Exercise: Create a market research report using Copilot in Loop
Microsoft Loop is designed for modern collaboration. It allows Sales professionals to create, share, and jointly work on content with their teams in real-time. Loop is built on Microsoft 365 and integrates with other Microsoft apps like Word, Excel, and Teams.
Microsoft Copilot in Loop is an AI assistant that can help you with brainstorming, content drafting, and more. It can enhance productivity in various applications by doing things like draft texts, create tables, generate code for tech projects, and even quickly answer questions.
In this training exercise, you use Copilot in Loop to research a potential new sales market for your company's products and create a market research report that outlines its findings. You then ask it to change the format of the report by placing the content in a table. You also ask it to make a final recommendation as to whether your company should move into that market.
Exercise
You're the VP of Sales for VanArsdel Ltd. VanArsdel is an OEM of plastic components, whose primary market is the agriculture equipment industry. However, senior leadership is interested in possibly moving into the automotive market. Given the heavy competition from existing plastic manufacturers who already monopolize this sector, you need to determine if there's a space available for VanArsdel to become a viable player. You want to use Copilot in Loop to research the automotive market to determine if there's room for VanArsdel to be successful should it make this move.
In Microsoft 365, select Loop if it appears in the left-hand navigation pane. If it doesn't appear there, then select Apps, and on the Apps page, scroll down to locate Loop and then select it.
In Microsoft Loop, the Workspaces tab is displayed by default. You want to create a new workspace for this project, so select the +New workspace button.
In the Create a new workspace window, enter VanArsdel research for your workspace name, and then select either the Continue or Create button that appears (depending on your Loop version).
In the Add files to your workspace window (depending on your version of Loop, this window may say Workspace Switcher), select Create workspace.
You're now on the first page for your new workspace. The name of the page is currently Untitled. Note the page (Untitled) also appears in the left-hand navigation pane. In the main body of the page, select in the Untitled field and change the name of the page to Market research. Note how the page name is automatically updated in the navigation pane.
In the Just start typing... field, enter a forward slash (/).
In the drop-down menu that appears, under the Copilot section at the top of the menu, select Draft page content.
In the Copilot window that appears, note the row of buttons that appears below the prompt field. Select each button. When doing so, note how it prefills the prompt field with an example of the type of task that Copilot can assist with.
You're now going to enter your own prompt. In the prompt field, enter the following prompt and select the Submit icon:
As the VP for Sales for an OEM in the plastics manufacturing industry, please research the market for plastic components in the automotive industry. Provide information on target audience, market size, competition, trends, regulations, and distribution channels.
If you receive an error saying that something went wrong, copy and paste in the prior prompt and submit it again.
Review the generated report. Rather than having all the information in paragraph form, you prefer to summarize it in a table. In the Copilot pane that appears, enter the following prompt in the Rewrite with Copilot field and select the Submit icon:
Rewrite the report by placing the information in a table.
Note how Copilot changed the formatting of the report. You now want Copilot to make a final recommendation as to whether moving into this market is a viable option for VanArsdel. Enter the following prompt:
Add a recommendation to the end of the report as to whether we should move into the market.
Scroll to the bottom of the report and review Copilot's recommendation.