Identify and pursue potential projects with the manage project opportunities business process area

Applies to: Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

This article describes how you can use Dynamics 365 products to support your organization's business processes for managing project opportunities.

The Manage project opportunities business process area covers activities that are related to the following areas:

• Identifying potential customers and leads
• Qualifying leads to determine whether they are a good fit for the organization
• Converting qualified leads to opportunities

The purpose of this process is to help organizations track and manage potential projects, and determine which projects are worth pursuing. This business process enables organizations to identify, cultivate, and win new business opportunities. Therefore, it helps ensure a continuous and visible pipeline of work.

To identify potential projects and opportunities, organizations might conduct market research, analyze customer needs, and perform competitive analysis. After potential projects are identified, they are evaluated based on factors such as profitability, resource availability, risk, and strategic fit. This evaluation process helps organizations prioritize the most promising opportunities.

This business process area is important because it provides a structured approach to identifying and pursuing potential projects. In this way, organizations can optimize their resources and increase their chances of winning new business. When they track and manage opportunities, organizations can make informed decisions about where to focus their efforts and resources. They can then make sure that they are pursuing the most promising projects.

The Manage project opportunities business process area should be defined early in the overall implementation process. The process of identifying and evaluating potential projects logically comes before you can plan and run the projects.

Stakeholders

Many people in an organization must contribute to the decision-making process for managing project opportunities. The list includes but isn't limited to the following roles:

• Sales and marketing stakeholders – Examples: Sales manager and Marketing manager
• Project Management stakeholders – Examples: Project manager and Resource manager
• Finance stakeholders – Examples: Controller, Finance manager, and Procurement manager
• Executive stakeholders – Example: Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Manage project opportunities process flow

The following diagram illustrates the Manage project opportunities business process area.

Each solid gray rectangle on the diagram represents an end-to-end business process. The solid blue rectangle represents the business process area. The diagram shows the subprocesses for the business process area. The arrows on the diagram show the flow of the business process in an organization. If a subprocess can lead to more than one other subprocess, the parallel subprocesses are shown as branches.

The following steps are illustrated in the Manage project opportunities business process flow diagram.

1. Start

2. Case to resolution end-to-end business process

3. Prospect to quote end-to-end business process

   1. Identify and qualify leads
   2. Qualify leads

4. Project to profit end-to-end business process

5. Manage project opportunities

   1. Create project opportunity

   2. Develop the opportunity by adding additional information, such as stakeholders

   3. Develop the proposal, and submit it for review

   4. Is proposal accepted?

      1. Branch for Yes leads to Opportunity won, close the deal

      2. Branch for No leads to Is there still a chance to win the opportunity?

         1. Branch for Yes leads to Develop the proposal and submit it for review
         2. Branch for No leads to Opportunity lost
         3. End

   5. Opportunity won, close the deal, which connects to the Create project contract downstream business process under the Manage project contracts subprocess

Manage project opportunities benefits

There are many benefits of implementing technology to support the Manage project opportunities process area. The following sections outline key benefits that an organization might monitor and measure to track the impact of their Manage project opportunities process.

Streamlined project opportunity tracking

A key benefit of using Dynamics 365 Project Operations is the ability to track project opportunities from start to finish, including capturing initial leads, managing proposals and bids, and closing deals. This streamlined process helps increase efficiency, reduce errors, ensure timely follow-up, and therefore improve project sales.

Enhanced forecasting and analytics

Dynamics 365 Project Operations has forecasting and analytics capabilities to analyze past project data and identify patterns and trends. These capabilities can help identify potential project opportunities that are aligned with your organization's strengths and capabilities. Users can use this information to make informed decisions about which opportunities to pursue and, just as importantly, which ones not to pursue. Additionally, the real-time data and insights that Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides enable organizations to adjust their project portfolio as needed.

Automated opportunity management

In Dynamics 365 Project Operations, users can set up workflows to manage project opportunities efficiently. These workflows can automate repetitive tasks such as sending follow-up emails or updating opportunity status. This automation saves time and ensures that no important opportunity-related tasks are overlooked or forgotten, and therefore cause the loss of the opportunity.

Next steps

If you want to implement Dynamics 365 solutions to help with your Manage project opportunities business processes, use the following resources and steps to learn more. (Links are added, when the articles are ready.)

1. Run marketing campaigns

2. Manage customer relationships

3. Define sales strategy

4. Identify and qualify leads

5. Manage project opportunities (the article that you're currently reading)

6. Pursue opportunities

7. Estimate and quote sales

Return to the overview of business process areas at Prospect to quote business process areas.

Related information

You can use the following resources to learn more about the Manage project opportunities process in Dynamics 365.

• Find definitions of terminology that is used in content for Manage project opportunities in the Glossary of terms in Dynamics 365 business processes article. For example, this glossary includes the following terms:

  • Lead
  • Lead and opportunity management
  • Opportunity
  • Proposal
  • Close the deal
  • Project contract

• Project to profit end-to-end overview

• Govern projects

• Dynamics 365 Project Operations - Sales and Inception (blog post)

• Manage project opportunities (Project Operations)

• Project sales management (training)

• Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (ERP)

• Implementation strategy

• Process-focused solution

• Request a demo

Contributors

This article is maintained by Microsoft. It was originally written by the following contributors.

Principal author:

• Lalitha Chintamaneni, FastTrack Solution Architect

Other contributors:

• Martin Walker, Principal FastTrack Solution Architect