With Spring '15 release Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online ups performance, productivity story

Microsoft will deliver a range of improvements to CRM Online in its new Spring 2015 release wave. With CRM Online sales performance reportedly remaining strong in the past year with more "double digit growth", including a doubling of revenue year over year and 2.5x seat growth, the CRM team continues to push forward an aggressive R&D plan that extends the suite of products in multiple areas. There will be new features and integrations, but also new ways to use CRM in relation to Office 365 and PowerBI.

As Dynamics CRM CVP Bob Stutz explained in a new blog post, the new release "takes intelligent customer engagement to the next level by delivering enhancements and innovations in five key areas:  Productivity, Social, Mobility, Analytics, and Knowledge."

The mobility story has evolved to encompass greater security and more sophisticated user experiences. User experience improvements extend to Microsoft's work to add features to core CRM its related products, but, as product team leaders explain, winning in the marketplace will require both strong product capabilities and a cohesive story that appeals to sales, marketing, and customer service buyers.

Sales productivity, driven by Office and CRM

For Dynamics CRM Online to really show its worth in combination with Office 365 and Power BI, Microsoft has stressed this week at Convergence 2015 that the product line must to excel at in the area of sales productivity by bringing to bear favorite Microsoft tools for email, calendar, documents, and communication.

Dynamics CRM must be recognizable as a productivity and process platform, said R&D chief Jujhar Singh. ...