Dun & Bradstreet Coming to Dynamics 365

A new partnership will make Dun & Bradstreet's rich business data available in Microsoft Dynamics 365 sometime later this year.

The deal could create the potential for Microsoft partners to offer more actionable business information in Dynamics 365 solutions for customers. It could also present the opportunity for partners to use the data themselves to develop new business.

Much like data being brought into Dynamics 365 from Microsoft's LinkedIn acquisition, Dun & Bradstreet is another source of information on customers and potential customers that could be available through Dynamics 365 that comes from a source outside of a business' own customer and prospect database.

The headliner of the three-pronged partnership announcement between Dun & Bradstreet and Microsoft on Wednesday was the element of the Microsoft customer win. Essentially, it's another one of those deals where a customer declares Microsoft as its strategic cloud provider. In this case, Dun & Bradstreet plans to put core applications and new services on Microsoft Azure and has announced its intention to use Microsoft intelligent cloud services to modernize its applications.

Of most potential interest to partners is a plan to bring elements of Dun & Bradstreet's global business database of 265 million business records into Dynamics 365. The companies say Dun & Bradstreet will leverage Microsoft's Common Data Service to integrate its D-U-N-S Number and core business data.

The data would supposedly help Dynamics 365 customers qualify sales leads and stay synchronized with Dun & Bradstreet's global business database.

"The opportunity for mutual customers to thrive with rich data when you combine Dynamics 365 and Dun & Bradstreet is incredible," said Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Commercial Business, in a statement.

A third part of the deal is a joint, co-sell arrangement between Microsoft and Dun & Bradstreet focused on Dynamics 365, Dun & Bradstreet business data and D&B Hoovers. The companies billed that U.S. arrangement as offering Dun & Bradstreet sellers incremental opportunities to sell Dynamics 365, along with incremental Azure consumption for Microsoft.

Pricing, potential incentives for Microsoft partners and availability of the data to Microsoft partners for internal use were not part of the initial announcement.

Posted by Scott Bekker on July 20, 2017 at 11:56 AM