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Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a core application, but many of you may not know that it also has a powerful and flexible application development capability that allows for customized tools built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, better known as xRM. A broad range of companies around the world are using xRM to accelerate the development and deployment of high-impact business applications — whether on the premises or in the cloud via Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Customers like you are benefiting from using Microsoft Dynamics CRM in new ways and realizing their full potential through the use of flexible business applications, like xRM. Here are some examples from the Microsoft News Center:

• The Arbor Day Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit organization, has designed 15 relationship management applications to organize charitable events, grant management and outreach for fundraising efforts. The foundation estimates that it reduced application development time by 300 percent, enabling more efficient and responsive interaction with partners and sponsors.
• The Product Release and Security Services (PRSS) team at Microsoft designed product release relationship management solutions that increased product release compliance to 98 percent and accelerated product time to market across the company by up to 94 percent.
• Comag Marketing Group, a U.S.-based marketing firm, has consolidated more than 40 disparate relationship management applications and is planning to consolidate another 80 applications. By standardizing on Microsoft technology, it has drastically reduced the cost of administering all these applications.

To find out more about the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and xRM, contact us by calling 888-446-4395 or emailing dynamics@ignify.com. Ignify is a privately-held Deloitte FAST 100, ISO 9001 certified company focused on the mid-market and enterprise business space for ERP, CRM, and eCommerce implementations.

Bhavesh Ashani is Vice President at Ignify. Ignify provides design, consulting and implementation services for ERP, CRM initiatives for mid-market and enterprise businesses. Ignify is a Top-tier Microsoft Gold Certified partner ranked in both the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle and the Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club in 2009. Ignify offers a comprehensive set of Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) eCommerce solutions for increasing online sales while lowering overall operation costs. Ignify has offices in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Nashville, Chicago, Toronto, Manila, Pune and Bangalore.

When you’re in the market to buy a CRM solution, a quick rundown of benefits is ideal in order to start on the right path of your search. Microsoft came out with a CRM Online Service Update in November of 2009 that provides customers with concrete examples of why you get more value for less money with Microsoft Dynamics CRM compared to Salesforce.com. We would like to highlight the main differences between the two products to help you compare and to make your buying decision an easier one:

1. Storage Capacity – Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online has 5 GB of storage and Salesforce.com only has 2 GB. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online offers additional storage at $119.88/year for 1GB of data/file storage compared to Salesforce.com – $250.00/year for 1GB of data storage and $60.00/year for 1GB of file storage.
2. Mobile Access – CRM Online offers Mobile Express for free, where as Salesforce.com Mobile Edition is an additional cost per user per month.
3. Offline Access – Offline access allows users to be able to view relevant data from the CRM system when they are not connected to the Internet or corporate network. This can be invaluable to sales persons and executives that are often on the road. CRM Online offers many “offline” options that Salesforce.com does not. Offline access is free whereas there is an additional cost per user/month for Salesforce.com Professional Edition. Salesforce.com doesn’t provide an Offline CRM client; it provides a “briefcase”. You can’t view all standard objects (such as quotas, forecasts and cases) and all custom objects offline. 

In terms of functionality there is a significant difference between what CRM offers in terms of functionality and what Salesforce.com offer as shown in the figure below.

Figure 1. Functionality Coverage between Dynamics CRM and SalesForce.com
 

If you are interested in a detailed evaluation guide on selecting a CRM system see this white paper written by our CEO Sandeep Walia.

To find out more about the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, contact us by calling 888-446-4395 or emailing dynamics@ignify.com. Ignify is a privately-held ISO 9001 certified company focused on the mid-market and enterprise business space for ERP, CRM, and eCommerce implementations. The company provides design, consulting and implementation services for ERP, CRM initiatives for mid-market and enterprise businesses. Ignify is a Top-tier Microsoft Gold Certified partner ranked in both the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle and the Microsoft Dynamics Presidents Club in 2009. Ignify offers a comprehensive set of Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) eCommerce solutions for increasing online sales while lowering overall operation costs. Ignify has offices in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Nashville, Chicago, Toronto, Manila, Pune and Bangalore. For more information, visit http://www.ignify.com.

by Bhavesh Ashani, Vice President – Ignify,  a California Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

According to many or most sociologists, people do not adapt well to change. We are “creatures of habit” and we naturally react to our environment instead of changing it. According to this Benchmark Preview for 2010, our avoidance to change proves to be true within the software world as well. “Over 53% of implementing organizations self-assess their ability to deal with change as fairly poor or very poor” in addition, “Nearly 50% of companies in the process of implementing ERP software have not yet started their organizational change, training, or communication plans. 42% have not developed a business case and ROI analysis, which suggests companies are not ready to measure and manage the business benefits they expect to achieve.”

Although change is not something we accept by nature, we need to acknowledge the necessity of it within the software and technology world in order to improve our chances of success. I’ve pointed out to you that change isn’t easy for us to handle, so why not make your software upgrade easier on you and your colleagues? Sandeep Walia, President and CEO of Ignify points out how usability can be the cornerstone of success and failure for a CRM implementation. Microsoft Dynamics acknowledges the difficulty of taking that rather intimidating leap and creates ERP software solutions similar to the programs you use on a daily basis such as Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook, but still have the power to manage the overall spectrum of your business.

For example the screen below shows the Dynamics ERP home page for a financial controller. An intuitive home page like this not only makes the software less intimidating it also provides a daily starting point for users of the system and allows them to manage their work better.

Microsoft Dynamics ERP provides approximately 35 such role centers and dashboards out of the box to make your implementation successful and improve adaptability. Another example shown below is the home page of an Accounts Payable Manager

To make your ERP implementation pack a punch and deliver ROI you need several factors that you need to put into motion, such as organizational change, training, and communication plans . This is where Ignify comes in, to make this transition complete so you can see the results you paid for and deserve.

Bhavesh Ashani is the Vice President of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify is a global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner and ranked in the top 1% of Microsoft Dynamics partners. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.

So in conclusion, even though it’s our “natural” response to avoid change, don’t be scared! If you’re experiencing difficulty with your current systems, you need to make an essential change and NOW before it’s too late.

Given the turbulent economy in 2009, companies were forced to do more with less, be more deliberate with IT budgets, and demand a higher ROI from their enterprise software initiatives. To my surprise, while many large companies have been cutting IT budgets in 2009, companies in the small and mid-sized sector have been investing large amounts of their budgets in ERP solutions and I believe this strategy will pay off. Here’s why…

ERP software drives productivity by leveraging an integrated framework making it possible to “do more with less, be more deliberate with IT budgets, and demand a higher ROI”. Investment in software isn’t always an easy undertaking during a turbulent economy, but if you step back and look at the big picture, it’s an essential move if you want to come out of the downturn ahead of the competition. A study by the McGraw-Hill Laboratory shows that “companies who continued strategic spending during a recession outperformed non-spenders and experienced revenue growth of 275 percent during the first full year of recovery.” For example, in the Order Central implementation of the Dynamics ERP for the Microsoft Business Solutions division of Microsoft – the ERP implementation was able to help drive cost savings of U.S. $2 million a year in reduced IT support requirements and U.S.$1.5 million in reduced staffing requirements. That is approximately $3.5 million of savings a year! No small change even for a giant like Microsoft.

So how did these savings come into play? There is no single magic bullet. It is a combination of reduction of many manual processes that lead to higher productivity. For example at Microsoft Business Solutions a report that used to take 2 person days of effort is now produced automatically by the system in minutes. Deb Remboldt, Accounting Services Manager at MBS validates this. According to her, "All our worldwide partners now have online access to their statements and invoices. Through this online functionality, they can advise our credit and collections team on what invoices they are paying and which credit notes to allocate online. This functionality has already streamlined this process significantly and simplifies this interaction.”

According to Mary Foley in a recent ERP for Small Business article on Technology.Inc.com, “The time is ripe for small and mid-size businesses to adopt enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications." There are more options than ever targeting the small and mid-size business sector. ERP used to be a multi-million dollar project. It no longer is. By leveraging pre-built configurations that partners like Ignify bring to the table and leveraging the ERP creatively to use more out of the box functionality a sub million dollar ERP implementation can be a reality for a full organizational cross-functional implementation that can span financials, supply chain and inventory optimization.

It may just be the best time to advance your company into an ERP solution that’s right for you. What are you waiting for?

Bhavesh Ashani is the Vice President of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify is a global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner and ranked in the top 1% of Microsoft Dynamics partners. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.