How To Define Your Needs Before Buying Crm

Like many other business trends, the pressure to keep up with the latest technology developments and hold on to your competitive edge can often lead to rushed and poorly researched decisions. Such is the case with Customer Relationship Management and its enormous industry growth and migration rates. Many CEO?s have been left scratching their head, wondering how to keep up and which CRM product is right for them?

The CRM market is packed with solutions that range from the simple contact management and tracking to the feature rich comprehensive solutions that can reach across you entire organization. However, the question for the interested buyer should remain, ?What can our organization/company/employees do with this CRM?? and not ?What can this CRM do for my company?? Approaching CRM vendors with this mindset will allow you to see past the over kill features and cumbersome processes inherent in most solutions. You need to see the value of their product as it relates to your business specific needs. Refining your company needs for a CRM solution based on your current business practices will help you find a suitable CRM solution!

By really analyzing your current processes and methods, flagging the procedures you want to enhance or areas you want to improve in efficiency, will better prepare you to test out CRM vendor platforms. As well as help you model your business processes to better benefit from a suitable CRM solution.

The majority of CRM software solutions are built on best practices in business, flowing from Marketing and Lead Management to Sales Automation; Account, Contact and Opportunity management to Sales tracking, reporting and forecasting capabilities. Furthermore, CRM vendors also offer simple customer service, support, and tracking features in the form of Case and Solution management. This base model is prevalent in many industry solutions and makes the first step on to a CRM platform relatively smooth.

However, the customer is left to do the drilling or the ?kicking of the tires? if you will, to really substantiate the value of the features embedded in the program and see if they will improve their current business processes, as well as enhance their employee productivity. In this case, finding the functions you need in a CRM will be just as important as the form it comes in. Acquiring a user friendly product will ensure your employees adopt the product quickly and continue to use it in the long run.

With step one accomplished, the goal should now be to review the extent of the product offered by the vendor. Can this CRM solution accommodate your growing company? Your need to manage key processes such as projects, billing and invoicing, contracts, quote management, product inventory, human resource management, etc. should all be met by the same CRM solution. There is nothing more disconcerting then having to procure services from multiple vendors to get close to the CRM functionality and organization you need.

By defining your needs in a CRM software solution, you will be better served when it comes to researching and evaluating the different products on the market, as well ensuring your company benefits from your decision on the whole. By knowing what you it is you need in a CRM, as well as what it is that will work for your particular organization, you will ensure your employees can adopt and use the solution you choose.

Colin Duffy enjoys writing about CRM subjects and on demand CRM and ERP software vendors such as Salesboom ( http://www.salesboom.com )

CRM Help Gain Loyal Customers

CRM Help Gain Loyal Customers

Publishing Guidelines: You may publish my article in your newsletter, on your website or in your print publication provided you include the resource box at the end. Notification would be appreciated but is not required.

By S. Maurer

Customer Relationship Management CRM Configurators - These applications are often very sophisticated and are used in situations where the product or service has many configuration options that impact design, performance, and cost.

According to the Giga Information Group, enterprises spend $3,5bn [$2,2bn] annually on Customer Relationship Management CRM software alone, plus three to five times that sum on related implementation, integration, and training issues.

According to manufacture research, it is 10 times more expensive to pursue fresh customers than to sell to existing ones.

CRM can help gain a greater share of a loyal Customer's business/services/manufacturing.

Establishing a strategy for change management, communicating those changes and driven benefits upfront, providing sufficient and continuous training, and above all monitoring results are winning components to help you achieve real ROI with your Customer Relationship Management CRM implementation.

CRM data integrity starts from data collection and leads all other steps back to the relationship with the Customer.

Customer Relationship Management CRM Opportunity Management - Helps sales people to focus on moving sales opportunities to completion.

CRM analytics software has been improving, thus increasing the ability to extract and analyze dates as regards Customer value and transaction profitability.

Effective CRM initiatives utilize enterprise software as an integral part of a successful strategy.

Customer Relationship Management CRM improvement is measurable and discernable - It is not hidden in vague notions and concepts.

S. Maurer is a 53-years old college graduated IT professional, with 30 years of experience in the computer & technology business. Now is the Correspondence Courses Director of the Abet Open University: http://distance-learning-mba-online-mba-program-executive-jobs.net and http://mba-library.com

Automotive Retail BDC and Internet Departments - CRM Alone is Not Enough

CRM software is only one component of Information Technology.

Information Technology (IT) should comprise all hardware and software data solutions; marketing and communication systems; and most importantly the design, testing, application and refinement of the methods of implementation.

In other words, IT is not just software and hardware, it is the central philosophy and methodology underlying the coordinated application of technological assets in the search for efficient growth.

IT Objectives:

Maximize capitalization of internet prospects Maximize capitalization of global corporate data Minimize Internet and/or BDC departmental overhead Reduce third-party lead referral costs Increase captive lead frequency Strengthen ancillary revenue streams - parts, service and merchandise Exploit horizontal market opportunities

As such, a CRM platform cannot not be considered - in itself - an efficient vehicle for growth. Rather, the coordination of CRM with all other IT assets, in concert with a comprehensive marketing and communications strategy - across all franchises (and beyond) - remains the key to attaining and sustaining a superior level of efficient growth.

With this in mind, the evaluation of any piece of hardware or software should include it's ability to:

Work properly Accommodate strategic goals and processes "Talk" to other systems Adapt Be easy to use and understand Work quickly Work securely and privately

With regard to personnel, the ideal IT manager should not only possess a reasonable knowledge of hardware and software systems, but also a strong grasp of the retail marketplace, in addition to marketing and communications strategies. The IT manager will consolidate all technological assets and (working in conjunction with the principal(s)) develop new strategies facilitated via this nascent consolidation of datasources and communications systems.

Moreover, the IT manager is the most important piece of the puzzle; for it is through this key employee that all data and communications pass, all systems unite; and the successful, efficient utilization of this amalgamation via strategic marketing initiatives is dependent. No other single employee has the potential to control so much, and through doing so contribute so much.

In closing: Where most have welcomed and quickly capitalized upon technological advances in communication, the automotive retail industry - obstinate and myopic - has barely capitulated. Hence, the opportunities just over the horizon may be considerable for those who endeavor.

Fabien Vegas is founder and president of www.fabienvegas.com, a CRM solution provider and applications development company

Corporate Accounting: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Implementation for large corporation ? overview

Since December 2005 we are talking about Microsoft CRM version 3.0.  In the case of established corporate business we usually deal with such legacy environment as IBM Lotus Notes Domino

Since December 2005 we are talking about Microsoft CRM version 3.0.  In the case of established corporate business we usually deal with such legacy environment as IBM Lotus Notes Domino (predecessor of all the modern CRM applications as well as legitimate generic CRM platform), integration with Microsoft (such as MS SQL Server) and non-Microsoft database platforms and applications: Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Financials and custom Oracle databases, IBM AS/400 and RS6000 DB2 applications, SUN Java II EJB (as eCommerce front and back ends).  Microsoft CRM should be integrated with existing applications and there is no way to simply switch all the corporate ERP to become Microsoft Windows workshop.  Let?s look at Corporate MRP for large corporation and how Microsoft CRM 3.0 could contribute and be a part of its computer environment.

• Sales Module.  You should probably begin with simple.  If you are facing sales department reshaping (from computerization standpoint) ? you can apply all your MCSE skills and knowledge to install, integrate (with MS Exchange, Active Directory, custom MS SQL databases) and train Sales people to use MS CRM as their sales automation software.  It is pretty intuitive: you register Sales Lead, then move it to the Opportunity (where you can create a quote), then move it to Account/Customer and then you can use MS CRM Outlook client to print Sales Quote with Microsoft Mail Merge technology (MS Word format template with your company logo and quotation lines).  If you start with Sales module ? the investment (MS CRM software license cost) will be optimized/minimized ? all the other departments will be working with their ?legacy? CRM applications, such as Siebel, SalesLogix, Lotus Notes Domino, custom CRM systems, etc.
• MS CRM Security.  Security comes one of the firsts when we are talking about corporate environment.  In MS CRM you have two conceptions: Owning and Sharing CRM objects.  You can share object with unlimited number of groups, the drawback of sharing ? shared object (Lead, Opportunity, Account, Contact) doesn?t show in my Leads, my Opportunities, my Accounts, etc. as well as in MS CRM Outlook client calendar
• Integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0/Microsoft Great Plains.  Microsoft CRM 1.2 had Microsoft Great Plains CRM integration tool, utilizing BizTalk behind the scenes and our company used it to move MS CRM Customers and Orders into our Accounting ? Microsoft Great Plains 8.0.  With the version 3.0 of Microsoft CRM and Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 we see that Scribe Software is the champion with the integration between the two ? however Scribe Software dictates the price for its integration tool
• Integration with IBM Lotus Notes Domino.  This was relatively long story.  Both Microsoft Business Solutions and Lotus Software were reluctant to recognize and support Microsoft CRM Lotus Notes Domino connector, written and supported by Alba Spectrum Technologies, beginning with MS CRM 1.2 and Lotus Notes 6.0 (when Java agents were introduced for IBM Lotus Domino).  Then, when Microsoft Business Solutions lost Microsoft CRM sales to such client as Caterpillar in LATAM to Saleslogix CRM ? Microsoft in Sao Paulo changed its position.  Now Alba Spectrum connector is recognized by Microsoft and is on the way to be recognized and recommended by IBM as well.  One of the main reasons to keep utilizing both CRM solutions: Lotus and Microsoft ? to optimize software licenses cost ? IBM Lotus licenses (used in Legal, Production/Manufacturing, Customer Support) and Microsoft CRM licenses (used in Sales & Marketing departments)
• International Considerations.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM is preferred Microsoft Business Solutions CRM worldwide, however Microsoft Dynamics AX (Microsoft Axapta) and Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Microsoft Navision/Navision Attain) have their own CRM modules.  Integration between Microsoft Great Plains exists, plus integration with Navision and Axapta is and will be available through third parties.  If you are Multinational corporation with manufacturing facilities in Latin America, Brazil, Africa, Asia, Australia ? and you would like to use one of MBS ERP products in your headquarters: Axapta, Navision, Great Plains or Solomon (Microsoft Dynamics SL).  Localization question is relatively simple for Microsoft CRM 3.0 ? it is easily translated to Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Russian, Polish, Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, etc.
• Competition.  We already mentioned Oracle E-Business Suite.  From SAP ? you should consider SAP Business One with its CRM module and integration with Microsoft Office/Outlook (this is not related to Mendocino SAP mySAP SAP R/3 or SAP all-in-One project with Microsoft ? SAP Business One has its own original integration with MS Office)

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer 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, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

CRM Budget: How To Bring Your CRM Project In On-Budget

It seems that having a project come in On-Budget is the and holy-grail of project management, especially when it comes to CRM projects. With their 70% failure rate, CRM projects represent a significant risk to a small business' financial health and warrants more "measure twice, cut once" consideration before beginning.

Coming in On-Budget does not mean you managed to squeeze your project into whatever arbitrary budget you came up with when you first started. It also doesn't mean that you started with an overly generous budget.

It does mean that you develop a budget that takes into account an analysis of 4 critical areas:

1. PAYOFF. You need to know exactly how your CRM system is going to generate ROI. This will help you focus your project on the right areas. By knowing how you expect payoff to be achieved, you can plan to achieve it.

2 RISK. You need to figure out where the risk is in your project because "risk=expense". By figuring out what can go wrong, you can take measures to minimize and contain that risk.

3. SERVICES. Be sure to fully account for the variety of services that will be required. A few often overlooked areas that can increase your services bill significantly include: meetings, testing time, debugging time and "while you're here..." time.

4. TECHNOLOGY. Choosing the wrong technology is can be a huge waste of money. From the worst case scenario of a totally failed project to having to spend extra money to make the wrong software do things it wasn't intended to do.

What makes putting together a realistic budget so difficult for small businesses is that it's not what they do and they don't have the experience of having done several before. It's not what they do. So, they rely on the Sellers of CRM who have their own vested interest in not scaring off their customers with numbers that are perceived to be too expensive.

By putting together a realistic budget, you may very well find that the project is going to cost much more than you were intitally prepared to spend. It's best to find this out now and before you "sign on any dotted lines".

If you do find out the project is going to cost more, here are a few ideas of what to do:

- WAIT & SAVE. Perhaps you need to wait 6 months until you have a bigger budget. Use this time to get prepared for the project: learn more about the software choices, make sure you're business processes are as fine tuned as they can be, and focus on how CRM software will generate ROI.

- GO AHEAD. It may be more money than you were expecting, but may still be within your budget. If you're clear on how the CRM system is going to generate ROI and you're otherwise ready, go for it!

- SCALE DOWN. If you have a very clear idea of how the CRM software is going to achieve ROI and you can't afford the full project, focus in a smaller area to begin with that will have a payback. Use this payback to help fund future projects. It's always a good idea to start with smaller, high-payoff projects first.

- FIND MORE ROI. If you have a really clear and compelling business case for how a CRM system is going to improve your bottom-line, it's much easier to find the necessary funds to implement it.

- DOUBLE CHECK. Make sure you're choosing the right technology. Cheap software can often be expensive to implement. Double check to make sure you're basing your budget on the right CRM software. You may find that a software that costs more in licensing, ends up being an overall more affordable solution.

Coming in On-Budget means you started with a realistic budget. The Insider's CRM Success System goes into great detail on how to develop a realistic budget and provides the control forms and worksheets you'll need.

Scott Gingrich is the creator of The Insider's CRM Success Toolkit, the world's most complete and only guaranteed approach to successful CRM projects.www.thecrmcoach.com.

Microsoft CRM Implementation & Remote Support overview for V.P. IT

Microsoft CRM Implementation & Remote Support overview for V.P. IT

 by: Andrew Karasev

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. Being relatively inexpensive in comparison to competitors, like Siebel, Oracle - Microsoft CRM opens you the door for worldwide operations automation.

We would like to give you pluses and minuses of Microsoft CRM.

1. Web and MS Outlook based client - this means that you don't need additional installations or training - everyone is using Outlook if you are on Windows XP/2000/2003

2. SQL Server database - just to mention

3. Integration with Microsoft Exchange 2003/2000 - this means that replies to CRM originated emails will be captured and store in CRM as activities for the Contact, Account or Lead.

4. Remote Support - I would say - this would be in the nature of MS CRM - you host it's database in your headquarter and users will connect to it worldwide via Internet Explorer

5. Integration with other MBS products - currently it has integration interface with Microsoft Great Plains

6. Microsoft technologies dependence - yes, this is true and maybe considered as minus, it doesn't work with Netscape or Mozilla browser.

7. New Product - it is relatively new on the market and may not have industry specific features yet

Also if you are considering some customization scenarios, we would suggest you to review the options below:

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 selection, implementation and modification! 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, San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, 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

Hosted CRM: What is it?

San Francisco, CA (ARTICLEMARKETER) August 09, 2005 -- When hosted CRM was first introduced, concerns were voiced about its drawbacks: the lack of customization, integration with other applications, support, third party storage, control over data control and the performance of service reps - not to mention the all-important security issue. Hostings biggest drawback is that your most important data is in a third-partys hands.

Although CRM, as hosted solutions are also known, are not as difficult or as costly to install as packaged solutions, they still require an infrastructure, significant IT resources, and time to deploy.

Application integration has been another challenge for ASPs. Since ASPs unilaterally update their code bases, this opens the possibility that an integrated business process could be broken by a change that you dont control.

Privacy and privacy laws are another concern: you must investigate what safeguards an ASP offers to protect your data. As you can see, hosted CRM isnt perfect. Aberdeen researchers found that when considering these problems, support for hosting dampens. One way around this might be a hybrid approach: rent now, buy later.


It Does Not Have To Be Either-Or

Another emerging trend is that companies adopt hosted solutions as a low-risk way of evaluating a CRM solutions capabilities before they buy into an in-house set up. This approach allows companies to mitigate risk and experience the benefits of rapid time-to-value. Once companies see a ROI, then they can choose to bring the solution in-house.

The decision between an in-house implementation and a hosted solution is based on many factors. It is important to evaluate your business plan, technology strategy, risk profile, IT budgets, IT resources, opportunity costs, customization requirements and industry-sector requirements.


Visit http://www.sales-force-software.com for more information.

David Cowgill
http://www.sales-force-software.com
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Microsoft CRM for Large Corporation Security

 

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM proved to be reliable solution in the whole spectrum of industries and market niches: transportation & logistics, education, recruiting & placement, supply chain management, pharmaceutical, oil & gas, aerospace & defense, manufacturing, wholesale & retail. When corporation is looking into CRM application to choose from one of the fist questions is security. In this small article well try to give you the highlights on the most typical questions we are receiving in the security area.

• Active Directory. Microsoft CRM uses Active Directory users and its security is built upon Windows domain security. We heard complains about this tight integration. If you compare MS CRM with Siebel, for example you will see, that Siebel security is built on the CRM level and Siebel can be installed on Windows and Unix/Linux platforms

• Vertical Security, Roles. If you are thinking about vertical security, say assign more rights to manager, versus salesperson, this should be done on the role level. We first talk about vertical security, to give you conception of the matrix-type of security, realized in MS CRM

• Horizontal Security, Teams. At this moment (MS CRM 1.2, MS CRM 3.0 is due in September 2005) team can include users only, not other teams, however, if you share the object with the team you can share it with multiple teams. This is the place where collective security begins. Imagine, you have Worldwide product line widgets and you have several regions: Europe, Pacific, USA, Australia & New Zealand, China. In gadgets team you have product manager, who should see all the sales worldwide, also you create regional teams for European, America, Australian etc markets and then make gadgets manager as team member of all these teams

• Secured Reporting. When you, as European market manager run report on the gadgets sales you see only records in your security realm. This statement is true even if you have customization, done in MS CRM SDK: C# or VB.Net.

• Presentation Level. If you use MS CRM Web or Outlook clients these are just two types of presentation level clients. Microsoft CRM schema sits in MS SQL server database, so if you deploy MS CRM SDK to modify/customize your CRM both presentation clients will get the custom interface

• Messaging. Microsoft CRM deploys MS Exchange. However you can improve MS CRM Exchange connector to catch emails by addresser email or domain, also you can deploy Lotus Notes Domino as email server check with Alba Spectrum Technologies

• Integration with MS Great Plains. Microsoft CRM integrates with GP customers, SOP Orders & Invoices. You can have custom integration, by calling Great Plains objects (customer annual sales info, employees payroll summary, etc.)

Good luck and you can always seek our help in customization, implementation, integration and support. Call us: 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer

help@albaspectrum.com