Microsoft Spring 2016 Wave of Dynamics CRM is released

The Spring 2016 Wave of Microsoft Dynamics CRM is now generally available, Microsoft has announced. 

This release will allow previously-unseen features and capabilities to be used 

We continue to evolve our solutions to help companies drive their intelligent customer engagement strategy forward, and we are very excited to announce the general availability of the Spring 2016 Wave of Microsoft Dynamics CRM begins today. This release brings a host of new features and capabilities that empower companies to realize opportunities like the Rolls Royce example. With this release, we have a truly unique offering with customer service, field service and project all on one platform.  As such, we’re poised to help companies:

• Capitalize on the new service economy with field service and project service automation
• Engage end consumers, partners and external communities with portal capabilities
• Empower employees via intelligent, adaptive processes with ground-breaking capabilities such as auto intent analysis

It is more important than ever for businesses to develop and maintain in-depth understanding of their customers in order to provide them with predictive, proactive and personalized experiences. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Spring 2016 Wave offers powerful capabilities that help businesses connect more closely with customers, empower employees, create new business models, and ultimately transform their business and their industry.

Param Kahlon provides more detail on the Spring 2016 Wave in the Microsoft Dynamics Blog.

Revolutionary new Connected Field Service solution for end-to-end IoT to field service

Today Microsoft is also introducing a ground-breaking Connected Field Service solution that will be available in preview on June 7.  With out-of-the-box IoT to field service capabilities, Microsoft is helping companies transform the way they do business in the service economy.

In a Connected Field Service scenario, IoT-enabled devices are continuously monitored and anomalies are detected, generating alerts that trigger automated actions or service tickets and workflow according to service level agreements. Availability and proximity of service technicians with the right skills and tools are then matched against the service requirement and routed to customer locations to take preventive action.

“We’re enthusiastic about Microsoft’s vision for Connected Field Service because it has the promise of helping us to continue to bring the service we can offer our customers to even to even higher levels,” said Paul Spruiell, VP of Operations at NAVCO, a leader in physical security systems. “Working toward future scenarios that include predictive maintenance on our systems opens up new opportunities to automate our processes, and in turn provide an unprecedented level of comfort for our customers.”

With Connected Field Service, we are able to help field service customers realize the potential of predictive maintenance with IoT.

Register and attend our June 7 event to learn how leading companies today are delivering incredible experiences and creating the new business models of tomorrow

I would also like to take this opportunity to invite you to attend Customer Driven on June 7. This is an online event that will highlight the Spring 2016 Wave and drill into how we power the service economy. I’ll be hosting along with Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at Microsoft, and industry thought leader Paul Greenberg, president of the 56 Group and author of “CRM at the Speed of Light,” as we showcase our standout service capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers including Blendtec and NAVCO will be on hand to share their insights about how Microsoft is helping them transform their businesses with the next generation of service. Event details can be found here: www.microsoft.com/customer-driven.

This is a tremendously exciting time in the world of customer engagement, and we look forward to being an instrumental part of helping companies transform the ways in which they engage their customers, empower their employees, optimize their operations, and deliver new products and services!

1. According to the Customer 2020 Report, by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator (Source: Customers 2020 Report).