Well I’ve made it home. And I have decompressed from the information overload provided at Extreme CRM 2010 in Las Vegas. With tons of information, the overriding feeling that you walked away with was that this solution is THE CRM solution for now and in the future.
I could spend some more time here talking about the other enhancements coming in , or some of the many third party applications, or how the cloud deployment for CRM is really starting to gain momentum. All of this is certainly true. But instead I want to get back to a very core set of values and benefits that anyone using or considering using CRM should think about. These are usability and insight.
At the final closing session of the conference, a question was asked by one of the attendees. He commented on how all these new bells and whistles looked “cool”. But he asked why more time wasn’t spent on demonstrating the business value of these new features. Well it is my strong opinion that the business value is very high and that it is right there under everyone’s respective noses.
- You will be able to find information more quickly.
- You will be able to more easily see only the information you care about and not information you don’t.
- You will be able to do analysis of the data in few clicks.
- You will be able to more easily drill into the information to gain further knowledge, gaining more insight into your customers.
These additional benefits will be delivered by such new features as:
- Role based forms (different people see different information based on their specific job)
- Field level security
- Headers and footers on forms (to retain key info while scrolling for other information)
- Enhance views
- Dashboards with drilldown capabilities
- Inline grids and charts
- Queries applied against current view
- Flexible category setting and tracking
So where is the business value in all of this? Right there as soon as you start to use it. Users will be more productive. They will get the information they need out of the system. They will actually want to use the system. And the more people that use the system, the more value it has to the company as you see the interactions of various individuals and departments. This value is either subtle or obvious, but it is the real true value of a CRM system. And to borrow a phrase from my marketing staff - CRM 2011 rocks at this.
Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have: Rick Feterick, Feterick & Associates, Inc 847-795-8200 x203 or [email protected].
Submitted by Feterick & Associates, Inc –Microsoft Dynamics .
