Hi! I am Shaun, and I manage institutional client relationships for an asset management firm. My sales territory covers a large region, and I am on the road several days a week. My Dynamics 365 CRM has more data in it than I could ever process by scrolling through rows on a screen.

For a long time, that data felt like a filing cabinet. It was perfectly organized, but wasn’t really useful at the moment. To find a more insightful solution and to utilize the locational aspect of all our data, my firm integrated our Dynamics CRM with Maplytics. I want to walk you through what my day actually looks like now, because it is starkly different than before this integration.

Monday Morning, Starting the Week with the Full Picture

The first thing I do every Monday morning is open my map integrated into Dynamics CRM.

A map, with every one of my institutional clients, prospects, and family office contacts plotted as a colourful or custom pushpin. Color-coded by relationship tier, last interaction date, and AUM bracket. In about thirty seconds, I can see my entire portfolio geographically, true to the distance!

This week, I noticed a cluster of accounts in the financial district I have not visited in over sixty days. They are not in danger, the relationships are solid, but they are overdue for a face-to-face. I believe a personal correspondence is necessary to review any relationship. I can see three of them within walking distance of each other. I block out Tuesday afternoon and plan a run.

Before Maplytics, I would have needed a filtered report, a spreadsheet, and a map app running separately to figure out the same thing. Now it is just there. I simply picked up the 3 client records and scheduled a visit to them using the Auto Scheduling feature. The automated schedule also accounted for my travel time and lunch break, and added a buffer as well. Just like that, my entire day was scheduled with travel directions.

Tuesday, Planning the Client Visit Run

I have five accounts I want to hit on Tuesday. Two are in the financial district, one is a twenty-minute drive north, and two more are near a prospect I have been trying to get in front of for months.

I open Maplytics, go to Route Optimization, add all five as waypoints, and click optimize. The system rearranges the sequence, factors in Tuesday morning traffic, and hands me a route that saves me about forty minutes of driving compared to the order I had them in my head. My Monday plan is also included in this run. Turn-by-turn navigation loads directly in Dynamics 365, no switching to a separate navigation app, no copying addresses. At will, I can open it on my mobile or tablet in Google or Apple Maps.

I am at my first meeting five minutes early. That used to be rarer than it sounds. Being punctual, or arriving before time, shows the client that you value them.

Wednesday, The Cancelled Meeting That Became an Opportunity

Mid-morning on Wednesday, a client canceled. It happens. I am already in the city, parked, with ninety minutes suddenly free.

Old me would have grabbed a coffee and caught up on emails.

Instead, I open Proximity or Radius search in Maplytics, drop my current location, and set a fifteen-minute travel radius. In seconds, I have a live map of every nearby account and prospect, with their CRM data, last contact date, relationship tier, and contact details right there. I spot a prospect I have been trying to schedule for weeks. Their office is eight minutes away.

I call. They have a gap. I am there by eleven-thirty.

That conversation led to a follow-up meeting the following week. It would never have happened without the map at hand.

The other day, I was on the road and needed to find a client along my travel route. I used voice command on Maplytics’ AI assistant, MapCopilot, and got the necessary client records plotted on the map.

Thursday, Roadshow Planning for Next Month

Once a month, I run a multi-city roadshow. Three cities, two days, twelve to fifteen client meetings. Planning used to take me the better part of a morning, cross-referencing locations, building a rough sequence, guessing at travel times.

Now I open Maplytics, select every client and prospect I want to visit across all three cities, set the travel days, and let the system build the itinerary. It groups stops geographically, factors in realistic travel time between each one, and produces a day-by-day plan that I can actually stick to.

Using the Point Of Interest Location, I can also find convenient gas stations, cafes, hotels, pharmacies, and more near all of these prospects as well. This prevents unnecessary backtracking and mindless roaming.

Last month, I fit in two additional meetings I would have cut from the schedule under the old planning process. Both were worth the time.

Friday, Checking the Territory with My Manager

On Friday afternoons, my regional manager and I do a quick territory review.

• Where are the gaps?
• Which accounts are underserved?
• Are there any overlaps with the new relationship manager who joined last month?

We pull up the territory mapping in Dynamics 365. Every account is assigned to a territory, color-coded by owner. Coverage gaps are visible immediately, no pivot table required. We spot one district where two of us have been calling on the same prospects without realizing it. We redraw the territory boundary in minutes.

It used to take us a spreadsheet, a colour-coded printout, and a lengthy discussion to reach the same conclusion. Now we are done before the coffee gets cold!

We can also use the Heat Map Analysis next time to gauge any area hot with untouched prospects that can be converted to leads and clients.

Here is the complete Picture

What Maplytics does overall is remove every geographic and logistical inefficiency between me, my Dynamics CRM, and the next meaningful conversation.

• My territory is clearer.
• My days/weeks are better planned.
• My cancelled meetings become opportunities.
• My roadshows cover more ground with less travel.

I am a relationship manager. Maplytics just makes sure I spend more of my time actually managing relationships, and less of it staring at a spreadsheet trying to figure out where everyone is. In addition to this, all my data stays in my Dynamics CRM, so there is no security breach or compliance issue. All critical data is safe and accessible only to the legit stakeholders.

If your firm runs on Dynamics 365 and your relationship managers are still planning visits manually, I genuinely think you should try it. There is a 15-day free trial available at www.maplytics.com, and it takes less time to set up than it used to take me to plan a single roadshow. You can explore the application more once you start using it in your environment.

What’s More?

Maplytics with MapCopilot, its AI assistant, is available immediately for Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power Pages, and Dataverse. Organizations interested in adoption, 15-day free trials, or personalized demos are encouraged to contact Maplytics’ sales team at [email protected]

For more information, visit our website or Microsoft Marketplace. One can hop onto the detailed Blogs, Client Testimonials, Success Stories, Industry Applications, and Video Library for a quick query resolution. Technical docs for the working of Maplytics are also available for reference.

Kindly leave us a review or write about your experience on the Microsoft Marketplace or the G2 Website.

The post How Investment Firms Are Replacing Spreadsheets with Smart Maps in Dynamics 365 appeared first on CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365.