If you currently have a Salesforce.com implementation that is not fulfilling your business needs, there are a host of other options available to you. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online provides a comparable feature set to your Salesforce.com solution but with some additional benefits that you ought to consider, including these four:
- Choice and Flexibility – No one can be 100% certain of what their business needs are going to be years down the road. That is why it is critical to have a flexible CRM deployment that allows your software to support your business needs, no matter how they change. With Salesforce.com, you only have one deployment option – you are renting the solution from them forever. However, with Microsoft Dynamics CRM you have the flexibility to change from an on-demand, hosted solution to an on-premise solution or vice versa as your needs grow and change.
- Familiar User Experience – The ultimate key to a successful CRM implementation is user adoption. Because Microsoft Dynamics CRM operates with and through Microsoft Outlook, it is quickly learned and leveraged by users familiar with Microsoft Office applications.
- Leverage Investments – If your organization has invested in Microsoft platform technology, then it makes sense to leverage that investment by building on your platform. Compare the Microsoft and Salesforce.com platforms here. If your business operates on the Salesforce.com platform, you can still leverage the investments that Microsoft continues to make in their own platform to maximize the functionality of your CRM solution.
- Total Cost of Ownership – It is important to compare the most similar feature sets in the two products to get an accurate picture of the cost of ownership for on-demand CRM solutions. In this case, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is similar to the enterprise edition of Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com enterprise edition comes with a price tag of $125/user/month or $1500/year for one user, whereas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is only $59/user/month or $708/year, less than half the price of Salesforce.com!
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