Microsoft’s LinkedIn acquisition is bearing the sort of fruits we were expecting it to bear. The company has today announced a slew of tool that will bring about a closer integration between LinkedIn and Microsoft Dynamics 365, the company’s CRM and ERP suite.
So LinkedIn is a socia network. Moreover, it is a social network for professionals. Apart from other things, the company has a treasure trove of data that is highly valuable. Indeed, if you asked me to chose the data between 500 million Facebook and 500 million LinkedIn accounts, I would probably go with the latter. Why? Well, the data available on LinkedIn has to do with the professional aspect of people’s lives and as such, it can be leveraged in a multitude of ways to generate profits.
For instance, say you are an HR firm. You can have all — or even a portion — of LinkedIn’s data to sift through in your hunt for the perfect employees for certain jobs. Wouldn’t you jump at the chance? That is just one example, and not even a very good one at that. The data can be far more productive when a company like Microsoft decides to leverage it for its own means.
Which brings us back to today’s news. Microsoft has announced Dynamics 365 and the LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool along with a tool for HR pros called Dynamics 365 for Talent. While the former allows sales people to access LinkedIn’s massive database of 500 million users, the latter will allow Dynamics 365 ERP users, the ability to search for new talent directly from LinkedIn’s Recruiter and Learning solutions. And that is not all, once recruited, employees can also be managed from the recruitment center throughout their tenure with a particular company.
Microsoft says that its Sales Navigator tool will be available at prices half that of its competitors. The company said that buyers will be able to use it for:
- Leveraging signals across email, CRM and LinkedIn to get contextual recommendations for the next best action within Dynamics 365 for Sales, facilitating introductions directly through the company’s network, and sending InMail, messages and customized connection requests
- Engaging buyers with tailored content throughout the account lifecycle, and getting account and lead updates including news mentions and job changes
- Building strong relationships with existing contacts through access to LinkedIn profile details including photos, current roles and work history.
This can also help in a lot of little ways, Say for instance, you have a company X and you are looking to close a deal with another company Y. Using these new tools, you can find which of your employees already know each other — say from college — and get them to take the deal forward.
Microsoft also said that it was introducing a new to application for HR organizations called Dynamics 365 for Talent. As per the company, the tool will allow recruiters to access talent more quickly, enable dynamic candidate profiles to give managers and interviewers the most up-to-date information and so on. The company also believes that the tools will let companies maintain an up-to-date view of employee experiences.
This will be doen through a consolidated HR profile. This profile will cover and include Office 365, Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn profile information as well.
The new tools will be available to sales people and recruiters come July.
