Microsoft CRM has strong process and process automation capability. There are a number of ways that your can implement process capability including Business Processes, Workflows and Dialogs.

Business Processes
Your Business process flows act a guide for your teams to do their work. The user is typically guided through an effective process which has been defined by the company. An example of this is the end to end Sales process which requires lots of different activities, authorisations and stages to complete, all of which can be automated through workflows. Different processes can be tailored to suit different groups of users too. To build a business process you define a set of stages and steps that are then displayed at the top of the web form. Very often they are combined with workflow and customisation to create more sophisticated solutions.

Workflows
Workflows in contrast are used to automate business processes behind the scenes. They are typically initiated by system events so often the user is not aware that they are running, and if need be they can be manually started. Workflows can operate in two different modes wither in the background (asynchronously) or in real-time (synchronously).

Dialogs
Dialogs provide a user interface to guide people through a pre-prescribed script, they can be thought of as a 'Wizard'. An example is a dialog to support a phone order taking or sales process. It ensures that all important aspects of the interaction are consistently and properly completed by the user.

Creating and Using Business Processes

Creating and Using Dialogs