TIDBITS on Microsoft Dynamics CRM

It is not always about numbers

Crazy times often increase anxiety and anxiety in the sales management world has often been reduced by more numbers (more leads in the pipeline for instance) and yet this article makes some great points on taking the numeric approach to reducing sales anxiety.

Why Generating More Leads Isn’t the Answer to Greater Sales Revenue 

I particularly like these statement from the article:

"Initial segmentation requires basic research to weed out the prospects that really aren’t a match for your offering, and to group others into related categories you’ll want to target in similar ways."

"By nurturing quality leads over time, companies can forge deeper relationships that ultimately translate to business."

Comparing CRM Systems

This is an interesting compilation of comparisons between CRM systems.

http://www.180systems.com/CRM-Comparison2008.xls 

 

The Future of LOB

Does the future of line of business applications require that you have or have access to developer skills? I would lean towards hoping that this is a temporary phase when it comes to LOB. 

As developer languages have matured they were moving to a level of user friendliness. Moving away from being masters of the language of 0s and 1s to a place where common english such as if-then-else statements allowed you to do some powerful things. As the programming languages mature will there be or has there been a roll back to a time where more specialists are required? Where the sophistication of options is so detailed that you need a masters or doctorate just to get a piece of the pie completed? 

And if you have a masters or doctorate in a specific language is there time to also be a generalist when it comes to various industry mastery? From the mastery of a specific industry vocabularly to the mastery of how the "tool" and the skills around a tool would be utilized to meet some other goal.

It bends the mind a bit.

Time for a Shift in Team Structure

The combination of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft SharePoint is powerful - Mix in Silverlight, scriptlets, good CRM, web and workflow design techniques and a dash of JAVA and pow and yet I have yet to totally see adoption and the right buzz around it. For instance I have seen Microsoft regional offices doing SharePoint and Office Demonstrations without CRM (confusing for this CRM Lady)  

 

Is some of this because the bundle's icing often takes a developer in addition to other very different team members? 

 

Is it because the vendor culture leans towards Microsoft Partners  "getting it" and "doing it" and bring it together? Yet the requirements push the envelope when it comes to traditional Microsoft partner structure on either the Dynamics or the Information Technology consulting firm (ITC) model. 

 

This new team culture could easily consist of a melding of: 

1) Developer (.Net, JAVA, able to see outside their former development focus to adopt a mixed development platform.  They need to work with built applications (XRM) and they should think like an ISV building libraries of scriptlets, living code that will take care and feeding and source potentially impacted by releases to the XRM platform)

 

2) CRM Industry expert (knowledge and understanding of the CRM industry and what a highly adopted CRM application can do for a business, as well as insight into failures and experience helping to move a company in high technology adoption) Sales process and Sales "think" and/or Service process and Service "Think" understanding is a very valuable addition.

 

3) Web Page Focus (background in the web page industry  - knowledge management, search content key word placement, search engine optimization, usability, serving up )

 

4) Marketing (new edge graphics understanding, Depth of around what Silverlight can do, understanding of what publishing tools are available, Creates graphics and color mastery, creative)

 

5) Project manager to set expectations and who understands the first four backgrounds, skills, habits and how much time it takes for each to do what is requested. Sets budgets and time....

 

6) Business Process Engineering, Usability, Workflow development around how data flows from point A to point B and the corporate asset potential around the time management and data management of this data. Similar to the Manufacuturing process engineers of earlier days.

The new team is different than anything Microsoft has done before and very different from many of the partner cultures.

The To-Do

Jim Glass posted his to-do list today with a question regarding what some of his friends were focusing on. I managed to get so much insight into his world that I thought it was only fair to return the favor. So here are things on my radar and on my to-do.

..... 1 month later .... ok all with the best intentions, but this landed in draft and managed to get stuck. So I am finishing it up with today's to-do flowing into this evenings tasks

1) Update the Business Requirements/Functional Specifications document with input from the technical team meetings completed yesterday

2) Add mocked customizations to vanilla environment for a more bundled reusable package

3)  Finish this mornings draft blog writing and post

4) Review/Confirm join requests for Linkedin Groups

5) Work on chapters

6) Gather more information on CRM Help File structure for extending (anyone want to pipe in on this one?)

7) Tweet

Quotes of the Day

"Understanding is increased when you wear the same brand of shoes and you use the same tools to get your job done" - Anne

"It is one thing to eat your own dog food and quite another when your life depends on the substance it provides." - Anne

"It is easy to design, invent and create without practicality, quite another thing when practical is required" -  Anne

Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs SugarCRM

Although I read a number of blogs I have to admit that I can't keep up with all of them and as such I have been leaning on Twitter (in the CRM world) so that I catch items that my fellow CRM passionate enthusiasts might catch and share.

A few days ago this little tidbit hit my radar and I just had a chance to go look. 

Agree that there are some interesting points to Why Dynamics CRM vs. SugarCRM within this post on a totally different subject so am resharing here.  

Capturing Culture

Two things on my mind tonight.

1) Twitter is proving it's value in a key area. Immediate alerts to information long before I pick it up on the blogs. For instance the new Microsoft Dynamics CRM v4.0 2009 VPC has been posted and I found out about the final post via Twitter.

2) Outside the box Customer Relationship Management thinking (while traveling). Each area has a certain feel, a certain culture, a certain tone. What are people's thoughts on capturing this information as a variable in approaching contacts or customers incorporated into different communities?

Certainly this comes into play when the International variable comes into play, but even within the US - each town, city, state and community have a particular flavor.

What is CRM?

Wikipedia has a very interesting article that starts like this

"Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; ........................."     Read More

but goes on to really look at many different perspectives on this powerful three letter term and the industry surrounding it. It is worth the reading time.

A Key Thought: "CRM" has been around for a lot longer than technology and the number of white papers, discussions, disbutes, successes and failures offers a very rich history. As you tackle diving into the world of Microsoft Dynamics CRM you might want to take a bit of time to also look at the entire CRM industry space.

Considering the CFO's focus

I read the below article, provided by Craig Bailey of Customer Centricity, Inc. in his eNewsletter, and I had a major aH Ha moument. The material just rang true with some of my experiences over the years. I realized that a paradigm shift for many departments could solve some pain in the field and offer some clarity and as such with Craig's permission I am resharing the article.  Take a minute, Open your mind and consider 

To the CFO:

Listen to the Voice of the Customer by Tim Althof

The Opportunity

"It is not always a natural act for the CFO to have direct contact with customers except perhaps as part of negotiations or contract discussions. Sometimes it's just not a priority in the CFO's packed schedule, and sometimes it's simply that customer contact is viewed solely as the purview of sales and customer service. In this environment, customer satisfaction feedback reaching Finance is indirect at best. Many issues can be lost in translation or their implications not fully appreciated. "

Read More