OpenText Extended ECM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 by Contesto has arrived with Release 16 EP5

“If it’s not in CRM, it doesn’t exist.” How many times do sales professionals hear this phrase during a forecast meeting or call with their…

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Roel Gillesen

November 16, 20185 minutes read

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“If it’s not in CRM, it doesn’t exist.” How many times do sales professionals hear this phrase during a forecast meeting or call with their sales managers? As a participant in many sales meetings, I can usually predict when this interaction will occur during funnel reviews: directly after an account manager adds or changes a deal in their forecast. It is a valid argument by sales managers, who need to track, manage and report on their sales pipeline.

But, to be fair, this statement isn’t technically true – there is a treasure trove of valuable customer data which often doesn’t reside in your CRM, whether it is Dynamics, Salesforce or another CRM system. Some of this information could be valuable in making or breaking a deal with your top client. And worse of all, CRM records frequently contain documents, correspondence and other data which conflicts with information residing in other business systems – like ERP and ECM platforms.

Improving data quality and accuracy has been a priority for sales and sales operations managers for a long time. According to a survey by ZS Associates of CRM users, 74% of respondents say improving the quality of their data is a top priority, and fewer than one in four respondents believe their company’s data is accurate. This is typical feedback year over year in similar surveys. So, why aren’t we further ahead with the process of generating good quality, reliable CRM data?

The new solution, developed in partnership with Contesto and available with OpenText Release 16 Enhancement Pack 5 (EP5), integrates our leading Enterprise Content Management (ECM) portfolio with Microsoft Dynamics 365 to deliver a complete set of content services to enrich business processes flows, and enable seamless customer engagement.

OpenText Extended ECM Enabler for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement by Contesto enables intelligent and connected enterprises to transform sales, marketing, customer and field service automation by securely and seamlessly integrating content services into business processes.

screenshot of the UI
User Interface of the Extended ECM for Dynamics 365 integration

Top challenges in keeping CRM records up-to-date:

  1. Sales professionals have control over the customer information they add in their CRM records, and if they are at a conference, on the road or on holiday, the information might not be updated. So, there might be up to a two week window (or more) when the data hasn’t been refreshed. But your company is still doing business with that customer. So, who keeps track of the CRM system when an employee is away on leave or offsite?
  2. Multi-touch customer engagement – simply put, your customer probably interacts with a lot of people within your organization, like customer service, project management, finance and more. Do all client-engaging employees have access to CRM so they can provide real-time updates or review important client information?
  3. Information in other systems may not be consistent with the CRM record, and this is a big problem as business users need to rely on a single point of truth when interacting with clients. Poor document version control and outdated or inconsistent data due to lack of CRM platform integration with core business systems (ECM, Contract Management, ERP) are common problems across most organizations. If client data in other business systems doesn’t synchronize in real time with the CRM record, how could a sales professional trust that their CRM data is correct?

The integration of OpenText ECM solutions with Microsoft Dynamics 365 enhances business processes – specifically in sales and service scenarios such as lead-to-cash and problem-to-resolution – driving improved productivity, collaboration and customer service. The integration also enables the enterprise to maximize the value and insight from both unstructured content and structured data.

OpenText Extended ECM Enabler for Microsoft Dynamics 365 by Contesto provides:

  • A robust, enterprise-class content enabler to optimize your workloads and customer-centric business processes flows
  • Event-based workspace generation and data sync from pre-configured templates
  • Surface structured and unstructured content in your Dynamics Customer Engagement application and work directly in customer-centric workloads
  • Create out-of-the-box templates for users and build management workflows
  • Integration widget to access and navigate content from Dynamics Customer Engagement, mobile devices, email and other Microsoft applications
  • User and authorization management based on synchronization and authentication standards
  • Rich REST-and Webservice-APIs to connect other systems or lead applications
  • Deployments in on-premise, cloud and hybrid environments

Examples of Critical Content Required for Business Processes Flows

  • Marketing: Lead-to-Opportunity business process flow:
    Persona documentation, lists, whitepapers, case studies, product brochures, graphics, videos, banners, podcasts, images, pictures, boilerplate text, event and other campaign assets for a customer decision journey
  • Sales: Quote-to-Order business process flow:
    Playbooks, Account Plans, Battlecards, Meeting Notes, Presentations, Proposals, Quotes, Designs, NDAs, Contracts, Supplier Agreements and other documentation to support pursuit teams
  • Customer Service: Call Center Case Problem-to-Resolution business process flow:
    Purchase Orders, Contracts, Service Agreements, Supplier Framework Agreements, Network Designs, Account Plans and other customer-centric information
  • Field Services: Field Service Request Problem-to-Resolution business process flow:
    Service Work Order, Dispatcher requests, Plans & Drawings, Manuals, Warranties, Service Agreements, Delivery Receipts and other Field Service Engineer Documentation

All these documents have their own teams, processes, asset sources, templates, approval flows and more.

The OpenText Extended ECM Business Workspace is at the center of the integration. It allows customer-facing roles to remain within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 business application, while simultaneously having access to the full breadth of information and documentation from across the organization needed to provide efficient and outstanding customer service.

OpenText also continues to invest in connecting the digital workplace to the digital business. Customers can now benefit from a tighter integration with Microsoft Teams. OpenText Extended ECM for Microsoft Office 365 allows organizations to augment the repeatable and consistent collaboration of Business Workspaces with the workplace chat, meetings and notes that Teams brings to internal and external stakeholders.

The combination of OpenText Extended ECM for Microsoft Office 365 and OpenText Extended ECM Enabler for Dynamics 365 by Contesto fully supports your Microsoft Office 365 strategy.

You can learn more by viewing our OpenText Extended ECM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 by Contesto – Solution Overview on SlideShare or reading the press release.

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Roel Gillesen

Roel is Program Manager for the OpenText Microsoft solutions with 17 years experience in Software Development Solutions and Enterprise Content Management Solutions. His education in Economics and Marketing give him a broad focus. Within the Microsoft Ecosystems team, he focuses on EMEA partnerships and technology. Roel writes about OpenText solutions for Microsoft and its technical aspects.

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