In conjunction with their new pricing structure, Microsoft is currently offering 6 months of free subscriptions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to any current Oracle CRM On Demand or Salesforce.com customer. We’ve already talked about why this is a great deal for Salesforce.com users in our post “.” So today we want to focus on answering the question: Why would anyone ever leave Oracle CRM On Demand for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online?
If you are searching for a CRM software solution for the first time, or if you are a current Oracle CRM customer, then you’re probably aware that Oracle is a key player in the CRM market. However, what you may not know is how similar in functionality it is to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. According to a comparison done by InsideCRM, the hosted versions of Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics CRM are extremely comparable when looked at side-by-side.
Sales Force Automation:
The only notable differences between the sales force automation tools is the presence of forecast management functionality in Oracle CRM and the ability to create sales literature from within Microsoft CRM.
Service and Support:
When it comes to service and support, Microsoft CRM Online features email management and automatic response tools, while Oracle On Demand relies more on integrated voice tools for service and support call response.
Marketing:
The one area where Oracle outshines Microsoft in terms of Marketing automation and tracking is their real-time budget tracking capability. On the flip side, Microsoft’s marketing automation capabilities include integrated reporting using other Microsoft applications that Oracle can’t duplicate.
So, with such similar feature sets, it truly becomes a question of what works best for YOUR business. Oracle’s answer to that question is their industry specific CRM solutions. While an industry specific CRM system may seem attractive, it is important to keep in mind that Oracle only offers 5 different industry solutions. If you are not in one of the 5 specialized industries they focus on, you are left with their industry-agnostic solution. On the other hand, Microsoft Dynamics CRM was designed to adapt easily to the user's processes, not to force the user to adapt to the software’s processes like Oracle does.
Today, more than ever, pricing plays a major role in the software decision making process. If you are having trouble deciding between Oracle and Microsoft for your online CRM solution, you should know that Microsoft has simplified their pricing so that it is a flat rate of $44 per user per month. Compared to Oracle’s $70 per user per month pricing, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online presents a tremendous cost savings for a high quality and competitive product.
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