Microsoft and SAP – combining the best of both worlds!
The majority of all companies use Microsoft 365. PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel and Co. have long since become an important part of our everyday working lives. A study by Nielsen & Empower found that the average employee spends 23 hours each week in Microsoft Office programs. This corresponds to more than 50% of weekly working hours. CRM user groups, especially in marketing, sales and service, also spend a lot of time using Microsoft Office programs.
So why not integrate the existing Microsoft 365 processes with the CRM processes?
3 Examples of the integration of Microsoft applications in the CRM environment
#1: Customer communication via Microsoft Outlook
Sales in particular thrives on customer communication. Today, a lot of this takes place via Microsoft Outlook – documents are sent back and forth, appointments are made, news is exchanged and much more. But how would it be if the important information of a customer could be viewed directly when an e-mail is received (360° view)? And how would it be if incoming information by mail could be stored in the CRM easily and quickly directly from Outlook? This is possible with the Outlook add-in officeXperience. This add-in checks from an e-mail whether a contact already exists in the CRM and displays linked sales opportunities, service cases, etc. directly in Outlook. New information can be easily uploaded to the CRM with just a few clicks. And if the contact is not yet in the CRM, you can create it in the CRM at the click of a button – a real game-changer!
#2: Quoting
Another example revolves around the entire quoting process. The most used calculation tool is still Microsoft Excel. Nowadays, many companies use it to calculate quotations and their individual components. The textual content of the quotation is usually entered in Microsoft Word. It is more charming, however, if a standardized template is available in the CRM, in which offer contents are automatically generated from the CRM and can also be individually adapted by the user. The dispatch can take place from the CRM with Outlook, the documentation about the dispatch, as well as the reply are also stored directly in the CRM.
The quote approval process can also be controlled via workflow from the CRM in Microsoft Teams or Outlook, so that the person approving the quote does not have to log on to the CRM and has all the important information at hand.
#3: Shared work documents
Who doesn’t know it – everyone takes their own notes locally at the meeting and the results or the set of slides are sent in V1 to Vx. No one has an overview of the current status and everyone has saved different versions locally. The problem is obvious: redundant data is created and different versions mean different information for the stakeholders involved. It is much easier to store common work documents in Sharepoint and to use the version history. This way, there is only one document in which everyone works, everyone can view the change history and is always up to date. In addition, when using Microsoft 365, it is also apparent when two people are working in the document at the same time. The changes can be viewed live.
Combining the best of both worlds – Microsoft and SAP
If you also use both Microsoft and an SAP ERP system in your company, then this integration is also indispensable for you in order to optimally control your processes. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about making the users’ work as easy as possible so that they can find all the important information as quickly as possible.
When both worlds – Microsoft and SAP – are united and these are also available in CRM, you offer both your users a perfect user experience and your customers unique experiences.
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