MICROSOFT DYNAMICS
Flexibility-Affordability-Customer Loyalty-Small Business
INTRODUCTION
Microsoft offers flexible, easy-to-use CRM solutions designed for any business or government agency. Microsoft Dynamics CRM facilitates the company to strengthen their customer relations, manage sales and marketing efforts and follow developments.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution braces a wide range intelligent features which are affordable and help meet users specific needs. These solutions empowers employees to perform at best output levels, to deliver high-quality services and effective communications, in order to achieve better results from sales and service business.
Microsoft Dynamics core purpose is to support its customers and benefits by:
• Enhance customer relationships by providing an understanding of consumer knowledge base and abridges team collaboration.
• Provides intuitive and related tools to boost productivity and accomplish goals.
• Single, flexible software that is useful and meets the needs of different departments within an organization.
FEATURES AND ADVANTAGES
Microsoft Dynamic CRM provides three main service options:
• In Premise or On Demand deployment with the flexibility to trade options when ever required.
• Option to purchase directly, subscribe or finance.
• Integrates with Microsoft Office Outlook, a Microsoft Office SharePoint portal, customer portal, Web or a mobile device.
The success of Microsoft Dynamics CRM lies in its:
• Brilliant integration with other Microsoft software and third-party solutions.
• Instant automation of business processes.
• Secured data customization and management.
• Web based service aids in building and strengthening integrations across organization.
• Offers flexible options for deployment, purchase, and access.
• User friendly and familiar interface as it functions like other Microsoft products.
• Tailored to the business needs with the assistance of extensive customization option.
MODULES
Microsoft Dynamics is available in 3 modules:
Sales: This module provides a highly intuitive interface with embedded Microsoft Office capabilities to increase sales productivity, streamline sales cycles, automate- lead management, and gain insights to drive more sales.
Customer Service: A Microsoft Dynamics CRM customer service solution supports customer service operation and converts it towards a strategic advantage. It provides access to the most comprehensive customer information, assisting the representatives to resolve issues quickly and reduce handling times. Consequently, it ensures delivery of consistent customer service and reduces operational cost.
Marketing: Microsoft Dynamic CRM marketing solution is flexible, easy to use, and engineered to fit any business. It assists to identify potential within the existing customer base. With marketing management and automation software from Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can sell more effectively, improve productivity, and obtain actionable insight into your marketing campaigns.
MARKET REVIEW
Microsoft has several, large on-premise customer accounts, however no large software as a service- hosting accounts. Key on-premise CRM competitors include Sage SalesLogix and Maximizer. Microsoft occasionally competes with Oracle’s Siebel or Onyx in larger- on-premise deals. Key SaaS CRM competitors include Salesforce.com, Oracle OnDemand and Aplicor.
The main hurdles faced by Dynamic CRM are :
Many regard user interfaces and navigation as complex and unintuitive.
SaaS solution was late to market and does not yet compete well with SaaS pure plays.
Limited to small- business organizations
While Microsoft did originally brand the combined ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM applications under a collective (Great Plains) Dynamics banner and establish an enterprise level integration project, code named Project Green, intended to consolidate the applications into a common code base over a multiple year period, the plan failed and was eventually cancelled.
Today, the portfolio of Microsoft ERP and CRM products clearly overlap, convey no group synergy and cause unusual customer confusion. The Microsoft products require a one company focus, well defined product road map, common framework, common development teams (some development teams such as Solomon are outsourced and seem to be slightly more than software maintenance evolution) and normal distribution channel (the partners have authority for only one of the various enterprise applications).
