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!

Oracle’s Siebel CRM

Sales Force Automation – Also positioned in the leader’s quadrant, this solution ranked just below Dynamics CRM for its ability to execute its vision but had a more advanced “completeness of vision”.

Customer Service – While both Forrester Research and Gartner agree that this solution offers stronger functionality for customer services organizations than Dynamics CRM, Gartner ranks them Oracle slightly ahead of Microsoft when it comes to the product vision whereas Forrester puts Oracle’s strategy significantly behind Microsoft’s.

For Midsized Organizations – This product is only considered a “strong performer” for this market, far behind the overall market leader, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, because it does have strong functionality that fits midsized business needs, it is too expensive to deploy in organizations this size.

For Large Organizations – While Oracle’s Siebel CRM narrowly beat out Microsoft’s current offer usability, Dynamics CRM’s strategy was determined to be significantly better suited for large organizations than Oracle’s.

Oracle CRM On Demand

Sales Force Automation – Also fell below Microsoft’s overall product strength but has a more innovative sales force automation strategy than Dynamics CRM.

Customer Service – Forrester indicated that Oracle CRM On Demand is on pace with Microsoft’s strategy, but far below them in terms of current product functionality.

For Midsized Organizations – As an affordable SaaS solution, this solution was close behind Dynamics CRM and the only Oracle owned CRM product that was deemed a “leader” in this market segment.

For Large Organizations – While it lagged behind Microsoft in both current product offerings and future product strategy, it did beat out its Seibel counterpart in terms of strategy.

Oracle E-Business Suite CRM and Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM

Customer Service – Forrester ranked both products in their “strong performers” category, well behind Microsoft Dynamics CRM, while Gartner placed the E-Business Suite in their “niche players” quadrant, giving them the lowest ranking on “completeness of vision” of any product included in their study.

For Midsized or Large Organizations – In both categories, both solutions were deemed “strong performers” but only for organizations already leveraging the corresponding ERP suites.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Sales Force Automation – Dynamics CRM was deemed to have a stronger overall product, more viable strategy, more competitive pricing, and more satisfied customers than any of the Oracle CRM products.  However, it fell slightly short of Oracle in “completeness of vision”, although this study was published before full details about the then forthcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 were available.

Customer Service – While a solid leader in this market segment with one of the most competitive product strategies for customer service functions; Dynamics CRM’s product capabilities do not match those of Oracle’s Siebel CRM.

For Midsized Organizations – Microsoft Dynamics CRM and its SaaS version, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online were the obvious, overall leaders in all areas, thanks to their advanced functionality while retaining an ease of use, rapid deployment and time-to-value, competitive pricing structure, native integration with Microsoft Outlook and inter-operability within the Microsoft stack.

For Large Organizations – While not the most functionally advanced solution for large organizations, Dynamics CRM’s product strategy far out-paces the Oracle solutions for businesses this size.

View each of these Forrester Wave and Gartner Magic Quadrants to read the complete analyst reports on these products and how they address these market segments.

If you currently use an Oracle CRM product and are considering  making the switch to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, do so before June 30, 2011 to pay only $34 per user per month and also receive a $200 per user pay-out for each Dynamics CRM Online user purchased (regardless of how many Oracle user licenses you own).

• 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.

• How much will it cost?
• What kind of return on investment can we expect?
• What is the total cost of ownership?
• How much will it save us over time?
• And more…

As with any business purchase, what you put into and what you get out of a CRM software purchase depends largely on your organizational needs and processes.  However, Forrester Research has provided a way for you to get an idea of the costs and expected financial results from implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

In order to complete “The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011” report, Forrester interviewed several companies implementing the new release of Dynamics CRM and conducting their own financial analysis on the information.  They then applied their research to a composite company and determined that an organization similar to their composite could anticipate:

• A ROI of 243%
• A payback period of only 4.1 months
• A three-year NPV of $665,086 (risk-adjusted net benefits)

In addition, they were able to quantify on a benefit-by-benefit basis the extent to which Microsoft Dynamics CRM delivers productivity gains and cost savings through both people and processes.  Throughout their findings, Forrester demonstrates how Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 can provide your organization with a solution that simplifies your processes and makes you more agile, all while delivering a great value.

For an in-depth look at this research and analysis, download “The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011” report here.

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 Dynamics CRM 2011 (formerly known as CRM 5) will officially launch in January 2011 and along with its enhanced customer relationship management functionality, it brings with it the embodiment of 6 of Gartner’s 10 Strategic Technologies:

Cloud Computing
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online embodies everything an organization could want in a cloud solution. Dynamics CRM Online combines the full feature set of the on-premise deployment with the flexibility, ease of implementation, and cost effectiveness of a hosted solution. In January, it will be available for the remarkably low rate of $34 per user per month for the first year of service.

Mobile Applications and Media Tablets
Through Microsoft Mobile Express, users can have all the functionality of CRM virtually anytime, anywhere, enabling your teams to stay connected to the tools and information they need and support their customers wherever they are through a Web browser on a mobile device. Mobile Express for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is installed on the server, not on the mobile device, so you can support all of the smartphones and mobile devices in your organization with a single solution, which helps streamline updates and maintenance.

Social Communications and Collaboration
CRM 2011 features a much anticipated contextual integration with SharePoint 2010, which enables better collaboration across your organization and promotes social interaction through the use of wikis and blogs. The Outlook Social Connector in CRM 2011 allows you to instantly see the activities, photos, status updates, and connections of an individual by simply clicking on an Outlook item, such as that individual’s email address. In addition, by using social media widgets and CRM Web Resources, you can create a customized social activity dashboard within CRM 2011 that allows you to track relevant conversations without ever leaving the product.

Next Generation Analytics
The combined power of CRM 2011’s reporting and dashboarding capabilities and SharePoint 2010’s collaboration tools enable you to not only provide personalized, real-time business data to decision makers, but can also assist you in predictive analysis anytime, anywhere.

Social Analytics
As with all customer, prospect, and vendor interactions, social interactions can be tracked and analyzed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. CRM 2011 will build off of the foundation for social analytics it laid in version 4.0 with the Social Networking Accelerator which integrates directly with Twitter. Further social networking integrations are forthcoming.

Context-Aware Computing
CRM 2011 steps into the world of context-aware computing with contextual menus based on the role-tailored user experience of the solution, as well as logical navigation paths to enhance the user experience. Additionally, the Help menu in CRM 2011 is contextually aware, bringing up information relevant to the screen it was pressed on, so the user does not need to search on the item they are looking for assistance with.

Get a sneak peek of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on December 14th at our complimentary webinar!

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.

According to general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Brad Wilson, “Our new beta release for cloud-based and on-premises deployments allows customers and partners to try the product and see the benefits from the investments that we’ve been making.”

Sign up for the beta today at http://www.crm2011beta.com.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 delivers the Power of Productivity through familiar, connected and intelligent experiences for users inside and outside an organization, including:

• Familiar experiences through a next-generation native Microsoft Outlook client, Microsoft Office contextual CRM Ribbon, RoleTailored design and user personalization
• Intelligent experiences through guided process dialogs, inline data visualizations, performance and goal management, and real-time dashboards
• Connected experiences through cloud development, Windows Azure integration, contextual Microsoft SharePoint document repositories, teamwork and collaboration, and the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace

Although this hour-long demo covers a large number of the new features and functionality to be found in CRM 2011, the new release is so jam-packed with updates that Microsoft Dynamics CRM blogger, Jim Glass, recently expounded on several items that were shown on the video but not explained. 

CRM 2011 is truly taking Microsoft Dynamics CRM to the next level, as you will see in the video.  One individual who viewed the video commented that “CRM 2011 looks like CRM on steroids.”  It is a solution developed to truly benefit the way that you do business, not just in the sales, marketing, or customer service departments, but across the entire organization.