union saw 100% adoption within seven weeks of launching the system. What’s more, member complaints are now being resolved well within the federally required timeline, with 87% resolved in 14 days or less, compared to 49% before the implementation.

“One of the key value points of the Dynamics 365 platform is that, need for need, the capabilities are there. We were able to map the functionality to the business needs very well, right out of the box. That really helped us fast-track this initiative.”

Darrell Jaggers, CIO and Chief Transformation Officer, First West Credit Union

Lexmark boosts sales and service efficiency and productivity

Another organization that emphasizes building strong customer relationships is Lexmark, a global leader in printing and imaging products, software, solutions, and services. However, a reliance on disparate legacy solutions meant tracking customer journeys was a complex and inefficient process.

By replacing Salesforce and Siebel solutions with Dynamics 365, Lexmark now has a unified CRM platform for delivering outstanding customer service and operational efficiency. By working more efficiently in Dynamics 365, Lexmark has increased order accuracy by 43% and boosted contact center productivity by 23%.

“We’ve been on the journey with Microsoft after moving from Salesforce to Dynamics 365 Sales. We’re excited to be one of the first customers to use Sales Qualification Agent and look forward to the ability to scale our sales team with agents and provide an exceptional experience to our customers.”

Kyle Farmer, Vice President, Global Sales and Strategy, Lexmark

Learn more about Dynamics 365 CRM platforms

We’re excited to be recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™ and we will continue to invest in creating a state-of-the-art-CRM platform, allowing our customers to constantly enhance experiences for their own customers and empower their employees to achieve more. 

Learn more about: 

• Dynamics 365 
• Dynamics 365 Contact Center
• Dynamics 365 Sales
• Dynamics 365 Customer Service
• Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

Contact your Microsoft representative to learn more about what you could achieve with Dynamics 365.

Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.

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