Why does every company need a CRM (Customer Relationship Management)?

First, let?s define what a CRM is: The term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a system that connects different parts of a company through the thread of customer relationships. Sales, Marketing, Accounting and Customer Service can all be tied together with a powerful, centralized CRM software made to retain customer loyalty, increase revenue, deliver consistent and efficient customer service, and finally, evaluate which customers to focus on.

Basically, every company has customers, and every company should maintain some basic information about those customers such as names, addresses, purchases, contracts, invoices, etc. Therefore every company should have at least some basic "CRM Technology" to track and serve their customers. Even small businesses use Outlook, Quicken or other applications for this purpose. If you use Microsoft Outlook for your daily communications, calendaring, tasks and appointments and need a way to track sales leads and opportunities, to share data across sales representatives, to improve the understanding of your sales process, to communicate with a broad groups of people on a one to one basis, to improve your business process in the most important area ? sales, and need a reporting system that beats multiple excel spreadsheets, then you need a complete CRM solution.

Why ? Because a CRM software can increase profitability for your business by reducing current operating costs, usually in the call center or distribution system, and by increasing customer value through smarter marketing using customer data to increase customer profitability.

Can you do it without a CRM ? Probably, but not as efficiently because only a CRM is built to take care of Customer personal needs ?centrally?, meaning that by using a single software, all the employees of the same company can access an organised database via Internet, where sales, customer service and management have access to the same customer data using tools such as ?Sales Force Automation? (provides Lead Management, Opportunity Management, Account and Contact Management, Reports and Dashboards specifically useful for your organization's sales team), ?Customer Support and Services? (provides Ticket Management, Knowledge Base, E-mail Notifications specifically useful for your organization's customer support team.), ?Marketing Automation? (provides Lead Management, Mailing Lists, E-mail/Mail Merge templates, Product Management, specifically useful for your organization's marketing team.), ?Inventory Management? (provides Products, Price Books, Vendors, Quotes, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, and Invoices specifically useful for integrating your organization's sales, inventory, and accounting processes and enhance the sales effectiveness.) , providing a complete integration between pre-sales, post-sales, procurement, fulfillment, and other business processes within your organization.

In other words, a good CRM software will help you build customer relationships by setting mutually satisfying goals between organization and customers, establishing and maintaining customer rapport and producing positive feelings in your organization and for the customers.

Organizations that implement CRM and turn their business into e-businesses will find their competitors' customers ready to welcome them with a "smile". According to a study by IT Consulting firm Aberdeen - "The winners in this new economy will be those companies that can effectively leverage the Internet to redesign, automate and integrate all business operations".
Take the plunge!

Either jump on board with CRM and invest, knowing you need it, or get out the calculator and pencil and start adding up what you?re going to lose!

One thing is for certain ? a few short months after implementing your CRM solution, you?ll wonder how on earth you ever got by without it!
http://www.momentustech.ca

Salesforce CRM guide

Making good use of superior customer relationship management (CRM) to manage and share information is a key competitive advantage for businesses today. At the same time, getting the greatest productivity and revenue benefits from sales force automation, marketing automation, and customer service applications is quickly becoming a top priority for companies of all sizes. CRM products and services make it easy for customers to conduct business with an organization in any way they want regardless of the communication channel they operate through. They also facilitate communication with customers across varying lines of business. In other words, CRM enables an organization to manage its relation with its customers efficiently through the introduction of reliable processes and procedures for interacting with those customers. Thus, in today's competitive business environment, successful CRM solutions have become indispensable.

Eventually a number of companies have evolved offering CRM products and services. However, Salesforce.com has emerged as a true winner out of them. Salesforce.com made its entry into the current market in the field of internet software and services way back in 1999. Marc Benioff, Parker Harris and David Moellenhoff were the founders of Salesforce.com, which is emerging as a pioneer in the field of CRM products and services during the recent times. Salesforce assists its clients in data contrivance, helps in maintaining candid and accurate customer feedback for umpteen products and services offered by different enterprises in the current competitive market. The incomparable professional services provided by Salesforce.com results in remarkable client gratification. The technical experts at Salesforce.com assist the end-users in customization of the existing CRM solutions and achieving better performance by picking out the right merchandise for future CRM implementation. The Salesforce automation services enable salespeople to be productive by automating manual and repetitive tasks, and provides organized data about their current and prospective customers, as well as permits companies to establish a system and a process for recording, tracking, and sharing information about sales opportunities, sales forecasts, and closed business.

With the advent of on-demand CRM, some very significant changes have been introduced in the realm of CRM. Salesforce.com is the worldwide leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) services. The technology does away with the need to buy the software and hardware separately and then implement it yourself. With on-demand CRM, Salesforce performs the role of the IT experts for its clients. From building the infrastructure, the software, and providing upgrades, Salesforce executes all the operations in a transparent manner.

More companies trust their vital customer and sales data to salesforce.com than any other CRM company in the world because it delivers integrated, completely customizable enterprise applications for companies of all sizes. Also, because Salesforce is easy to learn and use, and it can be up and running in weeks or days -- not the months or years required as by traditional client-server CRM software. In fact, more than 399,000 subscribers at 20,500 companies worldwide depend on Salesforce to manage their sales, marketing, customer center, and customer service.

Mansi gupta recommends that you visit Sales force CRM for more information.

On-demand CRM Vs On-premise CRM

The key factors that decide the appropriateness of a CRM deployment, whether on-site or hosted include the amount of integration required, customer processes, and the extent of operations required for a fruitful customer interaction.

An on-demand solution can be useful in scenarios where customer relationships are managed largely by the sales department which functions more or less as an independent entity. Small companies that wish to track and manage their leads without having to go through a major IT deployment can benefit from an on-demand solution. Companies in which customer relationship management is intertwined with the working of several departments including the company contact center are better served by opting for an on-site CRM solution that are more suited for the level of integration required with large organizations. Integration of legacy systems that contain vital customer data and run important business processes with a new CRM application is another consideration. Organizations in the services sector need to upgrade customer data constantly and access it in real-time from highly customized systems. For such companies, on-site CRM that offers real-time integration is a better alternative. In contrast, if data exchange between application silos does not happen in real-time and is carried out periodically, then an on-demand solution may do the trick. A CRM solution has to facilitate customer processes such that a company can leverage its expertise to the hilt and improve upon its shortcomings and compete in the market. It should provide or integrate with customer and process technologies that allow companies to identify the requirements of a satisfactory customer experience and provide them consistently. Since customer tastes and needs are dynamic, a company needs to evolve its business processes constantly to be able to fulfill customer expectations. To do this it needs a customer process solution that helps it to compete in terms of cost, products, and service level. This requires a high degree of application customization that is usually found in on-site CRM systems. The total cost of ownership of on-demand CRM is low for a short-term deployment. Even within an on-demand scenario, different solutions will have different breakeven points which a business should consider. While researching CRM solutions, it is best to consider the short-term and long-term scenarios and opt for a solution that is cost-effective in the long-term and also provides the necessary scalability. The costs of deploying and running an on-demand CRM solution for upward of three years can be more than those for an on-site solution. Thus, the rule-of-thumb for deciding company profiles fit for on-site and on-demand CRM would be that companies looking for a ready-to-use solution that does not require on-premise IT expertise, do not require a major integration between functions, do not focus on creating opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell, and do not update customer data in real-time can benefit from on-demand solutions. Companies where customer-related decisions are affected by the workings of several departments need to provide customer data to all these departments such as sales, accounts, marketing, and call centers are candidates for an on-site solution. When the growth of an organization is linked with achieving an edge over the competition by means of advanced processes and managing customer experiences and proprietary customer data, which is too sensitive for storing in a third-party database, an on-premise system is a better option. Large companies need to constantly identify key customer trends and create strategies for cross- and up-selling and present a customized experience. To this end, they need a CRM solution that offers the depth of applications for achieving cross-organization linkage and swift customer analytics. These attributes are found in on-site solutions.

neophyteblogger runs the blog

www.crmchump.org

. The blog focuses on news and commentary related to CRM

CRM On-Demand Is In Demand

There are many factors involved in this significant shift from the traditional software purchase and implementation to the On-Demand offerings from companies like Salesforce.com, Microsoft, and Siebel. For the larger enterprise user, there may be implementation fatigue, from the long, drawn-out and expensive projects from the late 1990's and early 2000's. For the small and mid-market business, the elimination of the traditional software purchase and the need for less internal resources and infrastructure is very attractive. The increased bandwidth and dependability of the "pipe" and increased speed have also contributed to the acceptance of the On-Demand CRM Solutions.

Advantages of On-Demand CRM The initial hesitancy for On-Demand Solutions when they were introduced in the marketplace has been replaced with a general acceptance and understanding of the advantages of this type of solution. The advantages included:

Replacement of large Software Purchase with a monthly subscription charge - The On-Demand model is based on a monthly subscription charge per user. This allows a company to extend the software component cost of a CRM implementation over a period of time and eliminates the yearly support & maintenance fees of a traditional software product.

Flexible Pricing, Licensing, and Scalability - Some of the On-Demand vendors provide flexible pricing, allowing you to choose and pay for the functionality and services you need. You pay for the number of licenses you need with the flexibility of added users when necessary. The leading On-Demand CRM vendors have invested in significant infrastructure and have the ability to provide services to enterprise organizations.

Decrease in Hardware Requirements and Support - With a traditional CRM software implementation, you need to make sure you have the appropriate servers, workstations, operating systems, database, and network infrastructure to properly run and support your system. With an On-Demand solution, the costs and support are significantly reduced. As long as you have Internet access, you are able to use your CRM service.

Decrease in IT Support Staff - You need an IT Support Staff with various skills to maintain a CRM Software System. As noted above, as long as you have Internet access, you are able to access and use your On-Demand CRM system. Your IT support costs are reduced significantly.

Elimination of Costly Upgrade Charges - With a traditional CRM software solution, you can expect a major software upgrade every 12-18 months. Depending on your existing solution, the upgrade can be time consuming and expensive. The On-Demand Solutions provide the upgrades as part of your monthly service fee.

Remote Management - The beauty of an On-Demand solution is access from anywhere at anytime as long as you have Internet access. This allows the System Manager to remotely monitor and support the system.

Faster and Easier Deployment - On-Demand solutions eliminates the need to load software on any computer, allowing for faster and easier deployment. It allows the end-users to concentrate on the solution.

Good Solution for Distributed Offices - Distributed offices and users adds complexity to a typical CRM software solution. This is eliminated with an On-Demand solution, giving every office and every user access around the world to the same database.

General ease of use - On-Demand Solutions have been designed specifically for the Internet, providing general ease of use and navigation.

Availability of Good Mobile Solutions - With the improvement and reliability of wireless technology, you have access to excellent mobile solutions for On-Demand services using Blackberry? or Palm? Treo?.

Security and Backup Services - In order to provide a secure and reliable service offering, an On-Demand vendor has to provide the highest level of security and data back-up services. In some cases, you may find their service in these two areas superior to the security and back-up system in your own organization.

On-line Training - As part of the monthly service fee, some On-Demand vendors provide free on-line training. This can be a significant cost saving compared to the traditional classroom training.

Significant Third Party Add-ons and Web Services - As the On-Demand offerings continue to grow and gain acceptance by companies, significant third party add-on offerings have become available to meet various needs including integration, extended sales methodologies, and email fulfillment, to name a few.

Integration Capabilities - Some of the On-Demand Solutions are highly customizable and easily integrated to existing corporate backend systems.

Summary It has take a few years for On-Demand CRM Solutions to find it's place and acceptance in the marketplace. The improvement and reliability of the Internet, faster deployment, easier support, improvement in the functionality, and integration capabilities have fueled rapid growth. But, hold on, this is just the beginning!

David Cowgill is a Senior Marketing Manager in San Francisco. His coverage area focuses on the technologies that facilitate managing CRM analytics and lead generation.

For further information contact: David Cowgill CRM Blog Founder http://crm.blogs.com

Making CRM Work

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business philosophy, not just a technology - understanding your customers' needs enables you to build better relationships and increase sales. Using the philosophy of CRM helps "to get and to keep more customers who stay with you longer".

Although a sound customer relationship management strategy has to come first, it can be effectively supported by CRM software.

The benefits of software?

Excellent customer service is about being aware of customer needs and reacting to them effectively.

CRM technology helps you to understand, anticipate and respond to your customers' needs in a consistent way, right across your organization because it provides you with management information. It has been said that the creation, distribution and manipulation of information is all that management is about and it is certainly true that without information about what is going on, when, by whom, with what, at what cost, at what margin etc. a business will almost certainly fail.

CRM technology also needs to be integrated into the business process. Organizations can only benefit from the discipline CRM imposes if it is.

As the management at Customer FOCUS have noted: "Changing your system means you are leaving behind something that everyone is comfortable and familiar with. Replacing it with a modern business operation & management system such as Customer FOCUS, is like getting out from behind the wheel of your familiar old Ford Mondeo with the worn leather seats and jumping into the cockpit of a Boeing 747. When installing a CRM system the right combination of critical factors need to come together at the right time. If they do your project will be a success and your business will take off to new heights. If certain critical elements are ignored by you or not given enough importance, you could find your project resembling a smoking crater!"

How does a CRM system help?

CRM will help your business if you view it as a set of tools that let you to do more for, and get more from, your customers. CRM can help you with:

1. Operational efficiency - to be more productive. All businesses need to make their existing resources more productive, improve quality and service. Indeed surveys suggest that, for example, sales people spend as little as 10% of their time actually selling.

2. Customer responsiveness - to meet demanding customer's increasing demands. Customers are becoming used to shopping and interacting with businesses over the Internet and email and they expect instant responses and rapid, personalized service.

3. Cost containment - to do more with fewer resources. Continually evolve to keep pace with change and competition and make sure the investments you make today support you tomorrow, without the costs of 'elephant' upgrades.

A good system, like Customer FOCUS, also provides:

1. One system for all tasks. No separate spreadsheets, databases and different software packages that you can access from anywhere - work from home, remote sites or even customer sites in your live business system.

2. The information you want when you want it. For example the identification of target customers or prospects in minutes delivered in your own report design as print or spreadsheets that are automatically e-mailed to you and / or your chosen colleagues.

3. Contact & quotation Information on all prospects and clients - enable your sales team to use to reduce the time they spend on admin and increase the information available to other areas of the business. Proposals can be generated in minutes and then stored and referenced by probability, value, margin or date.

4. Electronic integration - produce everything from quotes to statements as e-mails direct from the desktop. Link with Microsoft Office, Outlook, the Internet and your XDA to ensure you gain the full benefit of other packages on or off site.

5. A fully customisable system. Your own customer, prospect, supplier, product & service and staff databases, diary, planner, quotations, enquiries, sales order, despatch and invoice, manufacturing, purchase, receipts, projects and job costing, CRM operations, service and support, marketing planning and execution, general ledger and accounts all in your own language as all wording & drop down menus can be easily customised to suit your business and industry.

Richard Hill is a Director of E-CRM Solutions, that specialises in CRM, direct and internet marketing [http://www.e-crm.co.uk] for SMEs. He is non-executive Chairman of Innovantage [http://www.innovantage.co.uk] a business intelligence company and a non-executive director of Innovecom [http://www.innovecom.com] a computer networking company.

CRM vs SFA - What's the Difference?

I've recently had a lot of questions about the difference between CRM and SFA and which one is right for your company. "CRM" is so broadly used these days it's really hard to completely wrap your head around it.

Let's start with a couple of basic definitions:

CRM - Customer Relationship Management is about finding, getting, and retaining customer relationships.

SFA - Sales Force Automation is about managing and supporting sales reps. Generally consists of contact management, opportunity management, and pipeline management.

CRM is more centered around the customer and consists of modules to handle tracking customer support issues, order tracking and datawarehousing. Customer focus can be used to describe most parts of a CRM system. Some examples of data collected by CRM systems include:

1) Campaign tracking

2) Purchase history

3) Shipping history

4) Account data

5) Sales data

SFA is more centered around making sales, sales people, improving close rates and managing the day-to-day of getting sales done. SFA is included in CRM in a lot of cases and since SFA usually handles much of the same data collection that a CRM system would, it makes sense to purchase a CRM system rather than a standalone SFA solution.

Companies like Siebel or Salesforce.com offer excellent hosted CRM solutions with feature-rich functionality well within your budget (starting around $65/user/month).

For more information about CRM, visit: http://crm.blogs.com/crm/what_is_crm/

David Cowgill is the founder of the CRM Blog web site. http://crm.blogs.com

ERP Brazil: Microsoft Dynamics NAV, AX, CRM localized family

When your company plans to outsource its manufacturing operations to such countries as Brazil, the ERP system for the overseas subsidiary is one of the first decisions to make.  In this small article we will concentrate on functional side of the Microsoft Dynamics ERPs, such as Microsoft Navision, Microsoft Axapta and Microsoft CRM

When your company plans to outsource its manufacturing operations to such countries as Brazil, the ERP system for the overseas subsidiary is one of the first decisions to make.  In this small article we will concentrate on functional side of the Microsoft Dynamics ERPs, such as Microsoft Navision, Microsoft Axapta and Microsoft CRM and we will not touch background technologies (Microsoft .Net vs. EJB/Java discussions)

• Localization.  It usually has two components: language translation (in the case of Brazil it is Brazilian Portuguese) and sales, purchasing taxes and government regulation/reporting.  In the case of Brazil we usually talk about these taxes & regulations: CNAE, CPF, IE, IEST, IM.
• Local versus International MRP brand.  This is usually the question beyond the functionality of the ERP ? you need to decide for yourself if you would like advanced localization features (usually provided by local made ERP ? Microsiga or Datasul to name two) or you want more control over your overseas operations from headquarters ? this will probably be international ERP brand, one of them we are evaluating here ? Microsoft Dynamics family (former name was Microsoft Business Solutions)
• Navision/Microsoft Dynamics NAV.  Around 2004 Microsoft Business Solutions tried to unify its international ERP offer.  As the result, in many countries, including Brazil, East Europe, Russia and others Navision kind of pushed out of the market another MBS ERP ? Microsoft Great Plains (currently Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 ? Brazilian version is not available, however you can get local support from Alba Spectrum).  There were multiple reasons, including technical feasibility, they are beyond the scope of this article.  Navision is localized and has several years of successful implementation in S?o Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and across Brazil.  One of the strong points of Navision is Manufacturing module.  We see strong demand for Navision ERP implementation from multinational corporations with headquarters in Europe, especially continental: Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal.
• Axapta/Microsoft Dynamics AX.  This is relatively new ERP ? its design was completed in the very end of XX century, Navision Software bought Axapta prior to be purchased by Microsoft Business Solutions itself.  Brazilian localization of Axapta is now complete and it will be released in the first quarter of 2006.  In Brazil Microsoft has experiment with Axapta pricing and it is now targeted to compete with Microsiga and Datasul from one side and with SAP Business One from another side.  Axapta implementation cycle is longer than for SAP BO, however Axapta is more flexible in its ability to automate upper midsize and large scale business.
• Microsoft CRM/Dynamics CRM.  Now we are in the process of upgrade from MS CRM 1.2 to its 3.0 version.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 will be more flexible to automate franchisee networks and nation-wide servicing organizations.  The question of selection is more simple ? if you are committed to Microsoft platform ? you should know that Microsoft CRM is promoted Worldwide.  Here we have to say some words about technical side of Microsoft CRM, especially considering some challenges of MS CRM upgrade ? it heavily uses .Net platform, XML web services and requires strong server side programming, if you need Microsoft CRM customization and custom pieces upgrade (Microsoft CRM SDK 3.0 is a bit different from MS CRM SDK 1.2).  In Brazil we saw instances of Microsoft CRM, coexisting with such corporate platform as IBM Lotus Notes Domino                                                                                          

If you need help ? give us a call: S?o Paulo: +55-11-3444-4949, USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, Europa: +44-20-8123-2580, +45-36-96-5520 or help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is ERP consultant at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.greatplains.com.mx http://www.enterlogix.com.br ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, MS CRM, SAP Business One, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense

What Is CRM, Customer Relationship Management?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

It?s hard to find a definitive definition of what CRM means. So I?ll outline the broad meaning and then give some examples.

You may have heard of the terms CRM and Customer Relationship Management in regards to software. Well CRM is not just a piece of software. It?s more than that.

The CRM Customer Relationship Management software is a vital component, yet the whole business needs to understand CRM Customer Relationship Management in all departments and functions of the business and behave appropriately to make CRM Customer Relationship Management work.

An effective CRM Customer Relationship Management will include methodologies, strategies, software, and web-based capabilities that help an enterprise organize and manage customer relationships.

Why use CRM Customer Relationship Management?

CRM Customer Relationship Management is used to help businesses (a.) understand their customer, and (b.) understand their customers? wants and needs and (c.) help the business serve them more efficiently and effectively

In turn this will help the business to improve customer satisfaction, increase staff productivity, slash operational costs and maximize the effectiveness of each customer interaction.

Let?s talk about these three different areas.

CRM Customer Relationship Management to Understand The Customer

In a CRM Customer Relationship Management application and approach a user will collect as much information about a customer that they can. They?ll collect names, addresses, contact numbers, age, sex, number of children etc. A CRM Customer Relationship Management process does this to, amongst other things; help ?classify? their customers.

A benefit of a CRM Customer Relationship Management system is that a user can help analyse which types of customers are best for their business.

Then once they know what customer ?types? are best they can then market to them in a ?personal? way ? using the information gained about them.

CRM Customer Relationship Management to Understand The Customers Wants and Needs

As information is collected about the customers? personal life, information is also collected about their buying habits and stored in CRM Customer Relationship Management software.

Humans are creatures of habit. By analysing the information collected about the customer and their buying habits the CRM Customer Relationship Management can be used to help the business identify what the customers would most likely want or need to buy.

For example, if your CRM Customer Relationship Management information lets you know that your best customers typically like buying ?red apples? in November for an average sale price of $15. You can prepare a marketing approach that is sent out to them prior to November that will steer them towards buying $30 worth of apples.

The customer sees it as useful because it?s something they like to do at that time of year, and you?re offering them a reminder and perhaps an incentive to buy more. The business benefits by structuring the offer to increase the sales value and therefore increasing the profit return.

CRM Customer Relationship Management is Useful to Also Target New Customers

Information gathered in the CRM Customer Relationship Management will help the business to target more of the preferred customers. An analysis using CRM Customer Relationship Management software could tell the business, for example, that single males between 30 to 35 years of age that earn between $50,000 and $60,000 are the best type of customer for the business.

Knowing that information from the CRM Customer Relationship Management, the business can then hire a list from a direct mail list broker of all the single men that fit the description and target their marketing towards them.

The CRM Customer Relationship Management activity of improving the relationship with the customer is to help keep the customer more loyal to the company and thus improve the profitability of the business.

CRM Customer Relationship Management to Help Efficiency and Effectiveness of Business

A good CRM Customer Relationship Management application will help the business to become more efficient and effective.

The business can become more efficient because if a customer contacts the business, within seconds the customer service representative can produce the customers file. This will tell the employee all about the customer and their interaction with the business.

So a CRM Customer Relationship Management saves time for the business and is able to help the employees deliver high levels of personalised service.

A CRM Customer Relationship Management software program and approach can help the business become more effective. An example would be marketing.

Knowing all the information about the customers, the marketing strategies can be targeted towards the customers in a personal way. Thus marketing to a defined target market with a past history the potential of improved results is far greater than marketing to a ?cold? list.

This article should only be viewed a very broad overview of what CRM Customer Relationship Management is.

On this website you?ll find more detail and resources to help you understand and use CRM Customer Relationship Management for your business.

Casey A Gollan, The Business Growth Specialist for CRM Software Center - All the general information and resources for everything CRM - Customer Relationship Management. Visit http://www.crmsoftwarecenter.com and http://www.caseygollan.com.au

Microsoft CRM Modification overview for IT specialist

Microsoft CRM Modification overview for IT specialist

Microsoft CRM is now on the scene and it is increasing its market share, due to the Microsoft Business Solutions muscles and marketing strategy. It is tightly integrated with other Microsoft Business Solutions products such as Microsoft Great Plains, Solomon, Navision.

If you are programmer or database administrator who is asked: how do we modify Microsoft CRM read this article and you will have the clues for further research.

1. Microsoft CRM SDK this is software development kit with C# and partly VB.net code samples it is supported by Microsoft Business Solutions technical support. It is based on web service calls, if you are C# .NET developer you are excellently positioned to do this type of customizations. This is the preferred modification scenario and this should be easily upgradeable customization. VB.Net examples will be available soon.

2. Legacy SQL Data integration. This is also easy and safe. If you have SQL database, sitting on the same or linked SQL Server you can create ASPX .Net application and simply integrate it into CRM. You can place it on the navigation bar or menu in isv.config please refer to MS CRM SDK

3. Legacy ASP integration this is somewhat more sophisticated. You have to deploy HTTP handler to be a middle party between CRM which is .Net based and ASP which is legacy IIS. The trick is you have to have INI file with security settings to penetrate into MS CRM with proper credentials, calling web service.

4. Microsoft Exchange Programming. Microsoft CRM has Exchange connector which moves CRM incoming email to MS if it has GUID in its subject. You can alter this logic (for instance - move email to CRM if it doesnt have GUID but it is from the sender who is contact or account in MS CRM). Refer to MS Exchange SDK onsyncsave event handling. Then simply apply some MS CRM SDK programming - you need some COM+ objects creation and VB programming experience.

5. Direct SQL touch in #4 above I described you the scenario with MS Exchange handlers this would be ideal world if MS CRM SDK does the job. But in real world this is not always true you have to do direct flags correction in CRM database (like making Activity closed, moving email attachments/octet streams, etc). This is not supported by MBS technical support but you can rescue to this technique if you have to get job done.

6. MS CRM Customization tool this is rather end-user tool and we dont describe it here read the manual. Weve described above the options to use when this tool doesnt do the job

7. Crystal Reports - feel free to create Crystal report - tables and views structure is self explanatory. Try to avoid the temptation to create your own SQL view or stored procedure in MS CRM database, instead - create custom database and place your view and stored proc in it.

Happy modifying! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, VB/C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.
akarasev@albaspectrum.com

Microsoft CRM Development: SDK, C#, SQL, Exchange, Integration, Crystal Reports overview for programmer

Microsoft CRM is new player on the CRM software market. The whole conception behind CRM seems to be different. In case of traditional CRM software (Siebel, Oracle) - the application was designed with platform independence in mind. Microsoft CRM is dedicated to Microsoft technology and so deploys all the Microsoft tools: Windows Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange 2003/2000, SQL Server, Crystal Reports Enterprise, Biztalk server, Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Great Plains as backend, etc.

If you are software developer, database administrator or web designer who is asked: how do we customize Microsoft CRM we are giving you directions in this article.

1. Microsoft CRM SDK this is software development kit with C# and partly VB.net code samples it is supported by Microsoft Business Solutions technical support. It is based on web service calls, if you are C# .NET developer you are excellently positioned to do this type of customizations. This is the preferred modification scenario and this should be easily upgradeable customization. VB.Net examples will be available soon.

2. Legacy SQL Data integration. This is also easy and safe. If you have SQL database, sitting on the same or linked SQL Server you can create ASPX .Net application and simply integrate it into CRM. You can place it on the navigation bar or menu in isv.config please refer to MS CRM SDK

3. Legacy ASP integration this is somewhat more sophisticated. You have to deploy HTTP handler to be a middle party between CRM which is .Net based and ASP which is legacy IIS. The trick is you have to have INI file with security settings to penetrate into MS CRM with proper credentials, calling web service.

4. Microsoft Exchange Programming. Microsoft CRM has Exchange connector which moves CRM incoming email to MS if it has GUID in its subject. You can alter this logic (for instance - move email to CRM if it doesnt have GUID but it is from the sender who is contact or account in MS CRM). Refer to MS Exchange SDK onsyncsave event handling. Then simply apply some MS CRM SDK programming - you need some COM+ objects creation and VB programming experience.

5. Direct SQL touch in #4 above I described you the scenario with MS Exchange handlers this would be ideal world if MS CRM SDK does the job. But in real world this is not always true you have to do direct flags correction in CRM database (like making Activity closed, moving email attachments/octet streams, etc). This is not supported by MBS technical support but you can rescue to this technique if you have to get job done.

6. MS CRM Customization tool this is rather end-user tool and we dont describe it here read the manual. Weve described above the options to use when this tool doesnt do the job

7. Crystal Reports - feel free to create Crystal report - tables and views structure is self explanatory. Try to avoid the temptation to create your own SQL view or stored procedure in MS CRM database, instead - create custom database and place your view and stored proc in it.

Happy customizing, modifying and developing! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, based in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, VB/C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

akarasev@albaspectrum.com

Microsoft CRM and Great Plains implementation: freight forwarding business automation example

In this small article well show you business automation example, where Microsoft CRM and Great Plains are integrated and customized to fit Freight Forwarding business processes

Microsoft Business Solutions offers several ERP applications: Great Plains, Navision, Solomon and its own CRM solution Microsoft CRM.  Targeting to automate all business operations, Microsoft CRM is now integrated with Microsoft Great Plains and in the close future it should have integration with Microsoft Navision.  In this small article well show you business automation example, where Microsoft CRM and Great Plains are integrated and customized to fit Freight Forwarding business processes.

• CRM.  Central Customer and Vendor records place.  Assuming you have agents across the USA and internationally CRM, being web-interface application and so, could be used across the globe with good internet connection.  The nice features of this product are central emailing you send email from MS CRM and receive responses from your clients back in CRM, where they are permanently stored and documented.  You can issue Quote and Sales Order directly in CRM if needed or could have them issues in Microsoft Great Plains with propagation to Microsoft CRM (deploying MS CRM-Great Plains integration tool BizTalk based connector).
  
• Accounting/ERP.  Microsoft Great Plains could play this role, being integrated with Microsoft CRM and with industry-specific business system.  In the case of Freight Forwarding/Transportation this business system could calculate fees and charged, associated with MBL/HBL and posted against agent accounts.  You could deploy SQL triggers for instant integration or stored procs for scheduled batches.
  
• Great Plains Customizations.  Freight Forwarding specifics require Shipment tracking with SOP and POP invoices posted and tracked against the shipment and probably regular/monthly Agent Settlement report, where you match customer and vendor invoices, associated with the agent shipments and create AR or AP document, depending on positive or negative balance.  This is Great Plains Dexterity customization or web-development (if you need your agents lookup features from remote locations)
  
• Microsoft CRM Customization.  Assuming that you have Shipment Tracking system, which might be SQL or Oracle based you need shipment lookups for your order takers and customer support personnel from Microsoft CRM screens.  Being designed for easy web customization Microsoft CRM allows you to incorporate .Net web application into its screens, such as Account, Contact, Lead, Opportunity, etc.  You use Web Forms and Microsoft CRM SDK to penetrate into MS CRM security realm and then ADO.Net to call third party MS SQL Server or Oracle data
  
• Implementation Advices.  Microsoft CRM should be probably tried as in-house pilot implementation with 5 users license and then you can purchase additional license as you have your users trained.  If you need MS CRM SDK C# or VB.Net programming you could subcontract.  Great Plains requires consultant help to be implemented and integrated, because it has sophisticated tables structure and documents flow mechanism.
  
• Data Conversion.  We recommend you to deploy Great Plains Integration manager to import Vendor and Customers plus open documents.  Historical transactions, if needed should be moved by outside consultant.  Microsoft CRM has import tool try it first and subcontract more complex attachments, for example.

Good luck with implementation and customization and if you have issues or concerns we are here to help! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients  in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: andrewk@albaspectrum.com

 

Microsoft CRM Integration & Customization: Share

 Boris Makushkin

MS CRM is very close to document workflow automation, including Microsoft Office documents: Words, Excel, etc. The document workflow was perfectly automated about 10 years ago in Lotus Notes Domino. In this small article we describe the solution based on MS CRM integration with MS SharePoint.

Microsoft CRM is new player on CRM applications market and it is gaining its market share. Having different paradigm in its design (it stakes on Microsoft OS and technologies and completely disregards alternative platform, such as UNIX, Linux, Oracle, etc. based). Microsoft CRM market is very diversified: from small (5 users) to large (several hundred MS CRM User licenses) and it serves variety of industries: Transportation, Logistics, Lawyers, Pension Funds, High-Tech, and many others. Deploying technologies, like Windows Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange 2003/2000, SQL Server, Crystal Reports Enterprise, Biztalk, Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Great Plains and Navision in close future - makes CRM a beloved system for Microsoft oriented IT departments.

Let's go right to the topic.

Major issue with storing documents in MS CRM in the form of attachments to Activity is inability to work on these attached files in cooperation with other colleagues, who do not have to use CRM. When several service people serve requests from the same client this is required. Currently you can use alternative way when you store office documents in the folders of your file system and when modifying document, you save it and reattach to CRM. This is inconvenient, because first it requires all your editing users to have CRM licenses, which delays CRM implementation.

We seem increasing popularity of document storage systems, like Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle Files, etc. Such systems, being implemented gives you time savings, related to documents revisions and versioning, approval cycles and workflows, web access through web-portals systems and the like.

The target of our product is Microsoft SharePoint integration with MS CRM for document storage. Let's take a look at the high level technical realization details:

• Main modification from the MS CRM side is standard system behavior change when you open attachment in Activity. Standard unmodified CRM suggests you to store documents in the file system. Modified version sores document in SharePoint Document Library (the required library is subject for setup by MS CRM system administrator) or keep it in MS CRM as is (for documents of minor importance). From the moment of saving the document in SharePoint Document Library it is not stored in MS CRM CRM will now store only the link/reference to the document. Also you are given the ability to open and modify the document at the place of opening, which speeds up MS CRM user performance substantially.

• Table, storing the links to the documents sits in separate database and doesn't deal with MS CRM tables (you know that you are banned to do structure changes in MS CRM db)

• Document saving into MS SharePoint process occurs in MS CRM and with its assistance SharePoint bridge, which does addition and update for the existing document into destination Document Library with MS SharePoint Web Services calls

• Upon the addition into Document Library, MS CRM SharePoint bridge registers the document in the special table for the future data extraction or notification mechanism registration

• Then, interested users can work with the documents just using MS Office 2003 or other programs/editing tools, assuming these tools have access to MS SharePoint

• Feedback is provided by MS SharePoint Event Handler component. This is special handler, inspecting document change status, transferred from MS CRM to document storage (SharePoint), and report Activity owner on the changes with home page notifications (User home page in MS CRM). User in turn can review the history of the document editing - who, when and where is the change

• Opening Activity, where document is "attached", and in fact placed into MS SharePoint Document Library, and pressing opening button, MS CRM user gets live version of the data

• This approach allows you seamless work with MS CRM document in the whole informational space of your company

• Additional enhancements to this product might be document library management directly from MS CRM (web interface - meaning remotely), administrative interface for MS Sharepoint documents revision, ability to create reports on the document storage status, rights/access management (Author, Reader, Contributor etc) from MS CRM, portal pages integration into MS CRM to name a few.

Happy programming, implementation, customization and modification! If you want us to do the job call use 1-630-961-5918, 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Boris Makushkin is Lead Software Developer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Oracle, Navision, Microsoft CRM, Microsoft Great Plains customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, Florida, New York, Canada, Australia, UK, Russia, Europe and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Oracle, Unix, Microsoft CRM SDK, Navision, C#, VB.Net, SQL developer.

BorisM@albaspectrum.comKeyword Prices Decline 3.0% in the First Quarter of 2005Tommy Maric

An analysis of webs most popular 20,000 keywords by TopPayingKeywords.com, found that keyword prices dropped 3.0% from January 2005 to April 2005 from an average bid price of 58.9 cents to an average bid price of 57.1 cents. The 20,000 most popular keywords are distributed in pricing as follows:

Keyword Price# of Keywords
$20.00-$49.9920
$10.00 - $19.99123
$5.00 - $9.99660
$3.00 - $4.99923
$1.00 - $2.993,918
$0.50 - $0.992,259
$0.25 - $0.492,115
$0.15 - $0.241,584
$0.10 - $0.142,962
$0.05 - $0.09592

Note that there are 4,379 keywords in the Top 20,000 keywords which have either a zero price or do not have three active advertisers.

Keyword pricing is critical for internet advertisers and also webmasters as expensive keywords allow them to maximize their profits using Googles Adsense program.

According to Dave Lavinsky, President of TopPayingKeywords.com, With the overall decrease in keyword prices this quarter, it is important to know which keywords remain profitable. What may not seem evident is that in fact many keywords enjoyed a large appreciation in value and now we have over 800 keywords in our database that are worth $5.00 or more.

There were many large increases in the value of certain keywords. The keyword shiva for example, went up 935% from a price of just $0.17 to $1.76. Medifast also made a giant leap in value increasing from $1.50 to $6.98. This surge in value is most likely due to increased consumer awareness of the Medifast brand and increasing competition among retailers.

With information changing so quickly it is important to keep abreast of the current value of keywords. The value of these keywords can change dramatically over a very short period of time making a once profitable website quickly unprofitable. For instance, the keyword Vioxx declined by 50% from $16 to $8 from January to April 2005 as the value of Vioxx litigation clients decreased. Keeping informed and up to date is of great importance to webmasters looking to turn a profit.

Tommy Maric is the manager of TopPayingKeywords.com. TopPayingKeywords.com is designed to help webmasters maximize their profits using Googles Adsense program. Through extensive research, TopPayingKeywords.com continues to develop up to date databases of the most popular keywords and their accompanying prices. For more information, please visit http://www.toppayingkeywords.com.tommy@toppayingkeywords.com