In our Microsoft Copilot blog - Copilot Champions: One Month with Copilot for Microsoft 365, we spoke about the internal working group we formed named the ‘Copilot Champions’ where various members of the team from our IT Services division trialled a pilot programme of Copilot for Microsoft 365, to gain greater insight into the technology, to enable us better educate our clients on its benefits. Read the blog for a recap of how their first month with Copilot for Microsoft 365 went.
So far we have explored how Copilot has supported the roles of a Regional Sales Manager, Head of Managed and Professional Services, Business Central Functional Consultant, Support Services Manager and Head of Support Services and Data Protection. The next blog in our Copilot for Everyday blog series (where each Copilot Champion will explore how Copilot for Microsoft 365 supported their specific job roles) is from Henry Bevan, Business Development Manager at Sharp UK.
Introduction
As Business Development Manager within Sharp UK’s IT division, my role focuses on speaking to potential new clients, understanding their requirements and then providing the appropriate services and solutions, often alongside technical projects.
Typically, this will start with a remote engagement using Microsoft Teams, during which I will speak with the prospective client to gain an understanding of their organisation and their IT Services needs. During this meeting, I will provide them with an understanding of our organisation, what we are about and the solutions we can provide to meet their needs.
In some cases, we are provided with an RFP (Request for Proposal) from the prospect which states their requirements. At this stage in the process, the necessary proposals will be created, this is generally an IT Services Proposal but sometimes Draft Project Proposals are created to demonstrate our understanding and showcase the services available. If we are successful through this initial process, we are often invited to meet the client in person to discuss and present our offering in more detail.
How Copilot Has Helped My Role
The introduction of Copilot within my role has given me a chance to really understand how this exciting new tool can help me automate and streamline my workload.
Copilot is a cloud-based platform that integrates with the tools and systems I use every day, such as Outlook, calendar, project management, and more. Some key areas that Microsoft Copilot has helped me in so far are as follows:
- Creating useful content and wording for specific technology areas within a proposal. For example, I recently created a new section on Backup and Disaster Recovery which Copilot was particularly helpful in creating the basis of. I then edited it, adding my own touch to it explaining how we specifically handle this area at Sharp IT Services.
- Recording Teams meetings and taking notes: These notes can be instantly shared with all attendees following the meeting and validated by all. This helped everyone to get a clear understanding of what was discussed, and the notes were then used to agree on the next steps. These notes are incredibly useful to refer to when creating tailored IT Services Proposals.
- Summarising RFP documents and extracting key points from prospects to help me break down their requirements and make sure my response proposals address their needs clearly and correctly.
- Summarising and extracting key points from the proposals I have created before asking Copilot to create a PowerPoint template based on this has been useful. It has saved lots of time in creating a new presentation that is specific to the prospect’s requirements, whilst also ensuring no key points are missed.
The Benefits of Copilot
Since I have started using Copilot, I have saved time in writing proposal documents, creating PowerPoint presentations and extracting useful information from multiple documents.
Knowing that Copilot is listening into and recording Teams calls allows me to focus more on the conversation and meeting itself rather than taking notes. This means that we have much more of a valuable discussion and can spend more time talking about requirements and services than taking manual notes.
Being able to follow up right after that meeting with detailed notes sets a clear understanding and a great impression of Sharp UK, as it shows that we are using technology right from the start to benefit our processes. This is often a talking point during meetings which gets prospects excited and engaged.
Copilot is a seriously powerful tool which has drastically improved my working day in a multitude of ways. I look forward to continuing to improve my use of Copilot and gaining further benefits from it.
