How Microsoft Dynamics CRM Can Help Your Supply Chain

Until now, manufacturing companies have been relying heavily on isolated and manually managed systems and information for running their operations. While this was all good until now, today more than ever companies need to move towards digital transformation. Manufacturing sector companies today make use of latest technologies like Smart Manufacturing, for an instance, to drive their operations and tasks with the utmost precision and to minimize the manual intervention which leads to lower errors and faster decisions.

Supply chain management process is a complex one as it needs systems in place to simplify and manage information. Data that comes in from the various levels in a supply chain, such as, the sales process, suppliers information, customer services data, and order fulfillment data, all need to be stored at a place and then analyzed to get a comprehensive idea of the complete supply chain.

Easier said than done, the supply chain in any manufacturing company is quite a puzzle. But, with the leading CRM and ERP solutions like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the supply chain can be reduced to a number of simplified modules and chunks of information.

How Can Microsoft Dynamics Help Disentangle Your Supply Chain

Some areas where Microsoft Dynamics can play a role in simplifying your supply chain are-

• Forecast Sales and Demand – Microsoft Dynamics CRM has the ability to forecast your sales and the demand for your products by learning and analyzing the historical sales data and predicting patterns of the future on its basis. It can also provide you multiple forecasts related to the various characterizations such as on the basis of geographical locations, product groupings, customer segments, etc. This can help you automate the planning of purchases and production.
   
• IoT-enabled applications – With the Internet of Things, the supply chain, and warehousing concepts can be totally transformed. A single Internet of Things platform can be used, for an instance, to integrate the back office to the front desk processes, thus lowering the production costs. Also, another use case of leveraging IoT for manufacturing can be in assessing the wear and tear of parts in a manufacturing industry. As a consequence, buying decisions and designing decisions can be shaped as an answer to these insights, thus saving maintenance costs and predicting the life of parts.
   
• Intelligent supply chain – With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you get powerful analytics tools that can transform your supply chain and drive growth. Your distribution, production, and delivery can be dynamically rearranged and changed to meet the wavering demands and speeding up the delivery process. With powerful applications of analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, you can become more adept at handling emergencies and forecasting them to avoid any last minute hassles.
   
• Safety Stock – With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you get recommendations to modify your production and distribution according to the forecasts of sales and demand. The system is so powerful that it can also suggest you on the amount of safety stock that you need to maintain so as to meet a sudden demand. The tool studies your past sales order volume and the needed fill rate to come to a conclusion regarding the same.
   
• Business Intelligence – In maintaining manufacturing processes and warehousing, business intelligence can become the differentiating and the winning factor for your organization. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides you with operational dashboards that provide you with valuable insights about your organization. With a single version of data across a complete organization, Microsoft Dynamics drives your manufacturing processes with an integral approach. One central system for information makes all users access the same data from anywhere within the organization, leading to lesser confusion and disparity.

Microsoft dynamics CRM development cannot only steer your organization towards growth, it can prove to be a turning point in your business' growth.