Microsoft Dynamics CRM holds a prominent place in the “leaders” quadrant due to its many strengths including its global reach and language availability, the user interface compatibility with Microsoft Outlook, the ability to create custom interfaces, the multitenant architecture, the vast partner network, and the integration with the Microsoft stack.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online was assessed as an individual product for the first time this year and was placed in the “visionaries” category.  In addition to all of the strengths of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which it shares, the cloud deployment combines proven and committed service levels, flexible contracts and a low price ($44 per user per month at time of writing).

Sage SalesLogix was given a spot in the “challengers” segment.  It addresses the needs of sales professionals by leveraging its strengths including its choice of on-premise or cloud deployment methods, advanced mobility options, adaptability for varying deployment sizes, and proven customer support strategy.

SageCRM held onto its previous position in the “niche” quadrant due to its strong integration focus with Sage ERP solutions, providing an affordable end-to-end business management solution with effective opportunity management and an impressive vision for enhanced mobility.

Sage ACT! serves an important “niche” in the SFA market by providing an easy to use, inexpensive contact management system that is widely used by salespeople.

To help you decide which of these sales force automation solutions is the right fit for your organization, request a free business strategy assessment today!

• Integration with other Microsoft Office products that you use every day
• Operating environment being within Outlook
• Ability to streamline data so that individual users see the information most relevant to them through the role-based views
• Easily personalized, Office-like user interface

All of these characteristics combine to make Microsoft Dynamics CRM the most usable CRM solution on the market today, according to a recent independent study by Nucleus Research. 

Nucleus identified Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SalesForce.com as the two industry leaders in their Technology Value Matrix for CRM, which assesses a solution’s usability and functionality. 

According to the Matrix and the accompanying research note, both of these leading software solutions have extensive, insightful, and well balanced functionality across their sales, marketing, and customer service capabilities as well as being suited to support a global customer base.  However, since functionality means nothing unless the product is used, the ability for people to easily use an intuitive system is incredibly important – and that is where Dynamics CRM outshines SalesForce.com.

Get started using Microsoft Dynamics CRM for your own business today with a 30-Day Free Trial!

The price of CRM software is typically determined on a per user license basis plus an annual software maintenance fee.  With an on-premise deployment, there are up-front server costs to consider as well.  For a hosted, or cloud CRM solution, the price is usually based on a per user per month fee.  If a CRM software company offers tiered packages, with variable functionality from package to package, they will reflect the difference in their per user pricing.

Microsoft includes all of their CRM functionality in a single package so that they can offer a single, standard price for a solution that can help you streamline and enhance communication and processes across your organization.  The standard pricing for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is $44 per user per month.  Now through June 30, 2011, new purchases of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online are only $34 per user per month for the first year of service.

But how does that compare with other market-leading CRM products like it?

The short answer is that the cost of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is very competitive!  Companies save an average of 32%, or $21 per user per month by choosing Microsoft CRM Online over SalesForce.com.

To find out exactly how much you would spend on Dynamics CRM versus SalesForce.com or Oracle, Microsoft has created a cloud CRM price comparison tool that you can work with commitment free today!

If you are currently using SalesForce.com or Oracle and considering making a switch, you can receive a $200 per user pay out for every Microsoft Dynamics CRM user you purchase before June 30, 2011.  Contact us to take advantage of this offer before time runs out.

But mobile CRM isn’t just about “gee whiz” technology.  By improving convenience and access to CRM data, you’ll also improve user adoption which is critically important to a successful CRM strategy.  Simply put, your mobile employees will actually use and benefit from CRM and not view it as an unnecessary administrative burden.

Introducing SalesLogix Mobile
Sage SalesLogix Mobile extends CRM to your mobile device delivering up-to-the-minute customer data through the convenience of wireless connectivity.  And we’re not talking about a watered-down “light” version of Sage SalesLogix CRM … it’s full-featured with all the functions you’d see if you were sitting in front of a PC in the office.  SalesLogix Mobile maintains the same look and feel of the desktop version which shortens the “mobile learning curve” and increases user adoption.

Stick Sage SalesLogix CRM in Your Pocket
Sage SalesLogix Mobile allows you to view, edit, and add contact and account details, take notes, schedule meetings, and update opportunities.  Having CRM in your pocket improves the quality, timeliness, and perhaps most importantly, accuracy of CRM data.  No more customer data on Yellow lined notepads or chicken scratch on the back of a napkin that may not make it to your CRM system.  Even during a meeting, you can discretely pull out your mobile device, enter notes and schedule follow up meetings and to-do’s right on the spot which ensures timely and accurate follow up.

Another important aspect of mobile CRM is that large sets of data can be stored locally on your device.  Whether you’re in a meeting, on a plane, or in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa, you remain productive and can perform all CRM functions without having to connect and reconnect to exchange data with the server.

The Technical Stuff
It’s next to impossible to standardize on a single platform as different devices will appeal to different users.  That’s why SalesLogix Mobile Offers support for today’s leading mobile devices including BlackBerry®, Windows Mobile Smartphone®, and Pocket PC®.

Clearly, security is a key consideration when you’ve got sensitive CRM data on mobile devices.  To address these concerns, SalesLogix Mobile supports the security services provided by RIM and Microsoft to ensure that data is securely transferred and stored on your mobile device.  In addition, data encryption and password protection are supported.

Extending CRM to mobile devices is quickly becoming a necessity and not an option if you want to remain efficient and competitive.  Read more about the benefits of mobile CRM in this white paper: “Mobile CRM:  Harness the Competitive Advantage of Your Mobile Workforce through Sage SalesLogix Mobile”

Marketing
For many businesses, customer relationships are considerably more profitable after the initial sale.  Implementing marketing programs aimed at current customers can be an important advantage in building customer loyalty and mutually beneficial relationships.

SageCRM Marketing empowers your marketing team with tools to plan, execute, and evaluate the performance of targeted marketing campaigns.  You can segregate campaigns aimed at new business vs. those that are targeted to existing customers as well as track and measure every phase of a given campaign.  SageCRM Marketing also allows you to build a detailed profile of your customers over the course of your relationship to ensure that marketing communication is highly relevant.  With the right information, your marketing team make can design effective promotions based on a customer’s previous purchases, product preferences, and other important characteristics of your relationship.

Customer Care
Sales and marketing bring new customers to your business, but your Customer Service department keeps them with you for the long haul.  SageCRM Customer Care provides your customer service personnel with fast access to service requests, call and escalation history, recent customer communications, support cases, email communication,  documents sent and received, and much more.  Plus, all service and support activities are captured in SageCRM so that you start to build a knowledgebase of common issues and resolutions.  Your service reps can then use that knowledgebase to quickly resolve common challenges.

Whether you sell products that require technical support or offer service agreements that continue well beyond the initial sale, SageCRM Customer Care provides the tools you need to manage resources, quickly resolve issues, track customer requests, provide high quality service, and build long-lasting and loyal relationships.  And with all of that information at their fingertips, your customer service reps will have a better opportunity to cross-sell complementary products and services.

Mobile Access
If you have service personnel that work in the field, then all that great customer information stored in SageCRM is rendered useless unless you can provide access to your field personnel.  That’s where SageCRM Mobile Solutions comes in.  Using a PDA, your field service reps have real-time access to customer contact information, account history, and can schedule follow up activities and appointments.  Or you can use the web to access the same features … even if you’re not connected, you can work offline and synchronize with the SageCRM database later.

By enabling sales and service personnel to securely access SageCRM using the web or mobile device, you’ll ensure they have information available to resolve customer issues quickly, place orders efficiently, and keep customers happy.

Try SageCRM free for 30 days!

What’s New in SageCRM v7.0?

• Rapid access to specific customer information can help differentiate a company’s products or services in the minds of potential buyers.
• Investments in new tools and services need to focus on the underlying issues rather than the symptoms to be truly effective in increasing productivity.
• Sales tools need to reduce time spent on administrative tasks and give sales people more time to focus on selling.
• Involving senior management and consulting with key employees are critical factors to the success of productivity enhancing initiatives. 

Read the complete research report: “The Empowered Sales Team: Enhancing productivity through the better use of information”

Implementing the right CRM solution can help your organization accomplish all four of these keys to enhancing sales productivity.

In this five-minute demo video, you can see how to personalize your CRM 2011 solution in such a way that saves you clicks and time while enabling you to:

• Access the records and views you use most frequently.
• See data related to the information you are viewing without jumping from record to record.
• Sort through and make sense of your data in the manner most relevant to you.

Microsoft is offering a $200 per user cash incentive to any organization that transitions from Salesforce.com or Oracle to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.  This offer is available through June 30, 2011 and can be combined with the discounted pricing of $34 per user per month for Dynamics CRM 2011 Online, which will be available in January 2011.  Learn more about the “Cloud CRM for Less” offer today!

Sage is offering two versions of their “Switch and Save” offer.  Organizations interested in either Sage SalesLogix (on premise) or SageCRM save 60% off  the software license price, 5% off a 2 year maintenance and support contract, and a 10% discount on data conversion services from your Sage software partner, like Socius.  Organizations that prefer Sage SalesLogix Cloud Advanced Edition are eligible to receive a discounted rate of $40 per user per month for the term of the contract, with a 10-user minimum when switching from an eligible CRM product.

To be eligible for either of the Sage customer relationship management offers, an organization must have a current licence of one of the following competitor’s products:  Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, SugarCRM®, GoldMine®, Maximizer, Siebel, Pivotal, Onyx.

Let us know if you are looking to make a switch to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Sage SalesLogix, or SageCRM.

Figuring this out can be tricky.  That is why Socius teamed up with Alesa Lightbourne, Ph.D. to publish a new white paper on this topic entitled “Integrating Your ERP and CRM: Worth the Trouble?”  This white paper cites industry analysts and researchers as well as business executives who have successfully integrated their solutions and are reaping the anticipated benefits.

Download your complimentary copy of “Integrating Your ERP and CRM: Worth the Trouble?” today and see examples of how both Neundorfer, a clean technologies company near Cleveland, Ohio, and Divisions, Inc., a facilities management company outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, have streamlined business processes and financially benefited from their software integration projects.

Saugatuck Technology recently released the findings of their 2010 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) survey via a whitepaper sponsored by Sage, “Software-as-a-Service: Managing Key Concerns and Considerations.”  One of the key findings of the survey indicated that by 2012 50% of small and midsized businesses will have adopted a SaaS-based or Cloud-computing CRM system.

Although growth in this market-space seems certain, there are still some concerns with the SaaS platform that are shaping the decision making processes of those adopting Cloud-based CRM solutions.  According to Saugatuck, the top three concerns that SMBs weigh when selecting a Cloud CRM solution are:

• Data security and privacy
• Data and transaction integrity
• Customization for unique business requirements

Although data security and privacy is far and away the greatest concern for most SMBs, very few take into consideration the security and privacy gains that can be attained through a single-tenant system vs. a multi-tenant system.  Only 8% of respondents indicated that they would take multi-tenancy into consideration when selecting a cloud-based CRM solution, despite the fact that a single tenant system would improve security and eliminate the chance for data to accidentally be migrated from one company to another, which is possible on a multi-tenant system.

Whether this is due to confidence in the multi-tenant system’s security, a lack of knowledge of the differences between single and multi tenant systems, or a cost-savings on the multi-tenant systems that outweighs the risks, is not addressed in the paper.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know how multi-tenancy vs. single-tenancy factors into your CRM cloud computing decision.