Integration across Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations, Sales & PSA: Building a services industry solution

With the announcement of Microsoft Dynamics 365 in late 2016, Microsoft laid out a vision of an integrated suite of cloud-based applications that provides best-in-class functionality across traditional sales, operations, and administrative functions. This integrated CRM and ERP platform, along with Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft's BI solutions (Power BI and Cortana Intelligence Suite), and tools such as PowerApps and Flow, holds the promise of allowing organizations to reimagine how they engage their customers and deliver products and services, while at the same time optimizing their operations and empowering employees to redefine how they do their jobs.

Unfortunately, much of the vision around Dynamics 365 is still that - a vision. While Microsoft is hard at work building an integration platform using the Common Data Service at its core, Microsoft partners and clients must provide their own story and strategy in the near term to deliver on this promise of an integrated platform.

For professional services organizations and other project-driven businesses (e.g., architecture and engineering firms, IT and management consulting firms, advertising and marketing agencies, and software and hardware providers), an integrated Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform would likely entail the following Dynamics 365 applications:

• Dynamics 365 for Sales would be used as a customer engagement platform, more traditionally known as CRM or salesforce automation.
• Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation (PSA) would be used as a project management, resource management, and project collaboration platform.
• Dynamics 365 for Operations would be used for project accounting-related processes (billing, revenue recognition, etc.), financial management, human capital management, and other operations.

On their own, each of these applications offers best-in-class capabilities that most competitors can't match. When combining them in an integrated manner, you have the potential to deliver a ...