Analysis of Microsoft Dynamics Crm Solutions

Chen, I, J. and Popovich, K. (2003) Understanding customer relationship management (CRM). People, process and technology. Business process management journal, Vol. 9 No 5. Retrieved from http://cis.csuohio.edu/~ichen/CRM.pdf

Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) is the world leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software specifically designed for small and medium businesses, enterprises and government organizations. Salesforce.com was the first enterprise software company to break the $1B barrier of CRM sales on the cloud computing platform (Salesforce Investor Relations). It is also the first company to successfully orchestrate complex product and services strategies entirely on the Internet. This company's ability to orchestrate connectivity, cloud integration, enterprise storage and enterprise-wide applications is revolutionizing the economics of cloud computing today (Hedgebeth, 49). The strategic direction of the company is to expand quickly off of its sales base of applications, into customer service and support (Salesforce Investor Relations). As research studies from Gartner have shown, the majority of software sales in CRM today are in Customer Service and Support (34%) followed by Sales (26%) and Marketing (20%) (Salesforce Investor Relations). Salesforce.com reported $3B in revenue for their latest fiscal year and a $270M loss. Salesforce.com's success in enterprise CRM against entrenched competitors including Oracle and SAP is noteworthy, as both of these competitors rely on an on-premises application delivery model. The on-premises model is significantly more time-consuming to implement and often requires companies to

In CRM systems, customers are often grouped according to different aspects. This can range from the type of business they do or their physical location. Customers are often allocated to different customer managers, also referred to as account managers. By doing this, the account managers are able to focus every customer separately and provide them with the customer service they need. A CRM system is not only used to deal with the existing customers but is also useful in acquiring new customers, which first starts with identifying a customer. Maintaining all the corresponding details into the CRM system is called an ‘Opportunity of Business’ and the sales and Field representatives can try to get business out of these customers by sophistically following up with them and converting them into a winning deal. All this is very easily and efficiently done by an integrated CRM system (Sarah Diffley & Patrick McCol, 2015).

In today’s business world the software that a business uses and develops to control their data and manage their business is a critical dimension for the company’s success. While some companies might still believe that IT and software are tangential and purchase their software off the shelf this is becoming less and less of a viable option for companies looking to compete in larger markets. Some companies purchase their software off the shelf, but most companies are seeing the need for customized software whether developed in house or custom ordered. In fact, eighty-seven percent of recently surveyed companies as reported by Joe McKendrick for Service Oriented on ZDNet, said that “building their own software was essential to innovation”. This is a trend that only seems to be growing as business grow more specialized and data becomes more and more critical for making essential business decisions. Each year a company’s software does more and more for the business, whether their software is point of sales, database tracking systems, mapping software or order managements systems, just to name a few. Every management team needs to consider their abilities to develop, modify and create the new software that powers their business moving forward. USM currently struggles with the speed and efficiency that software is developed, and this is hindering our ability to compete in a difficult environment. Examining both new and old methods of developing software and comparing them

For Microsoft to be able to enjoy their current leading market position is all due to their wide range of products, services and hardware solutions offered to their customers. GlobalData (2014) states that the revenues generated by Microsoft are due to their expertise on developing, manufacturing, licensing and supporting software and services globally and Microsoft focus on developments to expend themselves such as developments of systems, server applications, information worker productivity applications, business solution applications, high-performance computing applications and software developments tools . In addition, with their constructive product portfolio, the wide variation of customer’s needs across

To counter fragmentation, leading-edge companies strive to take a more customer centred approach to CRM. There is a growing trend towards managing all the activities that ientify, attract, and retain customers in an integrated fashion, that is, managing them as a process that cuts across functional departments. By addressing these activities as a set of CRM processes, organizations can create end-to-end communications and performance accountability for entire sets of activities. In short, a CRM

The customer-facing business provides service which is experienced by the consumers. The key customer relationship management (CRM) component, is designed to provide pleasing user experiences by means of all customer touch points.

It’s very important to a business to have good customer relationships; CRM Software’s main objectives are to attract new customers while maintaining and satisfying their current customers and trying to win back the trust of former customers. Customers are one of the most important variables for a business owner to pay attention to, when trying to create a profit. Customer Relationship Management software keeps track of customer information to help the company maintain a strong relation with the customers. Good CRM Software brings together information from all databases within a company and gives

In 2008 Telstra transformed from its old DOS based computer systems to its current Customer Relationship Management system (Siebel), this transition was not well executed by its decision makers due to system bugs affecting Siebel’s billing, signup provision and activation process.

In light of these, considering customers’ needs and wants first and making business plan for that is key to success, and CRM makes that dream come true. CRM helps a company to understand their customers and know what they want. Through this, companies can get closer relationships with customers and they can differentiate themselves from other competitors by providing superior service and offering a consistent, convenient customer experience. Not only for customers, but also CRM is beneficial for companies ' internal control. First of all, in these days, the size of the company is getting bigger. Consequently, the

Companies use CRM strategies to alter the customer experience to move beyond the sales focus to a relationship with the customers that meet the needs of

As CRM helps in improving the knowledge about customers in terms of their behavior, demographics and purchase patterns thus it helps in segregating highly profitable customers from less profitable customers.

This case study that I am discussing is about my earlier company in India which was in the Telecom industry. Since there was an extremely stiff competition in the telecom industry, companies in the telecom business were adopting to new technological imperatives in order to outperform their competitors. Hence my company also chose to implement CRM solution which will connect all business users, stakeholders, inter-departmental executives so that all business processes are automated and the efficiency of operations is improved. CRM signified identifying the needs of the customers and stretching out ways and means to satisfy them. In this perspective CRM was not merely treated as a technology, it also had implications in the

CRM applications can integrate communication channels, making the same information available whether you are dealing with customers online, over the phone, via e-mail or face to face

Application accessibility: ASP vendors offering On-Premise and On-Demand software perform rigorous testing to provide a high-performance and scalable software. However, On-Premise software may compromise as they are maintained at client side and the right IT resources could keep it to the vendor recommended specifications. In case of On-Demand, all these are taken care by the vendors to offer the best solutions to the fast changing market.