JourneyTEAM CRM and ERP teams focus on reviewing different products and services so that we know how to better guide our clients. The latest review is the updated Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce product. We are excited to see the capabilities of this product and how clients can take advantage of the services.
Let’s do a quick overview of the product and then our JourneyTEAM CRM and ERP teams have included some personal insights and thoughts.
Dynamics 365 Commerce
According to Microsoft, the Dynamics 365 Commerce delivers a personalized and seamless shopping experience across physical and digital channels. The product is capable of working on any device. It allows customers to purchase when, how, and where they want. This includes purchasing through online and offline channels. With this solution, Microsoft allows the option for customers to buy online, pick up in-store or receive home delivery. This is great especially with the recent pandemic and social distancing. Commerce does have some good fulfillment options for customers. It allows consumers to take advantage of sales promotions across all channels. It is organized well by store, catalog, or customer affiliation needs. It does a good job with accurate and real-time omnichannel sales and cost information. All these things make it great for both the consumer and the business owner.
Build Customer Loyalty
Dynamics 365 Commerce talks about a comprehensive view of each customer on a unified commerce platform. It does do a good job engaging with the customers and fostering lasting relationships through intelligent tools. Again this is great for the customer and the business owner. Commerce has an engaging digital storefront with built-in web authoring and easy-to-use development tools. It has a very capable web storefront that makes for great branding and customization. The storefront also helps exceed customer expectations through tailored product selection. It’s easy to use and looks good.
When adding Customer Insights, Dynamics 365 Commerce has a good 360-degree view of your customer. It connects physical and digital storefronts into a single view of transactions, observational data, and behavioral data. In short, Dynamics 365 Commerce allows your employees to foster lasting relationships through AI-driven recommendations and loyalty programs. There are many real positives to this platform.
Optimize Data and Retail Operations
Dynamics 365 Commerce makes great strides to implement and use more Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its design. For example, it has the capability to recommend the right products at the right time and price. For the business owner, Commerce allows you to centrally track product information, categories, assortment, and pricing. This helps you make better-informed decisions on inventory, forecasting customer demand as well as vendor management. Data is a strong point of Microsoft and they are doing a good job adding advanced analytics and machine learning.
Security and Flexibility
We give a positive review to Dynamics 365 Commerce for proactively safeguarding your data with built-in security management and compliance coverage. Data is the electricity that runs your organization and having it safe is a huge plus. Dynamics 365 Commerce does have a variety of customizable solutions that allow you to configure and expand to grow with your business. It can meet your business needs across the globe and can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or at the edge. This is a win for anyone as they develop new channels organization-wide.
Add on Solutions
Dynamics 365 Commerce also takes advantage of Microsoft AppSource. There are so many pre-built solutions and capabilities that can be used from Microsoft and Microsoft partners. Scaling this solution to your current business needs is highly recommended, as well as for future growth.
Final Thoughts
Here are a few final thoughts from the JourneyTEAM CRM team:
The idea that Dynamics 365 Commerce front end web capabilities may be a replacement or alternative to the Power Apps Portals is, unfortunately, that is not the reality. This product is primarily aimed to work hand-in-hand with your existing Point-of-Sale SKU and Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations.
If you don’t already have Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Finance, this may not be the best fit.
We were unable to see a link Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement integration with Dynamics 365 Commerce at this time. You can work around this with (CDS) that allows you to talk with Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Project Services. It doesn’t look like there is a direct connection currently available.
The web storefront is powered completely by the Dynamics 365 Commerce front end which is fed with products from Supply Chain Management. It does have a very capable web store front end which looks and works well. However, it is not a replacement for Power Apps Portals.
If you would like us to do a deeper dive into Dynamics 365 Commerce for your unique situation give JourneyTEAM a call today 800.439.6456 or visit https://journeyteam.com/contact. JourneyTEAM is a Microsoft Gold partner and the 2019 US Partner of the Year for Dynamics 365 Business Central. JourneyTEAM has deep experience in the Power Platform, Office 365, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365 CRM, Dynamics 365 Business Central, Cloud solutions, and more.