Microsoft is pitching its latest Dynamics update as a single cloud platform for firms’ marketing, sales and service teams.
Redmond said it wants to break down silos between sales and marketing with the release of Dynamics CRM 2015 next quarter, allowing staff to work together to improve their sales rates.
Bob Stutz, corporate VP of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, said: "Unlike vendors that want to separate businesses by selling them countless different clouds and solutions, we have designed Microsoft Dynamics CRM to facilitate the kind of collaboration that businesses need to thrive and grow."
He claimed that the new Dynamics release will be the only CRM tool enabling marketers to plan campaigns and providing sales teams with insight into how marketers targeted specific customers, giving them the chance to pitch them appropriately.
Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research, said: "Closing the gap between marketing and sales is required for a successful customer experience. Organisations need tools to track the customer interactions from marketing to sales and back, collaborate on leads and opportunities, and measure the metrics that matter to both sales and marketing."
Microsoft has also bolstered interoperability between the latest Dynamics update and the firm’s business applications, including Office 365, Yammer, Lync, Skype, SharePoint and Power BI for Office 365.
"Whereas our competitors seem to want to keep these business functions siloed, even giving them their own separate ‘clouds’, at Microsoft we recognize the need for marketers, salespeople and service agents to align their efforts," said Schultz.
Dynamics CRM 2015 will be available from next quarter, along with updates to Dynamics Online and Dynamics Marketing.
