If you’re a manufacturer, you know that sales, marketing, and service effectiveness will make or break you in today’s global economy. That’s why many of you are turning to customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to create the competitive advantage you seek. Microsoft Dynamics® CRM can create the following possibilities within your manufacturing company:

• Efficiently manage your complex relationships—including partners, direct and indirect sales channels, distributors, retailers, and service providers. By centralizing complete customer information, you can help customer service representatives respond to and resolve issues faster.
• Gain cross-organizational insights and automate processes to drive a consistent customer service experience and boost productivity. Microsoft Dynamics CRM also helps eliminate manual data entry, significantly reducing errors. In addition, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides sales and service employees with the mobile capabilities they need when working in the field.
• Quickly develop and deploy enterprise applications that streamline and optimize the manufacturing process using the xRM framework. Microsoft Dynamics CRM works as a natural extension of the Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and collaboration client, helping to drive user adoption.

As manufacturing companies continue to fight increasing customer turnover and higher costs for acquiring and serving customers, they look toward solutions that can support the sales cycle and customer service functions without adding complexity. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides a cost-effective way to meet these challenges.

By Alexandra Gonzalez, PANGEA Business Solutions

Are you tired of endless Excel spreadsheets? You probably have a number of reports that really show you the exact same thing, just in different ways. How can you combine this data to provide your company with better information? Better information that you can trust helps you prepare for the future of your business and ultimately sustains the success of your company.

Microsoft Dynamics® GP offers flexible planning tools to help you compare budgets, forecasts, and plans to actual performance. It also gives you the ability to update budgets and plans on the basis of new data and analyses to help your business stay competitive.

• With Microsoft Forecaster, you can build budgets that incorporate market conditions and specific business objectives. And, when the business environment changes, you can use Microsoft Forecaster to adjust forecasts and budgets so that managers can respond effectively.
• Create accurate, high-level plans instantly, using up-to-date data pulled directly from the General Ledger in Microsoft Dynamics GP. Integration across Microsoft FRx and Microsoft Forecaster gives you access to all the data, from summaries to transactions.
• Integration between Microsoft Dynamics GP and industry-leading tools, such as Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft SQL Reporting Services, and Microsoft FRx Professional, gives your people the information they need to forecast, analyze, and make business decisions.

By Alexandra Gonzalez, PANGEA Business Solutions

Report Writer is a tool included with Microsoft Dynamics® GP and it allows you to create and customize reports vital for your business. You may be so used to doing just what your product is capable of, but now with Microsoft Dynamics GP, the sky is the limit.

You can create as many report options for a report layout as you need, but Microsoft Dynamics GP comes with many report layouts and report options already defined. However, if your business needs a report that is not among the predefined reports, there are a number of options that can also help you.

When you create a new report or modify an existing report, that report layout is stored in the reports dictionary. The reports dictionary is created when Report Writer is accessed for the first time. All the reports you modify or create with Report Writer are stored in the reports dictionary.

Depending on your needs, you can also use Crystal Reports for Microsoft Dynamics GP to design new reports for Microsoft Dynamics GP data. Reporting with Microsoft Dynamics GP creates endless possibilities and we here at PANGEA are dedicated to sharing these benefits with our customers.

By Alexandra Gonzalez, PANGEA Business Solutions