Optimise your business with Microsoft Dynamics 365

In the near future, every business will be a digital business. C-Suite business leaders must now make explicit choices about their strategy to win in a digital economy. 

Organisations need to reassess business operations, aiming to adopt an agile and innovative digital transformation approach to achieve business resilience in a time of disruptive change. 

Leading through digital change requires leaders to have a vision of how to activate the whole organisation in the move from defence to offence to gain and maintain competitive advantage in a digital-first world, addressing the urgent opportunities now. 

Transforming your business to succeed in a digital world requires connected operating models from Finance, HR and IT to marketing, sales, and manufacturing. It means bringing together every function, reimagining your business operations by digitally transforming how you empower employees, engage customers, optimise operations, and data analytics, as well as automation. 

Business digital transformation

 Digital transformation does not happen overnight, even in the fast-moving environments in which we operate our businesses today. Any transformation process goes hand in hand with a potentially sizeable financial investment, as well as a considered and appropriate change management intervention to ensure overall success. 

This transformation will impact all industries and all areas of business going forward. Those businesses that fail to deploy and implement a successful digitalisation strategy will soon be faced with challenges they may find exceedingly more difficult to overcome. Each business should consider their own challenges and conduct thorough research on the changes expected to occur in their industries. 

Organisations and leaders will need to reorganise processes and strategies to obtain the benefits of implementing connected business applications across business operations. An effective enterprise-wide digital transformation strategy will drive business growth and operational efficiency as underlying business models evolve. 

Preparing your organisation for the future of work can no longer wait – the time for leaders to shift their thinking and implement strategies and connected digitalised business to operate like a digital company is now! It’s not about procuring a single solution and deploying only that solution.

The answer lies in a flexible suite of technologies and software solutions to reinvent your business in a digital world. Organisations need to identify scalable solutions that support the digital transformation of the business.  

The benefits of a reinvented digital business

• Business and revenue growth through improved profit margins, increased productivity and improved processes.
• Reduced operational costs and optimised operations.
• Unlock talent and potential of people.
• Allows for collaboration the flow of work with anyone, anywhere.
• Enable organisations to operate as one business, everywhere.
• Data-driven decisions and streamlined operational efficiency.
• Elevate customer experiences – seamless and frictionless.
• Drive connected commerce, providing increased cross-channel visibility. Improve customer retention.
• Enhance financial decision-making.
• Collect and analyse data for real-time insights.
• Gain insight to offer customers and employees personalised experiences.

Technology is both a disruptor and catalyst for growth. The goal is not to simply add capability but to change the business model. In this fast-moving digital era, it is important to pick your technology partners carefully, making sure they not only have the capabilities you need, but that their approach empowers your agility, efficiencies, and differentiation.         

Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Business Applications   

Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers any organisation powerful flexibility and limitless possibilities with its options to tailor and-build on your existing solution using the Microsoft Cloud -Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft 365 - or hundreds of other familiar business tools. You can also add mixed reality, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) for innovative new experiences .

“In today’s fast-paced business environment, productivity is critical to success. Microsoft set out on a mission to increase business agility by creating a digital transformation journey roadmap. The Microsoft Dynamics 365 application stack is designed to enable that digital transformation journey across multiple industries. Parity, a Gold Microsoft Partner is geared to help businesses through the everchanging and improving world of digital transformation”, said Warren Williams, Parity Chief Executive Officer.   

With Microsoft Dynamics 365, you can tap into a connected commerce ecosystem of solutions which makes it easier to integrate and access information for smarter business decisions, greater customer satisfaction, reinventing your digital business. 

To book a demo or workshop session with one of Parity’s experts to take you on a journey to reimagine your business with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 offerings, that will digitally transform your business today. Visit www.paritydigitaltransformation.co.za..  

Cape Town, August 8, 2018:  Africa’s customer experience leaders gathered in Cape Town last week for the 2 day Customer experience Management Africa Summit. The delegation of over 600 customer experience professionals discussed pressing issues such as generating a return on investment in cx, practical application of data and driving emotion to create exceptional experiences.  

South Africa’s customer experience professionals are slowly emerging as some of the best in the world, and the data is there to back this up.  

Sarina de Beer, Managing Director of Ask Afrika stated in her keynote “As mentioned right up-front it is a celebration year. Service levels are at its best ever…with satisfaction ratings of 91%, delight ratings of 54% and very low dissatisfaction scores of 5%. This is largely driven by technological advances and progress, with systems, and technological solutions, self help channels and chat bots in place to deliver bigger, better, faster.”  

Looking into how these results have been achieved, much of it can be contributed to the work customer experience professionals are doing in designing deliberate customer journeys. Diane Magers, CEO of the world’s largest and foremost association for CX professionals, the CXPA, elaborated; “Designing these deliberate customer experience is like building a bridge. Just like any team sport, it takes coordination and a clear understanding of the goals and it requires collaboration and contribution by all team members to ensure the bridge across the support structures is solid and consistent.  Building in silos or vacuums creates an inconsistent experience for our customers. Inconsistent experiences are one of the key factors commonly identified as a factor of dissatisfaction by many other organizations, particularly B2B, as a key opportunity to improve CX.” 

“The results presented by Ask Afrika were for me a great reward and justification for what we do, but great customer experience is a double-edged sword. The better you get, the higher the customers’ expectation and that baseline sets a new bar. You have to keep improving, keep evolving and stay moving when it comes to delivering exceptional customer experience. Finding and nurturing talent in the CX profession will be the next great challenge businesses face within in this industry” Juan Mouton, Portfolio Director for the Customer Experience Management Africa Summit.  

Grace Sikapokoo, the Chief Customer Office for AIG, South Africa spoke on this topic in both her keynote and as part of a panel discussion on customer centricity. The AIG CCO shared five steps to remain relevant and continually skilled; understand your organisation, understand you customers, understand customer experience management, understand technology and most importantly understand your purpose.  

The future for Customer Experience in South Africa is bright and there is much to be positive about, but the challenge will continue to grow harder, and the search for CX talent will be a driving competitive advantage for businesses serious about customer experience through 2018 and beyond.  

Follow @CEMAfricaSummit on Twitter and join the conversation using the #CEMSummit18 hash tag.

ABOUT CEM AFRICA CEM Africa is a meeting place for CX professionals and innovative CX solution providers. The show took place on the 1-2 August 2018 at the CTICC in Cape Town, where like-minded customer experience experts and the top CX solution providers gathered for an informative and educational summit with the common goal of improving customer experience across Africa. The event provides a platform for like-minded CX professionals to showcase their industry knowledge as well as solutions to better the customer’s perception of the brand.

ABOUT KINETIC Kinetic is an international business-to-business conference and exhibitions producer based in Cape Town. Our mission is to equip senior management executives with knowledge, market intelligence and viable commercial opportunities. Kinetic are leaders in providing business facilitation platforms throughout Africa.

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Released by:  KINETIC SA
Juan Mouton:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Event organiser Kinetic has confirmed that industry-giant Performanta has signed on as platinum sponsors for this year’s anticipated 6th edition of their successful flagship event; the IT Leaders Africa Summit.

The event, taking place from 18 - 19 March 2015 at The Maslow Hotel in Johannesburg, is set to go beyond your usual routine business conference, evolving to deliver on a more exciting, topical, trendy and current platform, utilising both the latest technologies coupled with the latest in conference trends internationally.

Together with Performanta, the event aims to deliver an expert-lead agenda that features an educational conference program backed by the latest in technology workshops and demonstrations. 

Performanta’s workshop; Safeguard your organisation now, your wallet will thank you later; focuses on measuring your organisation against the industry on 10 information security and privacy measures, derived from real-world assessments.

Performanta Consulting was established by Anthony Olivier 4 years ago, aligning information security consulting services to the Performanta Technology & Services stable. Performanta Consulting has provided services to primary South African banks, insurance companies, brokers, mining companies, service and retail organisations. Their key differentiator: senior, qualified, experienced consultants, integrated frameworks and fair pricing. Furthermore, the team has assisted in addressing security problems in seventeen African countries and has a thorough understanding of the continental landscape.

As thought-leaders in the industry, they are amongst the most active South African participants in industry conferences, blogs and podcasts.An expert-led advisory panel will lead the summit with industry giants Robert Sussman, co-founder and joint-CEO of Integr8; Hugo Timmerman, Head of IT Southern Africa at British American Tobacco; and Tunde Coker, MD of Rack Centre (A Jagal Group Company).

The event also features over 35 speakers, keynotes, panel discussions and numerous educational workshop sessions hosted by key industry providers, all sessions led by some of today’s most notable individuals who are shaping the IT landscape in South Africa and beyond.

Speakers, just to name a few, include; David Visser, CIO of Coca-Cola Southern Africa; Anthony Hlungwane, Group IT Director of Mr Price Group; Sal Laher, CIO Eskom; Rocky Gwewera, Global Head of Infrastructure Architecture at Sasol; Stephan Ekbergh, CEO and founder of Travelstart; and Sunil Joshi, MD and CEO of Neotel.

Some sponsors and partners include; Telkom Business, HP, Performanta and Blue Coat Systems, SITA, Airwatch, Kofax, Dimension Data, Neotel, Meso Systems, Sage Pastel Accounting and ERP Africa, and Blackberry.

For more information on the event to register to attend or to sponsor, visit www.itleaders.co.za or contact the event organisers Kinetic on +27 21 180 4700.Follow the event and stay up to date on Twitter. @ITLeadersAfrica and join in on the conversation using #ITLAfrica.

{pp}As part of customer relationship management (CRM), Email Marketing is a notable yet delicate tool that should be used with great care.

{pp}Email Marketing is one of the most efficient and cost effective ways to build relationships with customers, Email newsletters are also an effective CRM tool.

{pp}Email Marketing is a very effective way to speak directly to your customers and clients, ultimately driving engagement which increases leads and sales.

But of course, in order for Email Marketing to be successful, targeted messages need to reach the right people. Part of what makes email marketing unique and so effective is its ability both to broadcast, and also to target individuals with personalised content simultaneously.

{pp}Email Marketing should form an integral part of your marketing strategy, as it’s a great tool for establishing relationships, loyalty and ongoing communication with customers.

{pp}Email marketing is still one of the most powerful (proverbial) arrows in the eMarketer’s quiver. Email marketing is so effective because it puts your brand and message directly into your customers’ inboxes – many people’s most frequent touch-point with the Internet.