I got this from the CRM Facebook group.
http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/everyonegetsit/default.mspx?WT.mc_id=egivanity
Microsoft is getting much better at explaining the business value of the technology to the people. This is not an easy thing to do and I think they are getting better at competeing in the domain.
CHOICE is an interesting word to build a marketing campaign and go to market strategy around. I think it is especially ironic given that MSFT has spent more money in anti-trust defense than probably any other company. I like to joke around that “You have Choice as long as you pick Microsoft CRM.” LOL. ;-) Luckily you have some pretty dang good choices. I won’t make any bones about that I am a MS CRM Zealot, just ask anyone that knows me or works with me. My wife would tell you that I am an obsessive and that is a gift and a curse.
“I have been with the rest and now I’m with the best.” MS CRM is a great solution. I have used almost all the others so I can tell you some stories. From ACT! to Seibel to SFDC. They all have their pros and cons. MS CRM has its pros and cons, BUT for the money it is hands down THE BEST value there is and ever has been in the CRM marketplace. I can argue that with anyone. MS CRM costs approximately $2-$3/day per user. That is roughly the cost of a Starbucks Venti Coffee. Don’t tell Phil Richardson I mixed coffee and CRM on my blog. You can run the numbers and see.
For that price you get a Business-class, server-based, SQL-driven, business platform application that is embedded in the Outlook interface with mobile, IE and Thin client interfaces to the same data real time, off-line client too. That has been the holy grail of CRM forever. Not to mention all the controls, reporting, workflow, Excel and Word Integrations, API, Customizations, Data Migration, etc. This all combines to be one heck of a business platform for Marketing, Sales, Service, and extensions. We use it for much more than it is marketed as.
MS CRM is basically an Entity relationship management platform. XRM – X being a variable. It is this XRM platform that comes pre configured with the Marketing, Sales and Service modules and associated sub modules. We also extend it to use for any relationship tracking we want that is optimal for the platform to include: Recruiting/Talent, Asset Mgmt, Projects, and even IDEA management and whole lot more. Example: Why not treat your recruiting and talent acquisition of new people for your organization with a proper system to better manage the process. Talent is what will win the business battles in America in the coming decades. Why not treat recruits better than you treat prospects??
Back to CHOICE. MS CRM is going to continue to grow at the fastest rates ever in business applications (Roughly 5,000 company adds a year averaging 40 users per company) because now you can choose either on-premise or hosted, SAAS, ASP, on-demand deployment model and you can easily move back and forth from on-premise to hosted and hosted to on-premise. This is a HUGE. HUGE I tell you. Clients can start on hosted and move to on premise when it is optimal. Or the reverse. That is the best thing for the client. I have posted before that SAAS and multi tenancy as a business model primarily benefits the publisher like SFDC. It allows them economies of scale and leverage to cram more businesses on one shared piece of hardware. That does not really help the client. Working MS CRM and having the CHOICE of deployment models will give real value and benefit to the CLIENT which is good business practices, so they say ;-).
Here is a link to the recent announcements - http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2008/01/09/choice-begins-today.aspx
I hope this helps explain my random thoughts on why Microsoft is a leader in providing CHOICE to the world. ;-) - Jon Petrucelli, Zealot and Sales Guy.
CRM Buyer magazine posted this interesting Q&A. Brad Wilson came on board right before the projected launch of CRM v 2.0 and immediately squashed it from as far as I can tell. I remember those days and my impression was that this guy better do something big or else we are going to shelve this MS CRM product. We had been doing a lot of investing and demoing 1.2 at that time and not a lot of selling and transacting. We were looking forward to the surge that MSFT can put around a new version release to jump start the line of business. So when he squashed the 2.0 release I immediately jumped on the fence.
Well CRM 3.0 was a huge improvement in the front end and interface into the MS CRM application. It really was a quantum leap forward from a front end perspective. On the back end and the admin side there was not too much different.
Sidebar – I always try to tell people 1.2 was not that bad and not all evil. It was a pretty good application relative to competition like SFDC and Saleslogix and ACT. But the 3.0 version put a whole new skin on the beast that was VERY appealing and fixed some major limitations like entity creation and SRS reporting etc. But from a admin and backend it was still VERY much the 1.2 application.
Now with 4.0 they have really enhanced the back end A LOT and added some missing pieces like Multi-National, Multi-Tenant, Data Migrations/Management, Reports Wizard etc. So it is another quantum leap in about 2 years. And believe me it is a great product so far. I have been working on it for more than 6 months and it is AWESOME! Now the community is getting at it and they are saying the same thing.
So Great job to Brad Wilson and the Dynamics Team. A Team is usually a direct reflection of its leadership. So if that is the case I would have to give a big round of applause and pat on the back to the one Brad Wilson because he has done a fantastic technical, business and people leadership job with the CRM product in my humble opinion.
Here is the link to the Q&A. We have more videos and stuff on the blog just search for ‘Brad Wilson’. http://www.crmbuyer.com/rsstory/60933.html
One of our clients is very savvy and has already run test upgrades on their existing CRM 3.0 test system. Here is their feedback on the upgrade and the resulting CRM 4.0 performance.
“I have the new CRM running on a test server, the Outlook integrator is a 100 times better. I am still going through several of the options but I have not had a problem yet and this is an upgrade from a copied deployment of 3.0. Thanks for the info, this seems to rock right now and I am running it on an old virtual server.
Rob”
Microsoft has done A LOT of enhancement and improvement on how the back end of Dynamics CRM 4.0 works relative to the 1.0 and 3.0 days. It has greatly improved the throughout, performance and ultimate end user experience with the application. That is a huge benefit to upgrading to CRM 4.0. Performance and Experience enables higher user adoption! Great job CRM 4.0 TITAN Team!
Regards, Jon Petrucelli
Line of Business core application upgrades can be a very tenuous time for a system admin. Luckily we have been doing a lot of CRM 4.0 related work: Installations, upgrades, code version moves and just general poking around (technical term). We are going to start posting our findings and recommendations to share with our loyal readers, if any are out there. Hopefully they will bring someone some enjoyment.
Many thanks to our team for pulling these together. New Versions and the associated hassles with new installations, upgrades and bugs can be a tough couple weeks as one learns the ins and outs of the new process. We fortunately have quite a few spare servers and development boxes that we can test and retest and train on before ‘go-time’ in front of a client. Even with all the training we cannot prepare for all the wrinkles a field/production system might contain. This is the time to shine and why we get paid the big bucks ;-).
Here are our first set of findings and recommendations around upgrading from CRM 3.0 to 4.0.
-CRM 4.0 has some many great enhancements and productivity features that it is worth it to me to do the upgrade even if it breaks some things.
-Be very careful, back everything up (DBs, Web configs, ISV configs, etc), test on a dev environment if at all possible. Image the entire server if you can.
-With good backups to the core DB and Metabase in 3.0 you can roll the system back using the Redeployment wizard if necessary.
-Installs and Upgrades are largely about “Conditioning” the Domain and Server to properly and efficiently accept the CRM code. Spending a lot of time making sure ht system and domain and environment are properly configured is a very important step. If done correctly then the application largely installs itself.
-An upgrade can break many customizations that users might really like. So run a test before if at all possible.
-CRM will open just fine, but the URL to navigate to will be a little different…it includes the company name as well, for example: http://titan:5555/productivegap/loader.aspx
-Custom reports that had been deployed and working in CRM 3.0 do not show up in the Reports section of CRM. The Custom Reports still exist in the Report Manager list, but not in CRM automatically. Added the reports to CRM manually, and the reports seem to be working fine including a custom sub report
-Opened an Account and received a generic error. There was no ‘OnLoad’ type of error, etc. like in CRM 3.0. The error was related to Field Level Security. This is not allowed at all in CRM 4.0, and the MSCRMServices is no longer available, see this blog: Click Here
-Javascript that shows the Products on an IFrame on a tab instead of the Navigation Bar works perfectly
Call us if you need help. 512-498-1005 - Regards, Jon Petrucelli
Let me know. Call 512-498-1005. They are expanding the program and taking more early adopters in. Price is free.!!! Cant beat that.
For more info, read the CRM Team Blog article.
Choice Begins Today - Say good-bye to the one-size-fits-all and one-way CRM systems of yesterday, and say hello to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live. Beginning today, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live has officially reached our second early-access release and is expanding access for Microsoft customers and partners located in the United States and Canada. Within this expanded program, Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and partners can combine the power of online services with their everyday productivity solutions to manage customer information and business processes with ease. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live – designed on our new, multi-tenant, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 architecture, equips your organization with a solution for fast implementation and adoption, delivers a flexible and agile business application that adapts quickly and easily to your unique business needs, and most importantly, enhances your everyday productivity tools like Microsoft Office Outlook, Word and Excel by equipping your with real-time business insight and customer intelligence so you can make critical business decisions with ease.
Regards, Jon Petrucelli
From Menno - By installing a Language Pack on the server that is running Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and then enabling the language in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Web application, users can view Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 in a language other than the base language of the installation.
Follow these instructions to get the packs:
-Access the download page (display languages are available for each 4.0 language version)
-Select the ‘Language Pack’ from the “Change Language” dropdown in the Quick Details section on the download landing page.
Once installed the users can go to their CRM 4.0 browser interface, Workplace, Personalize Workplace, Languages Tab, and then select the desired language. We have some Multi National clients that this is a huge deal for. Great improvement!
Jon
Another Great Video from Channel 9 and the CRM team. John O’Donnell walks you through the simple installation of MS CRM 4.0. These guys are really putting out some amazing content. Great Stuff and Kudos to them for sharing so much and helping evangelize! There is just no way any individual partner could put this much high quality content out. Enjoy - http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=364853
Published: January 2, 2008 - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 business software is a complete customer relationship management (CRM) solution that provides the capabilities that organizations need to gain and retain competitive advantage in today's business world. Microsoft relies on customers to guide product evolution. To this end, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM team spent significant time listening to customers and observing how they use CRM. The results of this research have helped us bring our customers Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Here's a quick look at the latest Microsoft Dynamics CRM features.
Improved end-user benefits
Enhanced integration with Microsoft Office
Greater support for global business
Flexible hosting scenarios with multi-tenant installations
Improved availability, performance, and scalability
