Potential TITAN Release dates and other items of note

Some great announcements recently. I will post more later on these:
1. The recently released Analytics Foundation is a package is a great new bundle of configs that load on top of SharePoint and Business Scorecard Manager. It is a download from Microsoft that basically shows you what you can do with the Business Intelligence Analytics Engine. This is a free software bundle from the Dynamics team.
2. REMINDER That CRM ELearning and Customer Source is a great place to get a LOT of free training on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. You have ot be an on premise CRM client to get this training. It is great stuff. If you do not know how to get to CustomerSource just email your partner and they can get you hooked up.
3. Taking Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile. Did you know you get access to the fat client and thin client for Mobile for free. Yes that is right: FREE. The Thin Client is open source development from Microsoft Dynamics and avail on the Sandbox. Ask me how if you need directions. jon@productivegap.com - We have run the Thin Client (Mobile Express) in house for a long time and it is great. Very useful tool and very easy to install.
4. TITAN is coming. Microsoft is now planning to release its Dynamics CRM 4.0 product in phases during the third and fourth quarters of 2007, rather than all at once in the third quarter of this year. It will most likely be called CRM 4.0. It will most likely be avail for general consumption in December of 2007. That will come up fast. Major features/functions/enhancements will be around A) Multi-tenancy B) Multi-Language C) Multi-currency. There will be other enhancements that speed up the application on the backend that will make users more productive and happy but nor other major functions on the front end.
5. Expect CRM LIVE the hosted version in the MSFT Data centers to be available in Oct or Nov. This will start out for the time being as a pure hosted application with very little or no ability to integrate to other system. The only way to integrate will be Web Services. There will not be any space or real estate to load other applications that will work with CRM. So it will be limited to just the pure CRM for a bit. After that I am sure they will open it up for a price. Right now they are saying that if you want to integrate with SCRIBE etc then you would do complex hosted like what partners offer.
6. Brad Wilson and Steve Ballmer demonstrated CRM LIVE to the General Session and it was SLICK. It will really make our jobs a lot easier in deploying and managing the Software side. You know CRM has a lot of internal weight and external potential for Microsoft when Steve Ballmer spends time presenting and building the vision!
7. Forrester released its review and rankings of Dynamics CRM and it was excellent. We were ranked leader of the pack for Vision and Strategy. That is amazing for how quickly we have moved to the lead. read more in this blog below.
8. Brad Wilson mentioned that Gartner had just ranked Dynamics CRM #2 of all mid market applications. More in this blog below. That is really incredible. These rankings combined with the rumblings that Salesforce.com is starting to loose some steam on various fronts means great things in the future. It must kind of be tough to have Oracle, SAP and Microsoft gang up on you in a year. Oh Well. Benioff is laughing all the way to the Bank.
9. On another note. Lets talk about Multi Tenancy for a second. It was brought up at Convergence by Christian that you have to ask: "Who really benefits from SF.com multi-tenancy?" SF.com leads with it a lot that they are Multi Tenant and Multi tenant and Blah Blah blah. But does that really matter to or bring value to the client? the answer is NO. It only benefits SF.com directly that they can pack more clients on a server. That is the main function of SF.com multi Tenancy.
10. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Multi Tenancy will be slightly different because Dynamics CRM has a Hybrid Approach to delivery, meaning it can be deployed SAAS, Hosted, or full on premise. This means you can have multi-tenancy on premise say in a large org or multi divisional or dept. Say you have a bank that wants one DB but exclusive views and instances. Now they can have their system in house and the Microsoft Dynamics multi-tenancy will enable them to have completely separate and secure instances, views and forms, into the same data but only returning the appropriate and desired info to the specific user in the correct division. This way they only need one server and db but have multi instances on the server. It is perfect. Now that is valuable to clients! That benefits clients.

Regards, Jon Petrucelli, Founder, ProductiveGap Corp. www.productivegap.com

Quick Quotes from Forrester Report CRM study 2007

Sunday, March 18, 2007, 11:51:11 PM
I was just reading the new Forrester report on mid-market CRM solutions. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is just being considered and is already being included in the leader group. It rated very high on strategy and vision. Brad Wilson at Convergence remarked that Gartner had just done a report and ranked Microsoft Dynamics CRM very high (#2) the first time it even included Microsoft Dynamics CRM in its rankings. THis is an amazing jump. It is attributed to a great product that is extremely easy to use but also amazingly powerful. Nice to finally get its due from unbiased critics. Here is a quote from the Forrester Report addressing Dynamics CRM's rapid Rise to the top:

"Microsoft Dynamics CRM is one of the newer products included in our evaluation, but the vendor has made impressive progress building out its solution, which emerged as a Leader for the first time in a Forrester Wave. Microsoft has won more than 7,500 customers since its introduction in late 2003, surpassing much of its competition on this metric. The vendor provides all-around core CRM capabilities in an intuitive, Outlook-style UI and leverages other Microsoft technologies like SharePoint and SQL Server Analysis Services to deliver more advanced capabilities. With many midmarket firms taking a Microsoft-first, .NET-centric approach to applications, Microsoft finds itself on a high percentage of CRM shortlists based on brand alone."

"Microsoft has shotgunned from a middle-of-the-pack offering in Forrester’s 2005 midmarket SFA evaluation to a market leader in the 2007 CRM suites evaluation. In addition to leveraging the strong Microsoft brand name, Dynamics CRM also excels at leveraging a range of Microsoft products to enhance CRM capabilities. Dynamics CRM’s UI is modeled after Microsoft’s popular Outlook email client, meaning a familiar user experience, shorter training time, and higher adoption rates. Dynamics CRM also leverages Microsoft tools like SharePoint and SQL Server Analysis Services to deliver additional value."

The Forrester Wave™: Midmarket CRM Suites, Q1 2007 by Liz Herbert

CRM one of the top inititiatives of CIOs in 2007

3 topics of conversation we got from this article:
“Payback usually comes in 2-3 years.” - This is not always the case. It all depends on the client situation. What are the people, products and processes that are in place now and how are they functioning. We have seen clients that are so inneficient that they are saving 3 hours a day in real time per person when they go live with the system. For 100 person team that is 300 hours a day time that comes back to the team for more productive actitivies.

“1 in 3 CRM projects fail.” Why? What are the main reasons? - User Adoption is the main reason. There are many reasons that contribute to this. Poor design, bad product, no management buy in, not enough traiining, difficult to use system to name a few. We recognize each of these and attack them early and often in our implementation methodology. We have a specific user adoption strategy plan for each engagement.

“At the end of the day, you have to drive profitability." How is the CRM solution going to help your team drive profitability? - This all revolves around enabling and amplifying your people with the right software and services. If you amplify your sales and maketing teams and they are more productive accross the board by each person then you are going to produce more with the same resources. That is the definitiion of increased profitability. Give your people the tools they need to go to the next level!

Jon Petrucelli - www.productivegap.com


Friday, March 09, 2007, 9:24:31 AM
March 8, 2007 Business process improvements, customer relationship management and business analytics are high on CIOs' to-do lists this year.

If there is any question that technology initiatives must respond to business needs, it is put to rest by what readers of this magazine say they're focusing on in 2007.

More than a third of those who took our top-projects survey say they are looking to do business process improvement. The next hottest areas, customer relationship management and business analytics, also require collaboration between information technologists and business people. Nowadays, businesses aren't funding anything whose return on investment they can't see.
"The projects we have scheduled for 2007 all answer a particular business need," says Gabrielle Wolfson, chief information officer of Spring Valley, N.Y.-based Par Pharmaceutical. "You're not going to implement technology for the sake of technology."

The unrelenting focus on ROI is leading companies to do more pilot projects and cut the number of risky big-bang initiatives they take on.

The ROI focus is also prompting companies to make better use of the systems they have in place. That's what the new push toward service-oriented architectures is all about. Indeed, while SOA itself doesn't appear on our list of the top 10 projects (it was the 12th-most-common project, cited by 12% of our readers), its principles of making better use of existing infrastructure and leveraging applications already in place are behind several of those that do, including Web services (No. 5 on our list) and enterprise systems planning (No. 9).
A total of 363 readers in I.T. and business management responded to Baseline's survey, which was conducted in January.

Read the full story on Baselinemag.com: Top 10 Technology Projects in '07

Great info on Dynamics and CRM

Microsoft Announces New Version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM for 2007 Microsoft Office System and Windows VistaTuesday November 7, 2:30 am ET

Microsoft Delivers Powerful New User Experience for Better Sales, Marketing and Service and Introduces New Licensing Options for Microsoft CRM

MUNICH, Germany, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today at Convergence 2006 EMEA, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - News) announced it will release a new version of Microsoft Dynamics(TM) CRM for the 2007 Microsoft® Office system and Windows Vista(TM) that enriches the user experience through enhanced productivity; data visualization; and communications, collaboration, and security features. Microsoft also announced that, in addition to being offered through Microsoft's standard Volume Licensing program, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will be offered through the licensing model that is used with Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) products, making it simpler and more convenient for customers and partners to buy and deploy a full Microsoft Dynamics suite solution that spans customer relationship management (CRM), financial management and supply chain management.

Better Together With 2007 Microsoft Office System and Windows Vista

With this new release, Microsoft Dynamics CRM continues its focus on delivering a solution that works the way people do, providing a familiar and intuitive work environment that maximizes user adoption and productivity. The new version will be released at the same time as the 2007 Office release and will ultimately be available in 18 languages for small, midsize and enterprise customers around the world.

"Microsoft Dynamics CRM is committed to delivering the ultimate in business productivity for sales, marketing and service managers and users," said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM at Microsoft. "As with prior releases of Microsoft CRM, it delivers the power of choice, enabling customers and partners to deploy this as on-premise software or an on-demand service."

The new version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, compatible with the 2007 Office release and Windows Vista, enables a range of powerful features:
* An enriched user experience based on the 2007 Microsoft Office system.
The new release of Microsoft CRM picks up on the new Ribbon user
experience of the 2007 Office release, and continues to enable users to
access rich, roles-based CRM capabilities through Microsoft Office
Outlook®, Microsoft Internet Explorer® and a broad range of mobile
devices.
* Richer data visualization with Microsoft Office Excel 2007. Rich data
visualization and business intelligence enhancements to Microsoft Office
Excel® 2007 enable better analysis and decision-making for CRM
managers and users.
* Desktop action and insight using Windows Vista gadgets. New Windows
Vista gadgets allow Microsoft Dynamics CRM activities, analytics and
alerts to be placed directly onto the desktop or home page.
* Unified communications with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. The new
release of Microsoft CRM enables users to store voice-mail messages in
Outlook and track them automatically in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
* Enhanced security with BitLocker Drive Encryption in Windows Vista. The
new BitLocker(TM) capability in Windows Vista helps protect confidential
CRM data on laptops from being accessed by unauthorized individuals.

Customers Look to the Next Generation of Innovation From Microsoft

As a National Football League franchise with global brand recognition, the Indianapolis Colts organization puts customer relationship management at the heart of its strategy for building and retaining its base of loyal fans and business partners. Recently, the Colts began an initiative to evaluate replacement options for its current Salesforce.com CRM solution. Citing the need for tight enterprise integration and a complete CRM solution, the Colts worked with Crowe Chizek, a regional Microsoft Gold Certified and Microsoft Dynamics Partner, to evaluate the combination of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows Vista and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Pat Coyle, director of Database Marketing and E-Commerce with the Indianapolis Colts, said, "We knew right away this could work for us. We continue to be impressed with the technology Microsoft provides. Having a tightly integrated system that includes Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista will allow companies like us to remain on the leading edge of sales, service and marketing effectiveness for years to come."

For South African financial group Sasfin Bank Ltd., the decision to upgrade to the latest versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista hinges on two key needs: a true 360-degree view of its customers and an intuitive user experience that enables rapid adoption across the company.

"Managing our clients' financial portfolios demands real-time access to data from numerous sources," said Peter Oeschger, chief information officer, Sasfin Group. "Microsoft Dynamics CRM's ability to integrate technology, coupled with its flexible service-oriented architecture and friendly user experience is the best in the industry, bar none."

The new release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM will work with the 2007 Office release and Windows Vista as well as with previously supported versions of Office and Windows®. Upgrades to the new release will be free for customers on active support agreements.
Microsoft Adds New Purchasing Options for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft also announced today that licensing options for Microsoft Dynamics CRM will be increased by adding it to the licensing model that is offered with Microsoft Dynamics ERP products. This includes both Business Ready Licensing and Modular Based Licensing. By adding pricing information for Microsoft Dynamics CRM to the price lists for each of Microsoft's financial and business management solutions (Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics SL), customers will find it even more simple and convenient to buy and deploy full-suite Microsoft Dynamics solutions for their businesses.

For Bill Kinahan, CRM practice lead at Tectura North America, the addition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to the Business Ready Licensing model enables Tectura to do what it does best: provide expertise in integrating business solutions for its customers.

"Rather than someone from the IT department, it is frequently the vice president of sales, the CIO or CEO who comes to us to purchase Microsoft Dynamics CRM. They are looking to us to make the purchasing easy," Kinahan said. "With Microsoft Dynamics CRM on the Business Ready price list, customers can purchase full-suite Microsoft Dynamics solutions directly from Tectura and benefit from our expertise in delivering end-to-end business processes. That's a smart move on Microsoft's part, putting the purchasing decision back in the clients' hands."
Microsoft Dynamics CRM will continue to be offered through Microsoft Volume Licensing, the same licensing model that is used for Microsoft Office, Windows and Microsoft Exchange.
About Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions that helps businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

NOTE: Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics, Windows Vista, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Excel, BitLocker and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
For more information about Microsoft Dynamics: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/businesssolutions/default.mspx For more information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM: http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/default.mspx

Wiki Definition of CRM - Client Relationship Management Software

I Love using Wikipedia to look stuff up. It provides a ton of context around simple questions and topics. So I combined that with my love for CRM and looked it up to fine:

Here is a great definition of CRM:
"The generally accepted purpose of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is to enable organizations to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable systems, processes and procedures for interacting with those customers.

In today's competitive business environment, a successful CRM strategy cannot be implemented by simply installing and integrating a software package designed to support CRM processes. A holistic approach to CRM is vital for an effective and efficient CRM policy. This approach includes training of employees, a modification of business processes based on customers' needs and an adoption of relevant IT-systems (including software and maybe hardware) and/or usage of IT-Services that enable the organization or company to follow its CRM strategy. CRM-Services can even replace the acquisition of additional hardware or CRM software-licences.

The term CRM is used to describe either the software or the whole business strategy (or lack of one) oriented on customer needs. The main misconception of CRM is that it is only software, instead of whole business strategy."

- Source: Wikipedia.org - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_Relationship_Management
I thought you might enjoy.

Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/ - Austin, Texas - CRM Specialists.

Avaya Integration to Microsoft CRM

Check out this overview video of the Avaya integration to MS CRM. Good quick overview and demo.
http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=31538

We use the Avaya IP Office internally and it is a very nice integration. It is seamless and works rather well as long as you are at your desk. The other limitation is that it only works in the browser. Weird but true.

Jon Petrucelli - www.productivegap.com - Austin Texas

CRM 3.0 - SImple Duplicates Detection and cleansing

I recently de-duped all out CRM dbs and tried to use various products to do it. Dupes can really destroy your marketing and CRM cred if you dont be careful. Just imagine you spend a bunch of time developing a nice personalized and individualized email for sending out to propsects and cleints and leads etc. Then you run your blast email campaign and your valuable prospects get THREE personalized "Dear, John" emails flood their inbox. THis does not make you look very competent.

Microsoft CRM has some good tactical features to help cleanse your DB and thus enhance your marketing.
1. Deactivate leads and contacts - This revolves around the concept of never deleting records and the status of Active vs Inactive.
2. Merge records - Nice feature for leads, contacts and accounts merging of two duplicate records.
3. SQL Reporting Services Reports and their drill back/thru capabilites

Using these powerful and native features we quickly (hours) developed a few different reports to interrogate our CRM dbs and surface any and all email duplicates. We used Emails as the primary matching record. We looked at dups of Lead emails, Contact emails, and also compared lead and contact email lists. We also looked it they were Active or inactive.

Once we had the list in front of us with the Active v Inactive and the date created and modified we could easily see which record to keep and which to deactivate or delete. Once the decision was made we could easily use the SRS drill thru feature to easily click through and open the record and either delete or deactivate it.

It is crud and brute force but is also very black and white and straighforward.

We now trust our data a lot more and that means we can use it a lot more and communicate with our clients a lot more to build our relationships and expand our social and business networks to enable our success!


Jon Petrucelli www.productivegap.com Austin Texas

Dynamics CRM Value Proposition - Why Invest?

I wanted to take a second to post some opinion on our Team BLOG. None of this is really earth shattering but I beleive it is worth writing down every once in a while for posterity sake....

CRM really is an amazing product. It is ground-up built on the latest technology unlike any other application on the market. Every competitor we see out there is trying to move to a similar platform. We believe the best core messages to get across to a Business Executive evaluating CRM solutions are these: AMPLIFY THE EFFECTIVNESS OF YOUR TEAM
MS CRM provides you a strategic business application process platform not just sales, marketing and service.

- It seamlessly integrates and functions within Office applications that your users already know and prefer.
- It also heavily leverages your existing investment in the Microsoft Stack of Server and Client Office applications.
- Lastly it is extremely customizable and extensible to both your business needs and the personal user preferences.

These three main messages combine to deliver a world class application that provides your valued teams with the tools they need to AMPLIFY their effectiveness and performance.
Ultimately the team members that you have in your organization make or break your business, performance and success. Technology does not MOVE business and enhance value or innovate strategy. People do.

Unchain them from friction filled applications and disparate 'ALT-TAB' integrated windows and let them run for the GOLD. Provide them a familiar, easy to use, interface with a V12 engine architecture and you will drive your success!

Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/ – Austin Texas

CRM Magazine's 2006 CRM Market Leader Awards

First Posted : Thursday, September 21, 2006, 2:15:35 PM

Microsoft CRM wins CRM Magazine's 2006 CRM Market Leader Awards and independent research firm's report analyzes the product.

"Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft Dynamics(TM) CRM 3.0 has won CRM Magazine's 2006 CRM Market Leader Awards in both the Midmarket Suite CRM and Small Business Suite categories. Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft CRM, has also won the magazine's CRM Influential Leader Award for the second consecutive year. These awards, as well as a new report published by Gartner Inc. on Microsoft CRM, follow the recent announcement of over 100 percent growth for Microsoft CRM in the past fiscal year. This includes over 50,000 new customer seats and major multithousand-seat enterprise wins in the last quarter, and validates the rapid growth of the product across all segments, geographic regions and industries."

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/sep06/09-20CRMIndustryInfluencersPR.mspx

Regards,
Jon Petrucelli
www.productivegap.com
ProductiveGap is based in Austin, Texas and is a leading provider of Microsoft CRM products, services and solutions. The ProductiveGap team has attained the highest levels of experience and certification in the Microsoft CRM field. We combine this technical leadership and operational experience with an extreme passion for Microsoft CRM and how it will enable the success of our clients.

Forreser Report on Dynamics Wave 1

HERE IS THE INFO FROM 3rd Party Technology Analyst Firm:
Microsoft Corporation today announced results from the independent Forrester Research, Inc., report “Microsoft Dynamics Emerges From Wave 1,” in which Microsoft Dynamics is seen to be successfully delivering. Dynamics, the line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions, says Microsoft PR, “is successfully delivering on the company’s vision of roles-based productivity that enables the ‘people-ready’ business.”

The report provides an assessment of Microsoft’s progress in delivering on Wave One and combining its enterprise resource planning and CRM solutions. Microsoft press material places particular emphasis on at least one excerpt from the report: “With its financial strength, ubiquitous Office environment and improving analytics capabilities, Microsoft is in a unique position to redefine business application usability, and is doing so.” The first wave of Microsoft Dynamics products, announced at the company’s Convergence 2006 event in March, focuses on extensive collaboration functionality and business intelligence via deep integration with Microsoft Office and Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft Dynamics products and solutions include Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics SL and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The good buzz on Microsoft Dynamics is bolstered by one firm whose choice of CRM packages is literally a matter of life and death. Steve Lenz, vice president of Information Systems for LifeNet, the nation’s largest nonprofit, full-service organ donation agency and tissue banking system, said “When you consider that saving a life or helping a patient in surgery often depends upon our ability to immediately and accurately transfer information, it’s crucial that we have a fully integrated system our staff can easily use [...] we anticipate the additional benefits of upcoming Microsoft Dynamics product releases.” The Forrester report goes on to further state that “With each new product release, Microsoft Dynamics delivers improved support for Web services [...] With roles and personalization, SharePoint enhances the overall user experience across the Microsoft Dynamics product lines and moves the applications from a client/server, fat-client paradigm to the Web.”

Heavy praise, indeed, which Microsoft representatives see as the company “delivering on its vision of Web-services-based customization that leverages the functionality of Microsoft SharePoint products and technology.” Microsoft U.S. sales strategy general manager Jennifer Bogdalek spoke with the confidence of one who is no. 1 when she opined, “Customers of all sizes continue to come to us because that is a value proposition they aren’t finding elsewhere. We are on track, and will stay on track, to ensure that the Microsoft platform continually delivers upon this promise.” Established in 1984, Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research is an independent technology and market research company that advises on technology’s impact on business and consumers.

The Forrester m.o. is called “WholeView 2 Research,” “a comprehensive, unified view of technology's impact on business, from deep information technology issues to broad strategic goals.” An electronic version of Forrester Research’s “Microsoft Dynamics Emerges From Wave 1” is available here. Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions, delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services. These integration modules work with familiar Microsoft software to streamline business processes.

Regards, Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/ – Austin Texas