Microsoft CRM Consultant

• Revamped their proposal process

• Streamlined their accounts payable processes

• Realized a tremendous return on investment

In Part 3 of this series, we’re detailing the following CRM Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM: eService, Analytics and Enterprise Search. 

eService Accelerator

The eService accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 provides customer self-service capabilities (via a web portal) as a configurable out-of-the-box offering.  The web self-service portal exposes the following CRM functions to customers:

• Customer authentication into the portal and workflows to manage the setup of a contact as a web self-service customer.
• Customer profile updates to contact details; this capability is configurable allowing organizations to choose which attributes of the profile they want to expose to the customer portal such as name, contact details and communications preferences.
• The ability to view, create, edit and close service cases. There are two permission levels available to web portal customers:
  • Account-Level: these customers can view and modify all cases raised against the account they are associated with.
  • Contact-Level: these customers can only view and modify service cases that they themselves have raised.
• Online service scheduling allowing customers to search for convenient times and then book service appointments with the organization.
• Search against the Microsoft Dynamics CRM knowledge base (KB) using keywords. Once the appropriate KB article has been located the customer can then email that article to themselves or others.

Analytics Accelerator

This is release 2 of 3 for the Analytics Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.  This release incorporates some bug fixes to the existing dashboards for SQL Server 2005.  It also introduces a set of dashboards for SQL Server 2008.  The following future releases are going through final testing and packaging and will be available soon:

• R3 delivers more advanced SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) capabilities as well as Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server scorecards

Many customers and partners will be familiar with Analytics Foundation for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 which was a business intelligence feature pack for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.  Analytics Foundation for Dynamics CRM 3.0 included Dashboards, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and a suite of new reports.  Analytics Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (R2) expands on this and is designed to support a range of business intelligence “maturity” levels for customers and partners. T he Analytics Accelerator has been built to cater for differing business intelligence skill-sets and experience levels.

Enterprise Search Accelerator

This is Release 1 of 2 of the Enterprise Search Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  The Enterprise Search Accelerator allows Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) customers to view and search for Microsoft Dynamics CRM data directly from their SharePoint portals.  By combining these two technologies, users from different areas of the business will be able to:

• View and edit any Microsoft Dynamics CRM data such as accounts, contacts, opportunities, sales orders, invoices, service cases and any custom entity data through MOSS.
• Launch a MOSS search which can return documents, emails, web content and Microsoft Dynamics CRM data.

The Enterprise Search Accelerator provides one enterprise portal that users can search and view important customer information and documents from several sources within the organization.  Additionally, the technology, Business Data Catalog (BDC) and techniques used with this accelerator can be employed to surface data from other lines of business applications to further enrich the MOSS portal.

The BDC makes it easy for people to connect to, find and act on information stored in structured line-of-business systems (such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM) by using a declarative framework to securely integrate them into search results.  With the BDC, customers and partners can configure actionable audience-specific portals, dashboards and mash-up interfaces for this data without writing any code.

Release 1 (this release) includes key documentation on how to deploy MOSS Enterprise Search connecting to Microsoft Dynamics CRM on the standard Microsoft Virtual PC demonstration image.  Release 2 will provide additional documentation and tools to allow you to customize your enterprise search solution for different customer and partner requirements.

To learn more about Ohio Microsoft Dynamics CRM, please contact Socius, a Gold Certified Microsoft Dynamics Partner.
 

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the 3 newest Microsoft Dynamics CRM Accelerators in greater detail.   In Part 2, we’re covering 3 more Accelerators for CRM notifications, event management and sales forecasting.  The CRM Accelerators are available at no additional cost to current Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and partners.  There are currently 13 CRM Accelerators available.

CRM Notifications Accelerator

The CRM notifications accelerator allows users to subscribe to the CRM “business events” that are significant to them, e.g. a salesperson is interested in new leads and opportunities assigned to them whereas a customer service representative is interested in new service cases assigned to them. Once the user has subscribed (each user manages their subscription profile) to the types of events that are important to them they can elect how they want these event notifications to be delivered. Notifications are delivered via a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed and can be consumed with many desktop tools including Microsoft Outlook 2007 or the standard newsfeed Windows Vista® gadget.

Event Management Accelerator

The event management accelerator gives organizations the ability to manage the planning, execution, tracking and reporting requirements for events. The event management accelerator focuses on three areas of event management, namely: 

1. Event Planning - logistics around an event such as:
   • Booking the venue
   • Presenters
   • Catering
   • Presentation content preparation
      
2. Event Attendance - all aspects around managing the attendees such as:
   • Inviting the target audience via phone, fax, letter and email
   • Managing registrations via phone, letter, fax, email and web
   • Tracking all people who actually attended the event
      
3. Event Review – Microsoft Dynamics CRM reports that measure the effectiveness of the event:
   • How many people attended the event?
   • What was the revenue impact of the event?

A core component of the event management accelerator is the web registration portal that customers and partners can deploy to allow web registration for their events and track these registrations in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  The solution also consists of a plugin to manage registration counts and waitlists.

Sales Forecasting Accelerator

The extended sales forecasting accelerator enriches the out-of-the-box sales forecasting capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Principally, sales users of Microsoft Dynamics CRM can review their individual sales pipeline and quickly classify opportunities as committed, excluded or upside. Sales managers can monitor and track sales targets, budgets and performance against these forecasts for specific time periods (e.g. months and quarters).

Underpinning these capabilities are new Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 reports that summarize sales performance for the organization as a whole or for individual salespeople.

For more information about Ohio Microsoft Dynamics CRM, please contact Socius, a Microsoft Dynamics Partner.
 

Microsoft Corp. has developed CRM Accelerators to expand the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM in addressing emerging business trends.  The CRM Accelerators are available at no additional cost to current Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and partners.  There are currently 13 CRM Accelerators available.

This post discusses the newest 3 Accelerators in greater detail.  Additional posts detailing the rest will soon follow.

Social Networking Accelerator

The Social Networking Accelerator allows business professionals to monitor and analyze customers’ conversations on social networking sites, and as a result, provides real-time status updates about their products and services.  This accelerator delivers integration with Twitter; other networks will be introduced in future releases.  The Social Networking Accelerator can be viewed online at http://crm.dynamics.com.

Download the CRM and Social Networking White Paper
 
Portal Integration Accelerator

The Portal Integration Accelerator easily connects Microsoft Dynamics CRM to an organization’s Web experience.  This release builds on the eService portal engine and expands to allow customers to configure and expose any CRM entity to an external facing portal.  With this added capability, a business analyst can use point-and-click configuration — as opposed to Web development — to rapidly extend to the Internet any business process and drive costs out of everyday business interactions.

Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator

The Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator allows businesses to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to distribute sales leads and centrally manage sales opportunities across channel partners.  It provides pre-built extensions to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM sales force automation functionality, including new data entities, workflow and reports.  Using the PRM Accelerator, companies can jointly manage sales processes with their channel partners through a centralized Web portal, as well as extend this integration to automate additional business processes. 

Contact Socius, a Microsoft Dynamics Partner, to see how we can assist you with CRM Accelerators for your Ohio Microsoft Dynamics CRM software.

• Lack internal IT staff and/or hardware to support on-premise software.
• Need a short implementation time-frame (the solution is readily available to you whenever your business is ready for the solution).
• Have a budget that is more conducive to a monthly fee rather than a large upfront investment.

You should choose On-Premise if you...

• Require a large amount of customizations.
• Need two-way integrations with other applications, like your Ohio ERP system.
• Have data access needs that are important to business strategies.
• Want to reap the long-term cost benefits of recouping your upfront software and implementation costs through the systems benefits.
• Have an IT staff and the hardware to support the system readily available.

To get some help assessing your business needs to see if SaaS or On-Premise CRM is right for you, request a complimentary business strategy review from Socius.

Of course, regardless of whether you select hosted CRM or on-premise, the best long-term solution for your growing business is to choose a CRM software with a flexible deployment.  Both Ohio Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Sage SalesLogix CRM enable organizations to switch between their on-premise and hosted deployments as their business needs develop and change. 
 

• Fast online access through three different access points.
• Simple contact management and a new Get Started Pane.
• Better sales performance with a new home page dashboard to provide real-time views into key metrics.
• Better economics with simplified pricing of $44 per user per month. 

• Has difficulty sharing, using, and exploring customer data
• Maintains multiple inconsistent data sources
• Struggles with inaccurate sales, marketing and service reports

• Plan with greater clarity and insight
• Gather, monitor, and report on performance with ease
• Analyze data and act strategically

Marketing

1. Drive campaign ROI
2. Increase response rates
3. Improve marketing agility

1. Develop accurate forecasts
2. Achieve revenue goals
3. Increase close rates

1. Increase customer satisfaction
2. Reduce customer service costs
3. Drive revenue through customer service channels

To see more of the CRM Dashboards enabled by the Analytics Accelerator, check out this presentation made to our Ohio CRM software users at our Aspire conference in October.

In addition to the Analytics Accelerator, Microsoft has developed and released 12 accelerators that enhance Microsoft Dynamics CRM capabilities to optimize everything from sales methodology to social networking. 

Learn more about and download CRM Accelerators here. 
 

Get the Microsoft Dynamics solution you want today, pay for it over three years, and realize better business productivity!

Business Ready Flexible Pay allows you to purchase a Microsoft Dynamics solution today that you may not otherwise be able to purchase based on cash flow or budget constraints. Microsoft Dynamics solutions, along with Business Ready Flexible pay, can help you increase business productivity more quickly and realize rapid return on investment.

This offer reduces your upfront investment through predictable and affordable annual payments which can help optimize your cash flow and improve IT budget management.  Microsoft is listening to customers and is actively enabling them to preserve capital resources while making strategic investments in their future. 

With Business Ready Flexible Pay, you can:

• Get affordable and predictable payments. Manage cash flow and control costs with predictable payments over three years, resulting in ownership of the Microsoft Dynamics software licenses.
• Realize rapid return on investment. Align software expenses with the long-term benefits of your Microsoft Dynamics solution, resulting in rapid return on your investment up front.
• Increase productivity today. Start using a Microsoft Dynamics solution today to increase productivity. Also, enjoy access to the Business Ready Enhancement Plan, which provides the tools and resources you need—product information, downloads, self-support resources, training, and more—to keep your users working efficiently.

Download the Business Ready Flexible Pay Fact Sheet for more information and offer details.

Contact Socius to learn more about purchasing Microsoft Dynamics solutions through Business Ready Flexible Pay.  Products included in this offer: Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, and Microsoft Dynamics NAV.  Offer expires December 23, 2009.
 

• The need to integrate data from multiple business applications or data sources
• Lack of visibility into the company's operations, finances, and other areas
• The need to access relevant business data quickly and efficiently
• Increasing volume of users requiring and accessing information and more end-users requiring analytical capabilities
• Rapid company growth or a recent or pending merger/acquisition
• Introduction of new products
• Upgrades within the IT environment

• Share information efficiently and effectively with people across your organization.  BI makes it easy for everyone- from decision-makers to functional teams- to access and analyze up-to-date information anytime, anywhere.  Everyone throughout the company can make better decisions, faster.
• Empower your people.  Providing employees with access to analytical data that is readily available and understandable allows them to work more effectively and support the overall business strategy. 
• Simplify collaboration and sharing and improve alignment with a single source for accurate financial and operational information.  Having a single, central location allows you to monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs), access reports, analyze your data, and share documents.  All of the functional areas are aligned to articulate strategies, set objectives, and monitor the organization's performance so you can make better informed and timely decisions that support your overall business strategy.
• Gain insights to understand and analyze your business performance and opportunities on a deeper level.  Analyze and evaluate information that is more accessible and easy to interact with to make strategic and tactical decisions.
• Deliver meaningful analysis and reporting.  Readily track and analyze KPIs against key business goals to gain a better understanding of how your business is performing today and not when it's too late to impact performance.
• Have a solution with the scalability and flexibility to grow and change as your organization does.  Many companies rely solely on the most widely used BI tool, the Excel spreadsheet.  While Excel offers many useful features such as graphs, charts, and pivot tables which assist in decision-making, it doesn't scale to your business.  Also, compiling data from multiple, disparate databases is time-consuming and is prone to errors.  However, Excel is still a key component of a total BI solution. 

• You use multiple methods to communicate with your customers (e-mail, phone, face-to-face, direct mail, etc.)
• You want to be able to target specific customers and prospects and personalize communications
• Your customers' demographics vary
• You want greater visibility into your sales pipeline
• You're duplicating efforts within the company (i.e. two salespeople call the same prospect) 
• It's time-consuming and difficult to generate reports
• You want to be able to track marketing and sales trends and identify opportunities
• Any customer or prospect data you currently have is spread across different systems

• Integration with existing databases and technology systems
• Consolidated information in a centralized system
• Improved visibility into company data and processes for more predictable and manageable business operations
• Ability to create custom reports efficiently and modify rules of the system
• Improved customer service and efficiency due to increased responsiveness and non-duplication of data
• Improved information sharing and synchronization resulting in increased productivity and sales performance
• Better targeted and more efficient marketing

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Sage SalesLogix CRM
• SageCRM
• ACT! by Sage

• Reduced time to gather timecard and payroll data.
• Efficiencies in payroll and HR due to self-service functionality for new hires, benefit enrollment, and general look-ups.
• Efficiencies in HR for transmitting data to vendors.
• Elimination of duplicate data entry.

• Social Networking Accelerator
• Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Accelerator
• Portal Integration Accelerator

Inside CRM released a comparison chart for 15 of todays hottest hosted customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions.  Today, I wanted to pull out two of those Ohio CRM Online solutions and compare not only their features, but their benefits and drawbacks as well.
 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online vs. SalesForce.com Enterprise Edition

Sales Force Automation:  

• Both have the typical sales-force management tools and opportunity tracking, analytics and forecasting tools. 
• SalesForce focuses on the strength of their built-in mobility features, while Microsoft Dynamics enables mobility as an add-on where needed. 
• Microsoft also boasts a complex quote generation tool as well as sales literature generation from within the system and direct email marketing. 
• While SalesForce is integrated with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is built directly into Outlook for expedited email management.

• SalesForce and Microsoft CRM Online are very similar in this area with automated email management, customer access to knowledge bases, case management and resolution analytics.
• SalesForce also Computerized Telephony Integration and a self-service customer portal, both of which can be integrated into Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, but aren't readily available.

• Campaing planning, automation, and management
• List management
• Email marketing management and automation
• Workflow customization
• Reporting, Analytics and Dashboards

Price:  When it comes to price, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is the clear winner.  The Microsoft Dynamics Pricing is almost 1/3rd that of SalesForce.com. 

Microsoft = $44 to $59 per user per month
SalesForce = $125 per user per month

"Microsoft Dynamics CRM offered the functionality we were looking for and the familiar Outlook-style interface, for about one-third the cost of SalesForce.com." - Clint Brown, President and CEO of the Florence Freedom baseball team, a client of Socius, an Ohio CRM Online provider and Ohio Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner.  Read more about the Florence Freedom's success with Microsoft Dynamics CRM here!

The Florence Freedom baseball team is getting more people out to the ball game this season thanks to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. 

They had been using Microsoft Outlook to manage their contacts and were striking out:

• Once the Freedom's contact list reached 20,000, Outlook slowed down
• They didn't have a lot of internal IT resources
• They needed a hosted CRM solution

• Is a powerful, easy-to-use solution
• Was 1/3 of the cost of Salesforce.com
• Requires only minimal IT resources to maintain
• Has a familiar, Outlook-like interface that minimizes the learning curve
• Only took 2 weeks for Socius to implement

In our last post, we demonstrated how a solid ERP partner can mean the difference between a timely and on-budget ERP software implementation and one that fails to meet deadlines and expectations. 

The Panorama Consulting Group’s study on ERP software solution implementations that we cited previously also revealed that the biggest challenges facing an ERP system implementation team are:

• Lack of employee buy-in (Biggest challenge for 40% of respondents)
• Lack of ERP experience (Biggest challenge for 33% of respondents)

So the question is: How can THE RIGHT ERP partner prevent these problems from happening?

The Right partner will…

• Get your entire team involved in a business requirements assessment and help you select an Ohio ERP software solution that fits your business, not try to force your business into the solution they want you to buy
• Get the whole team involved in a business process review to make sure everyone is working together to accomplish the company goals most efficiently
• Show you how to pull information out of the Ohio ERP solution and share it so that everyone in the organization understands how their role affects the company
• Provide all users training on the new solution
• Provide ongoing opportunities for individuals across your organization to learn about aspects of the Ohio ERP solution based on their role and level of experience