Microsoft made changes to their plans across the board, starting with name.  What had previously been known as CRM5 is now officially Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.  They also added 8 additional international markets to the 32 that had previously been announced where CRM 2011 will be available, bringing the total to 40 countries and 41 languages. 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 promises to deliver “The Power of Productivity” through familiar, intelligent and connected experiences for people inside and outside an organization. This release will also enable users to easily access Microsoft Dynamics CRM extensions and custom solutions from within their system through the integrated Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, which is being released in September 2010 along with the public beta of Dynamics CRM 2011 Online.

Learn more about what to expect in the release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011!

The solutions and services featured on this on-line marketplace all extend the value of Microsoft Dynamics solutions.  Like any of your favorite on-line shopping experiences, the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace is a searchable and filterable catalog complete with user evaluations and feedback capabilities to help you discover the optimal solution.  The site is complete with downloadable applications as well as the ability to connect directly with Microsoft partners. 

The Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace is being launched in September 2010 along with release of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 beta (formerly known as CRM 5).  The two tools are integrated so that Dynamics CRM 2011 users can search for for applications directly from within their CRM solution. 

If your business is looking for the right tool to keep you in the competition or to take your organization to the next level, this week is a great time to score a Microsoft Dynamics business solution.  On Friday, some of the most aggressive promotional offers that Microsoft has ever released on their ERP and CRM solutions expire. 

Line up the best shot for your organizations’ success by taking advantage of one of the following offers today:

3 for a $1 – With the initial purchase of Microsoft Dynamics GP, buy up to your first three (3) users (foundation pack user and two additional users) for $1. Offer applies to both the Advanced Management and Business Essentials editions.

Stimulate Your Business– Trade Up to Microsoft Dynamics ERP (GP & SL) from NetSuite, QuickBooks, or Peachtree for less with a special trade-up offer.

Business Ready Flexible Pay – Reduce your upfront investment through three predictable and affordable annual payments which can help optimize you cash flow and improve IT budget management.

A Better Together Offer – Save 20% on Microsoft Dynamics SL users when you purchase them with Microsoft Project user licenses.

There are also some fantastic offers available to existing users of Microsoft Dynamics solutions. 

Contact Socius to take advantage of these great savings opportunities and win big against your competition. 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is #1 for Midsized Businesses

As you can see, Dynamics CRM is the outright leader in all three categories in the midmarket.  According to Forrester, Microsoft CRM’s strengths are its flexibility, ease and speed of implementation, and pricing structure that suits the midsized businesses.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Balances Strengths Best for Large Organizations

Microsoft Dynamics CRM was found to have the strongest balance of existing capabilities and future strategy to meet the requirements of large organizations.  Microsoft’s current offering proved to be stronger than Salesforce.com, and their future strategy exceeded those of industry heavyweights, Oracle Siebel and SAP. 

Forrester Blogger William Band stated that the native integration to Outlook in both the on-premise and SaaS deployments of the solution was sited by users as one of it’s greatest advantages in both the large business and midmarket spaces.

Try Microsoft Dynamics CRM Free for 30 Days!

You see, Socius is a professional services company, providing a wide variety of consulting services to companies across the country.  This makes us a great candidate for customer relationship management software.  Our relationships with our clients and partners are the lifeblood of our organization and we need a system to manage those relationships. 

Unfortunately for the company sending the email, many of the services that we offer center around the selection and implementation business management software solutions; including industry leading CRM software from Microsoft Dynamics and Sage.   We also use those CRM systems internally to track, not only our sales activities, client relationships and the services we provide, but also our marketing activities. 

The CRM solutions that we use and support have advanced marketing functionality with robust data cleansing and segmentation tools, leading campaign management features, and insightful marketing analytics to increase the effectiveness of marketing programs, improve efficiencies, and better track key metrics.  First and foremost though, our CRM software products have marketing data and list management capabilities that help you segment and target your marketing activities for maximum efficiency and return on your investments.  These tools can also help you navigate through the marketing minefield and keep you safe from costly mistakes (like marketing directly to your competitors). 

Learn more about the marketing, sales and service functionality of SageCRM, Sage SalesLogix, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM or request a complimentary business strategy assessment for advice on which CRM solution can help you streamline and secure your marketing efforts.

“Derby Day” is also the official launch day for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 (Great Plains version 11), “The New Way to do Business.”  A world-class stable of developers have been working diligently for two years on a host of new features for GP 2010 that promise to make doing business easier.  With more than 220 Excel and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services reports a single click away, GP 2010 users can access personalized business insight based on 27 different roles. 

GP 2010 also extends connections between both people and systems.  A straightforward integration platform and access to more than 350 Web services enhance performance and simplify infrastructure and IT management.  A built-in integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps sales, service and business management staff collaborate and provides people with a complete view of customers, contracts, pricing, product and service availability, and more – making Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM together a winning combination!

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 continues to deliver on the promise of a comprehensive ERP solution that goes beyond basic business management and extends easily to meet unique business needs. 

To see how the latest release of Great Plains software could be a winner for your organization, attend one of our launch events this May!  Our first event on May 5^th is just 2 short hours away from Churchill Downs in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Mint Juleps will not be served, and you probably won’t take home a blanket of 554 roses, but you’ll get to see Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and you’ll have the chance to win a Dell Inspiron Mini Netbook! 

• Expanded language support - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is moving into international markets with multilingual capabilities for North American customers who have departments or teams with French, Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese language requirements.
• New Portal accelerators – These accelerators include Event Management, eService and Partner Relationship Management and allow organizations to extend their reach and extend the power of CRM to external constituents.
• New developer tools and resources - The service update provides new developer tools in the updated Microsoft Dynamics CRM Software Development Kit (SDK) to enable the connection of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online with other on-demand and on-premises applications and services such as Windows Azure.
• Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration - A new built-in integration framework for Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables customers to easily connect the two systems to help provide business insight and improve user productivity across financials, supply chain, and sales and service. The integration is supported with both on-premises and cloud versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0.

 To help more Microsoft Dynamics GP users take advantage of the many benefits of integrating their ERP solution with Dynamics CRM, Microsoft is offering them a license for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online at a promotional rate of $19 (U.S.) per user, per month now until June 30, 2010. More information about this offer can be found at http://crm.dynamics.com/CRMGPOffer.

Microsoft also announced that it is slated to expand the next release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to 32 global markets in the second half of 2010.

To experience Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online for yourself, take advantage of our 30-Day Free Software Trial!

According to Gartner, “Leaders demonstrate market-defining vision and the ability to execute against that vision through products, services, demonstrable sales figures, and solid new references for multiple geographies and vertical industries. Clients report that the vendors deliver a high level of value and return on their commitment. The development team has a clear vision of the implications of business rules, and the impact of social networking on customer service requirements. A characteristic of a leader is that clients look to the vendor for clues as to how to innovate in customer service.”

Once again, Microsoft Dynamics CRM has made it into the leaders quadrant with other top names in the industry, including salesforce.com, Oracle (Siebel), RightNow, and Pegasystems.  But what sets Dynamics CRM and these other solutions apart from their competition as industry leaders in customer service?

Gartner research indicates that:

Through 2011, 30% of organizations moving to a new platform will select a software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment for customer service functions. 

Through 2013, customer service strategies will be directed by the following four initiatives:

• Tying all service interaction channels together
• Integrating social CRM capabilities (by 2013, at least 35% of customer service centers will integrate some form of community/social capabilities as a part of the contact center solution)
• Analysis of the customer experience
• Business rules and knowledge will be applied in real time

Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the other CRM solutions in the leaders quadrant have strategies in place to address each of these initiatives and serve clients looking for a SaaS deployment for their customer service software: 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is the full-featured SaaS alternative to Microsoft’s on-premise CRM solution.  Both Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on-premise) leverage “Accelerators” to extend the core product’s functionality at no additional cost to users. 

Read about the Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Last week, Microsoft announced the upcoming release of the Customer Care Accelerator for Dynamics CRM. This new accelerator helps provide a consistent customer service experience by combining data elements from disparate applications such as mainframes, databases or Web sites for display in a single user interface. Gain quick and easy access to information, empower your agents to provide more efficient service, and improve overall customer satisfaction.

Cost:  In the CRM Software pricing competition, Maximizer wins.  Their per-user pricing starts at $499 where as the Microsoft Dynamics CRM pricing for a full user is $995 plus server costs.  With this gap in pricing, it is to be expected that there would be a significant difference in functionality. 

Sales Force Automation (SFA) Features 

Both products boast a complete set of lead, opportunity, and territory management tools including analytics, real-time offline and mobile access, forecasting and tracking, and email marketing tools. 

The largest different in SFA features comes at the point of integration.  While Microsoft Dynamics CRM has direct integrations with other Microsoft Dynamics software including accounting and financial management business solutions like Microsoft Dynamics GP, Maximizer ties-in to QuickBooks accounting software.  This is the first hint that Maximizer is geared towards smaller organizations while Dynamics CRM is better suited to fit the needs of a growing small to mid-sized business. 

Service and Support Features

Both Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Maximizer CRM contain very similar centrailized case management features.  Both provide automated creation, monitoring, and response mechanisms as well as searchable Knowledge bases and customized reporting. 

They both also have unique ways of streamlining service processes.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides team and group workflow so that customer data flows to the right people at the right time, while Maximizer provides an “at-a-glance dashboard” of service and support activity.  Both are viable ways of displaying this critical data; the question is: how do you want to see it?

Marketing Features

Both Maximizer and Dynamics CRM solutions contain similar marketing campaign planning, automation, and management tools.  At the center of Maximizer’s marketing functionality is email marketing automation including list and campaign management as well as anti-spam tools.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s email marketing functionality leverages elements of Microsoft Outlook, in which it is set.  

While Maximizer focuses on email functionality, Dynamics CRM focuses on workflow and connecting marketing to the rest of the organization.  The Microsoft Dynamics workflow model enables enhanced marketing and sales collaboration as well as automating information sharing through portals and reporting using other Microsoft applications. 

When you look at all of these functional areas together alongside cost, it appears that these two products are better suited for different types of organizations.  Maximizer has a slightly more limited feature set and integrates with small business tools.  Both of those facts, along with the lower user cost, indicate that it might be best suited for a smaller organization that does not have plans for significant growth.  On the other hand, Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s more robust feature set and direct integration with Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions make it a better solution for mid-sized businesses or small business gearing up for long-term growth. 

Find out first-hand which CRM solution is right for your business:  Try Microsoft Dynamics CRM for yourself for 30-days!

It can be confusing to know when it would benefit you to use each of these marketing campaign management tools.  To help clarify this point, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Software Development Engineer, Jim Schumacher has put together two scenarios featuring “Benjamin” a marketing manager who uses both the Campaign and Quick Campaign tools to manage his data. 

Campaign Scenario – Benjamin uses a Campaign to promote his company’s new lawn tools for spring

Quick Campaign Scenario – Benjamin uses a Quick Campaign to do follow-up after exhibiting at a trade show

As you can see from these scenarios, both the CRM Campaign and the Quick Campaign are useful tools for running a campaign and tracking the results.  Below is a side-by-side view of these two processes: