Integrating VoIP with Microsoft Dynamics

Business phone systems are among a host of other enterprise level software that organizations need to organize their daily workflows. Unlike consumers who can easily switch between software or applications, enterprises need to think long and hard about both short term and long term benefits as well as the related disadvantages. Once a business has invested in a certain type of system, it is very difficult to change it at a moment’s notice. So they have to be sure that the software is not only the right fit for today but will also adapt when their requirements change.

With that being said, enterprise software like ERP, CRM or HR software has not exactly been budget friendly for small and medium businesses. Larger organizations have always been able to purchase, implement and deploy extremely sophisticated systems to manage these functions. It leaves smaller enterprises at a disadvantage – in a globalized economic environment, their needs and requirements have become more complex. They need correspondingly better software to manage the complexity and yet, deploying and using such software may also be beyond their limited resources.

The Evolution of Enterprise Software in the Cloud

The computing revolution has changed human behavior and our society in profound ways. The effects are often compared to the invention of the steam engine or the telephone. In much the same way, the introduction of cloud technology has revolutionized how we do business every day. Over the last few years, enterprise solutions powered by cloud technology have gained prominence – specifically those targeted at small and medium businesses.

Quite a few companies have changed their business model from offering software for purchase via licenses to subscription models called SaaS (Software As A Service). SaaS is perhaps better suited to an age where clients demand continuous upgrades and innovation that are in line with changing circumstances. It drives vendors to improve their service on a regular basis, rather than the older model where customer service after the sale didn’t really matter that much.

Microsoft Dynamics is one such solution that promises to provide online business applications for a variety of functions including sales, marketing, operations, financials and customer service among others. Since the cloud powers these business applications, Microsoft is bifurcating the service into two –  each targeting different types of organizations. This means small businesses do not have to pay for features or services that they don’t need/use but the same service can also scale to the requirements of larger companies.

VoIP in the Cloud

The VoIP industry has also been innovating and incorporating cloud technology into their own services. Hosted VoIP services are among the fastest growing business segments and have provided tremendous benefits to smaller organizations that did not have the luxury of using enterprise grade systems before. Even purchasing and deploying SIP trunks has become easier thanks to online dashboards, always on customer service etc.

The side by side development of VoIP and other enterprise solutions brings us to an important moment in business history where the dream of interoperability becomes reality. With every new change in technology, it is becoming apparent that organizations need to be able to move data between different systems and applications in order to extract the maximum value from it. Locking away data in different silos will no longer work. But before the cloud, such data portability remained a dream.

For instance, an organization might have customer details in the CRM database. On the other hand, details of past call history and times of contact were buried in the business phone system. If a sales agent needed to look at a customer profile comprehensively, they would have to export data individually from each of these systems and then consolidate them. This takes time and effort that we should be trying to avoid.

Integrating VoIP with Microsoft Dynamics

As more and more business systems move online, it becomes easier to integrate them or at the very least ensure interoperability. If both VoIP and business applications are delivered online for a business, integrating them allows easy movement of data between multiple systems. Now the scenario we envisioned above becomes much simpler. We can easily move data from the VoIP system to the CRM database and vice versa.

This integration can manifest itself in a variety of ways. For instance, a sales agent can easily view call details and past history of a particular customer within the CRM application. In turn, the CRM software may include a button that directly initiates a call to any phone number in the database. This data movement holds true between business applications as well. A customer representative may be able to view the previous transaction history for a customer from the sales database within the CRM software and so on.

Integrating VoIP with business applications offers important benefits to businesses. In many cases, it eliminates the time employees spent in hunting down information that is locked away in different systems. By reducing the time wasted in such mundane tasks, businesses are able to improve productivity and efficiency to a whole new level. Since we can share data between different applications, it allows the organization to align all business functions in one direction – toward the customer.

Businesses today focus on enhancing the customer experience in every way possible – from the moment a client first makes contact with the business and even after they may no longer be a customer. Integrating VoIP and Microsoft Dynamics is simply one way of easily achieving that goal.