Think about managing applications for medical assistance.  In some agencies, this is an extremely paper based process.  Applications are filled out by hand and routed to people for review and approval.  This takes time and people.  Government is looking for ways to do more with less.  One way is to develop more efficient processes that remove paper from the process.  This is how CRM is being leveraged by agencies.  In CRM you have households (accounts), patients (contacts), applications (opportunities), etc.  You have processes for application review and integration with back office applications.   Standard features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM like role based forms, configurable forms, custom entities, workflows and dialogs allow agencies to quickly build application and case management software at a fraction of the cost of traditional development. 

Another example is constituent management in cities.  Cities need to take, manage and respond to a variety of calls from residents.  Everything from barking dogs, nuisance properties, potholes, etc. needs to be accounted for and routed to the appropriate person or department for a resolution.  The ability to track incoming requests from residents allows a city to be more responsive and over time better understand what the needs of residents are over time.  Once again, municipal budgets are stretched and having people available to take calls and route them appropriately for follow-up may not be an option.  Using technology can help cities respond to citizen issues in a timely fashion, even while budgets are being impacted.

So again, what is CRM?  An application?  A platform?  A process management function?  A development tool?  Yes, it can be all of that.  

 By:  Michael Nafziger, McGladrey – Minnesota Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

What CRM Means to Government Agencies is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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With all of the email, tweets, linkedin usage, RSS feeds, news, and emails that bombard most of us on a typical day, we feel overwhelmed.  At least I feel overwhelmed some days.  What do I really want?  I want to know the most up to date information on my accounts and prospects at just the right time.

One way CRM can help is by becoming an aggregation point for all of this information.  How about the ability to open an account in CRM and see the latest news pertaining to the account, or twitter mentions, or SEC information at the same time.  How useful would it be to open a contact and see their linkedin profile and learn about how well you are connected to that individual?  Would that information be useful and help you sell to your prospects or better serve your customers?  The organizations I talk to seem to think it would be useful AND a huge timesaver!

If you are currently planning a CRM implementation, design this capability into your implementation.  Your CRM users will be thrilled and as a result, adoption of your CRM initiative will increase.  The tools and methods are available today to incorporate and aggregate information from the world wide web into your CRM application when and where you want to see it. 

In order to help businesses implement these strategies, Microsoft offers the Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  Accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM are add-on modules developed to address specific business needs.  The Social Networking Accelerator allows Microsoft Dynamics CRM users to discover online conversations, identify influential people, and engage with them on social networking sites using their customer system of record—Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

To learn more, read the white paper on how Microsoft Dynamics CRM is engaging the customer through social media.

Save your people time and help them be more effective.  These tools will help.

By: Mike Nafziger, McGladrey – Minnesota Dynamics AX, GP, SL, CRM Partner

CRM and Social Media: What to Do with All the Information? is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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Saved money could be used to migrate critical business information and processes from one system to another. It could also be used to pay down any cancellation fees that might be incurred with another vendor. Whatever the case, Microsoft will send you cash to help manage the expense of switching – and start the process of saving money

Who can qualify?

• Organizations that currently license Salesforce.com (Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate Editions) or Oracle (Siebel CRM or CRM On Demand).
• Organizations that subscribe at least 15 Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online licenses.
• Organizations that sign a two year licensing agreement for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

How do I get started?

The first step is to give us some information about you and your business. Click here to fill out the form and a Microsoft representative will be in touch within 24 hours.

InterDyn BMI, a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Switch to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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I took a moment to collect my thoughts and based upon my experience said that there were 4 important items to address before evaluating any packages and undertaking a CRM project.

1. The first, and most obvious, is to understand what you hope to accomplish with CRM.  What is the reason for investing in CRM?  Without a real good understanding on how you expect CRM to help your organization, you will fail.  Have well defined outcomes for the project.  Is it increased sales, and if so, how do you expect CRM to help?  Understand your core sales and marketing processes and look for areas where CRM can enable process improvements.   Make sure that you document the expected outcomes.
2. Get an executive sponsor.  IT should not be the driver for any CRM project.  The sponsor needs to come from the business community.  You need someone who can clearly articulate to the user community, vendors, IT and other executives why the company is investing in CRM.  There has to be a real belief that CRM will work and skin in the game from the user community.
3. Pull together a proof of concept team to validate your expectations and review possible solutions.  Get them to really own the project.  They will be your champions and power users, get them involved early.
4. Think about what will be critical to gain user adoption.  Is it mobile usage?  Is it reports or dashboards?   Is it integration with Sales Order or ERP applications?  Document what needs to be in place for the project to be adopted by your user community.  Do this BEFORE choosing a technology.  When doing this, think about carrots and sticks.  What are you going to give people that makes them more successful, features that encourage them to embrace the technology – carrots.  Combine that with consequences to address non compliance.  I had one client who did not give commissions to sales that were not tracked in CRM.  That’s a big stick.

At the end of our conversation, the prospect made an interesting comment, he asked “What do you think young college hires expect from us when they join us in sales?”   Well, having interviewed many sales people over the past few years, I know that good sales people, not just young ones, expect  a CRM application to assist them in organizing their pursuits.  No longer is it a nice to have, it is expected.  If you are going to compete for the best and brightest in sales, you need to have a capable CRM application that will help them sell.

All in all, I am excited to see that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is right around the corner and even more excited when I hear companies asking the tough questions early on in their journey to CRM success!

By: Mike Nafziger, RSM McGladrey, Inc. – Minnesota Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Partner

Four Objectives to Address for CRM Success is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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1. Dialogs – The ability to create scripts that assist the user in gathering information. This will be useful in many ways, but the most obvious is the call center. One of our demonstrations is around showing how the dialog can assist in gathering information for the purpose of lead scoring. Another demo shows how you can use it when closing opportunities to gather critical information that many times does not get collected. 
2. Personalization – The new release lets users make the application their own. Whether it is a custom look and feel or personal dashboards, the application can be tailored by individuals. For example, If I want to see all my opportunities with past due close dates, I can set them in red so that in a list, these opportunities pop out. Also, I can create my own dashboards and share them with others. 
3. Goal Management – Another new feature in CRM 2011 is the ability to create goals against any entity. For example, create goals for your call center on average call time, first call resolution, etc. Or for sales, average sales price, average margin, QTD sales, etc. 
4. Improved social media connections. See LinkedIn or Facebook profiles for contacts right in CRM. This is now an out of the box capability. More information allows sales teams to be more effective in creating relationships. 
5. Role tailored forms – Many times there is the need for forms to be tailored based upon who is using the form. For example, maybe only certain people can see outstanding A/R information, in the past, this capability required coding, with CRM 2011 you can create role tailored forms with configurations, not code. Another huge improvement in 2011.

Every week our team learns about new interesting features. There is almost too much to take in. As you begin exploring Dynamics CRM 2011, you might find yourself overwhelmed with how to best use the application. To get the most from your trial or proof of concept testing, engage a Microsoft Dynamics CRM expert. They can best show you how to apply all of the new features to gain business benefit. Otherwise, you might not be taking advantage of features that can help your business and that are easy to configure. So if you get a chance, take in a Sneak Peek event near you and see what the buzz is about.

By: Mike Nafziger, RSM McGladrey, Inc. - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Partner

A Sneak Peek at Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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Depending on the size and focus of your company, managing client and consumer accounts might be a small part of your work day or the driving force behind your business. Whether its ten minutes or ten hours, nobody wants to spend their time wrestling with a finicky database. Properly implemented CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software can streamline this process.

Managing accounts involves storing, sharing, comparing, integrating, and reviewing business information about consumers. This information can be data like a customer’s name, contact information, number of branch visits, amount of money spent on products and services, average visit time, etc. Typically, data analysts would have to pore over this data, finding the trends and correlations that you can exploit to enhance your marketing efforts and profitability.

CRM software can aid with this process in a number of ways. First of all, CRM software can automate the analysis and correlating process. By automatically analyzing and correlating this data, it will allow your business to efficiently target classes of customers with appropriate marketing material. Say you discover that customers are not spending much time in your branches – you could then tailor your efforts around retaining customer visits. Say that you find that your customers are generally unaware of any promotions you try to run – you could then start programs to better inform your customers of opportunities.

Even if you aren’t in marketing, or whatever department needs to see and make use of this information, CRM software is structured such that anyone can access the data. By storing all the information in a single, central database, anyone with access to that database can call up and work with the requested data. This will help your teams communicate and share data. A CRM implementation’s communication abilities don’t end there, either.

Modern CRM software, such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM,  will have multiple links to all information resources in an organization, multiple ways to receive and update data, adaptability to several operating systems, capability to handle proprietary document formats (word documents, images, tables, etc), operability both on and offline, internet connectivity to accelerate data tracking and recovery, and functionality like sales forcasting, partner tracking, custom reporting, contact management, product management, and lead routing. CRM software even provides account management benefits down at the sales level. With a modern CRM system, a sales associate will be able to efficiently serve your customers by tracking actions related to customer accounts and present any sales opportunities.

While it may be tempting to stay with a traditional account management system, the costs in terms of time may far outweigh the money spent on a upgrade. Try it for yourself, request a free trial version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

By Interdyn BMI, Minnesota Microsoft Dynamics CRM Experts

How CRM Software Relates to Account Management is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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Every week I meet with manufacturers and distributors to discuss technology needs.  In the past, the most common pain was reporting and planning.  Now organizations are recognizing that in today’s economy, they need to make dramatic changes to their internal processes.  They are trying to do more with less and as business rebounds, are looking to utilize technology and improved processes instead of hiring more employees. They also understand that supplier relations, customer relations, and customer service are key to beating the competition.  Of course technology is not a panacea to improving these processes, but it is a critical component.  I think about a client of ours who changed their entire business from using store fronts, throughout the west to set appointments to using the web and call centers to make home appointments with their sales force.  This change had incredible cost savings, but also required new technology to track inquiries, set appointments, and track service/installation activities.  There is no way our client would have been successful in this endeavor without a flexible CRM application that could manage sales, service, and suppliers.   Using one tool across all of these processes is cost effective, but more importantly it is critical to seeing a 360 degree view of customers and suppliers.

Given the ability to be configured easily and with multiple deployment options, Dynamics CRM can be utilized by MWD organizations to improve MULTIPLE business processes.  The thing to remember is that these projects and the use of a tool like Dynamics CRM NEEDS to be tied to improving business processes.  Projects will be challenged if the project does not take into account process redesign as part of the effort.   These are not, and should not be, technology only projects.  Dynamics CRM is simply a tool to enable the improvements in processes.  Given the data from our last MWD survey, it appears MWD companies should be looking more closely at how Dynamics CRM can help them improve Supplier Management, Customer Management, Customer Service, and Sales Process Management!

By: Mike Nafziger, RSM McGladrey, - Minnesota Microsoft Dynamics Partner

CRM Helps Improve Processes for Manufacturers and Wholesale Distribution Companies is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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This raises the question about what you should  look at when evaluating software, and again I will maintain it is not a feature and function shoot-out.  How many people think that CRM technology is akin to developing a missile defense system?  Of course it is nothing like that, they all have hundreds of thousands or millions of users and it is pretty simple for any one publisher to look at what the competition is doing.  So it stands to reason from a feature/function or technology standpoint, no one vendor is outpacing the other – in fact at the end of the day, I would say they are more alike than dissimilar. 

So Joe…what should we look at when we compare software??  Glad you asked!  In a recent sale, one of our clients put together a slide deck to present to the shareholders that drove home what I think is most important….the bullet point that jumped out said something like ‘We need to rely on a software company that is as reliable as we are – if they go out of business so do we…..’ So when you think about that statement, it comes down to business risk as it relates to the product you are going to implement.

Go back in history and look at the products that have been acquired and rolled up.  Typically the company being acquired stopped investing in the R&D which is critical to keep up with the competition.  I could go through a list of CRM products that have gone by the wayside in the last decade, but hey we know who they are and we get a ton of business as people move off these systems and say – we are doing that again!

So with the folks still in the market for software, here are a few key questions to ask yourself as you go through the evaluation phase:

• What is the percentage of revenue spent on R&D (higher is better)?
• What percent of revenue spent is on marketing (I think lower is better)?
• Do they have multiple revenue streams and product lines (lowers your risk)?
• What is the potential the organization will be taken over by a larger company (not usually good for the product line)?

This all plays into again why we chose to hang our hats on Microsoft and Microsoft Dynamics CRM – we know the product will be around for the long-haul and with Microsoft’s ability to continually invest in R&D, it just keeps getting better!

Happy CRM’ing

By Joe CRM at PowerObjects, a leading Minnesota-based Microsoft Gold Certified partner providing Microsoft Dynamics CRM and xRM solutions.

Top Tips When Evaluating Software Vendors – It’s More Than Features/Functions is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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An xRM solution offers flexibility and customization to meet almost any business or organizational need. You won’t want to miss this! Join us on March 18 at 10:00 CT. Click here to learn more.

by Power Objects, a Minnesota Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

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What is fun about selling Dynamics CRM?  

That answer is simple:  watching future users who have come into a demo with a preconceived notion of what a CRM has available from their days with other CRM packages and seeing them light up when the out of box functionality gives them what they truly need;   feeling the excitement that builds as users begin to understand Dynamics CRM capabilities and experiencing their enlightenment as they determine how they can use the tool to save time and money, improve efficiency and knowledge and most importantly increase revenue and reach more prospects and customers.

What is fun about using Dynamics CRM?

After years of struggling with slow and cumbersome tools for our CRM needs, our switch to Dynamics CRM made the task of managing customer relationships quick and easy.  The “track in CRM” email feature with the “set regarding” capability made tracking project communication simple.  And since we use Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite which has Outlook available whenever I’m online – The integration to Outlook allows for all the information I need to be at my disposal when I need it, which is usually “Right Now”.

What is fun about Customizing Dynamics CRM?

Well, I’ve been in the IT industry for over 20 years starting during the mainframe days and have seen quite a bit of change.  So to me, the Dynamics CRM/xRM platform is revolutionary.   Adding a new field, putting it on a form and getting it on a report has never been this simple and powerful.  On top of that, adding a whole new entity, relating it to an existing entity, and building maintenance forms…that has always been measured in days or weeks,   not minute or hours.  There are plenty of people exposing the capabilities of this platform, so I’m just going to sum it up with saying I’m beyond giddy over it.

What is fun about exploring the capabilities of Dynamics CRM?

Alright, exploring the capabilities of software has always been fun.  Stretching the boundaries of what can be done with a system and discussing how business problems can be solved with the tools and software we have is why I’m in this business.   However, what makes Dynamics CRM more enjoyable than other systems is that when we ask, “How can we solve a relationship based problem?”  we’re able to come up with a realistic solution.  Since most software has been written for the masses, it never meets the needs of everyone, but making it do so with Dynamics CRM is a pleasant experience.

How can you join in the fun?

Simple, go to one of the many sites that have information on Dynamics CRM  take a tour and view or better yet, give a call to a Dynamics CRM partner and start having some FUN!

By:  Bill Reckard of Meritide, a Minnesota Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner and Minneapolis GP Partner

How To Have Fun Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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