Implementing Microsoft Copilot: The Why, What, and How
Microsoft Copilot and AI can reshape your organization's operations, driving productivity, efficiency, and smarter decision-making across your Microsoft solutions. Whether aiming to streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, get your products to market faster, or unlock AI-powered insights, Copilot makes a profound impact when implemented effectively.
However, knowing where to start and how to optimize your AI investment will give you a clear picture of specific areas where Copilot can help you improve processes and streamline workdays. Let’s analyze the why, what, and how of successfully integrating Copilot to ensure your organization maximizes its full potential.
Why Implement Microsoft Copilot
Before investing in Microsoft Copilot, clarify why it matters for your organization. Copilot offers significant Return on Investment (ROI) and businesses are seeing returns between 132% and 353%. However, going beyond that to align it with your objectives is key to maximizing its value.
Start by asking an important question: What goals do we need to achieve?
To help, here are some common reasons organizations are adopting Copilot:
- Faster Time to Market: Copilot accelerates product launches by generating product descriptions quickly, analyzing historical data to identify successful products, and streamlining competitor research. Whether listing items on your e-commerce platform or launching a service, Copilot helps you deliver to market faster.
- Increased Productivity: Automating routine tasks frees your team to focus on strategic work. For example, Copilot can auto-track sales-related emails, update opportunities in Microsoft Dynamics 365, and generate branded presentations quickly. By reducing manual data entry and repetitive tasks, your team can accomplish more with the same resources.
- Improved Employee Satisfaction: Copilot simplifies re-entry after time away from work. Imagine returning from vacation and having a summarized view of key emails, project updates, and tasks—allowing you to refocus in minutes instead of hours.
The bottom line is Copilot requires minimal upfront investment but delivers transformative results.
Now that you understand why Copilot can make a significant impact, let’s explore what you can use it for and how it can support your key business functions.
What Can You Do with Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot empowers your team to work smarter and faster across your Microsoft solutions. From summarizing Teams meetings and drafting emails to creating polished presentations and delivering data insights, Copilot simplifies complex tasks and drives productivity. In our recent webinar series, 12 Days of Copilot, we highlighted some of the specific ways Copilot can increase efficiency for team members working with Microsoft solutions. You can watch those webinars on-demand here.
Let’s look at some key Microsoft tools and how Copilot integrates with them. Note: To use Copilot with these tools, you must have the proper licenses assigned to the right users. You can read more about Copilot licensing here.
Microsoft 365: Enhanced Productivity in Everyday Tools
Microsoft 365 Copilot enhances productivity with tools that your team is likely already using every day, including:
- Word: Draft, edit, summarize, and rewrite text. It can generate content ideas, adjust tone, or refine language based on prompts.
- Excel: Analyze data trends, create formulas, generate visualizations, and automate data organization for better insights.
- PowerPoint: Build presentations by turning ideas or documents into slides, suggest layouts, and refine designs.
- Outlook: Summarize lengthy email threads, draft responses, and manage schedules more efficiently.
- Teams: Summarize meetings, highlight action items, and create follow-up plans, even for users who join late or miss meetings.
- OneNote: Organize notes, create summaries, and help structure information more cohesively.
These features help users save time, improve content quality, and focus on strategic tasks instead of manual effort.
Dynamics 365: Bring Copilot into Your ERP and CRM Systems
When you run a Dynamics 365 solution, you can also access Copilot to help with sales, finance, marketing, reporting, and many more processes. Here are some ways you can use Copilot in various Dynamics 365 tools:
Sales
- Predictive Insights: Analyze customer interactions to identify deal opportunities and next-best actions.
- Email Drafting: Generate personalized follow-ups and proposals based on customer information.
- Sales Planning: Create forecasts and reports using CRM data and AI recommendations.
Business Central
- Automate Financial Processes: Use AI to generate financial reports, reconcile accounts, and forecast cash flow based on historical data, reducing manual effort.
- Streamline Inventory Management: Get AI-driven recommendations for stock replenishment, identify trends in product demand, and optimize supply chain operations.
- Enhance Customer Interactions: Automatically draft personalized quotes, invoices, or follow-up emails based on customer history and transaction details.
Customer Service
- Chat Assistance: Automate responses to customer queries or provide suggestions to agents during live chats.
- Case Summaries: Summarize past interactions to give agents quick context.
- Knowledge Articles: Generate articles and troubleshooting steps to resolve issues faster.
Marketing
- Campaign Generation: Create targeted email campaigns and social media content based on audience insights.
- Content Personalization: Tailor messaging for specific customer segments using AI recommendations.
Finance and Operations
- Forecasting: Generate financial forecasts and models based on historical data.
- Process Automation: Streamline workflows, such as invoice generation or supply chain optimization.
- Report Summarization: Automatically draft summaries for financial reports or operational updates.
Copilot makes Dynamics 365 products smarter, enabling businesses to achieve more while reducing manual efforts.
Power Platform: Extend Automation, Data Management, and App Building
Copilot in Power Platform enhances app development and workflow automation by leveraging AI to simplify complex tasks. It enables users to:
- Build Apps and Automation: Generate app layouts, workflows, and logic using natural language prompts in Power Apps and Power Automate.
- Analyze Data: Create visualizations and insights in Power BI through conversational queries.
- Streamline Chatbots: Use Copilot Studio to design conversational bots effortlessly, with AI-suggested responses and logic.
This empowers users to create solutions faster, even with minimal technical expertise.
How to Implement Microsoft Copilot: Align Workflows and Objectives for Optimal Success
Aligning your workflows and business objectives from the start is essential to ensuring Microsoft Copilot works effectively for your organization. Stoneridge Software uses a proven approach called Copilot Flight School, designed to streamline your implementation and help your team quickly adopt Copilot’s capabilities.
The Flight School Process follows a structured, three-phase approach:
1. Prepare Your Team:
This phase begins with setting clear goals and identifying the right pilot group—often a mix of IT leaders and power users. Stoneridge will guide you through:
- Meet Copilot: A basic overview of Copilot’s features and capabilities.
- Pre-Flight Checklist: Assess your security environment and define the scope of data Copilot will access, starting with areas like Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
- Flight Readiness: Optional deeper dives into security and change management to ensure all stakeholders are prepared.
2. Copilot Flight School:
Once your team is prepared, this phase focuses on launching Copilot effectively:
- Enabling an initial set of licenses (typically 10).
- Conducting a Business Value Workshop to define use cases and measure ROI.
- Deploying and configuring Copilot across the chosen systems.
- Delivering an End User Communication and Launch Kit to help employees understand how to leverage Copilot.
- Providing three hours of hands-on training to explore common use cases and ensure successful adoption.
3. Extend It:
After the initial rollout, you can expand Copilot’s impact by:
- Offering additional training and deeper discovery sessions.
- Extending licenses and access across the organization.
- Exploring advanced capabilities, such as building Copilot Studio Agents for customized workflows and insights.
Following this structured approach and working with Stoneridge Software, ensures a smooth Copilot adoption, maximizing its value while staying aligned with your business objectives.
By understanding why Copilot matters, exploring its capabilities, and aligning your workflows and objectives, you set the stage for successful integration. With the right preparation, training, and ongoing support, you’ll unlock Copilot's full potential, positioning your team to work smarter, not harder, and achieve greater business outcomes.
Partner with Stoneridge to Implement and Optimize Microsoft Copilot
As a Microsoft Inner Circle partner, Stoneridge Software can guide your organization to ensure your implementation and rollout of Copilot aligns with your business objectives and enhances processes for your team.
Contact our experts today for personalized guidance and thoughtful teaching on how AI can improve your business.
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