Why Analysts Are Backing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales as the Future of CRM and AI-Driven Transformation

At this time of year, many Australian organisations are looking to boost next year’s sales or beat this year’s sales achievements.  Many organisations identify problems in these areas and start their CRM journey with a sales project aimed to boost sales revenue or profit.  Automating more of the sales function not only reduces the time spent on manual sales tasks in the future and so increases the time available to work with clients and future clients.  Read on to see why Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales is seen as the Future of CRM and AI-Driven Transformation by the key analysts.

Organisations see the benefits of moving from point solutions and fragmented application stacks to the integrated solution offered by Microsoft while leveraging the transformative potential of generative AI.  The AI functionality can massively reduce the time taken on manual tasks, so salespeople gain valuable hours each day to work on live opportunities.  Gartner has predicted that by 2026, B2B sales organisations using generative-AI-embedded sales technologies will reduce the amount of time spent on prospecting and customer-meeting preparation by more than 50%!  If you are not adopting a fully integrated suite of products, meeting your customers’ demand for a fully personalised experience across all of their interactions with you, is likely to be a complex and expensive undertaking.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales offers a true, 360° view of your customers and prospects and as part of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 family which also includes Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 HR as well as the more well-known Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations forms part of complete solution for any business.

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 family is a unified platform for marketing, sales, service, finance, project management and HR with AI supporting efficiencies across the organisation.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation Platforms (2024)

Why?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales was recognised for its seamless integration with Microsoft 365, Power BI, and LinkedIn, which enhance seller productivity and reduce IT costs.  While this seamless integration is not a surprise, it is a massive benefit to your users who are already using Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams and LinkedIn as part of their everyday sales effort.  

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales acts as a centralising tool for documents and communication with prospects and clients.  It also leverages Microsoft 365 to generate high quality, client-facing document and readily produce summaries of sales achievements extremely quickly.

Although many of the competitors have some integration to Microsoft Office, none of them have the same strengths of deep collaboration with the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Gartner also called out Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales comprehensive sales automation capabilities, including opportunity management, forecasting, and AI-driven insights.  Many vendors have integrated AI features although Microsoft appear to have leveraged their ownership of Microsoft Office to take the lead in this arena.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Force Automation achieved top scores in Forrester Wave™ Q3 2023

Why?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Force Automation was called out by Forrester for its Vision, Innovation, and Roadmap for CoPilot – the inbuilt AI solution which is a key part of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 family - and its real time insights which highlights, actionable data that empowers sellers with timely to drive more effective and informed customer relationships.

Microsoft named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Relationship Management, Q1 2025

Why?

Meeting demands for seamless, connected, and personalised experiences across sales, marketing, and service can be a complex and expensive undertaking, and legacy applications accessing siloed data cannot keep up.  So, many organisations want to move from point solutions and fragmented application stacks to the integrated stack offered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales – which of course works seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service and more seamlessly than many of the competitors with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - for Marketing, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations.