Our Top four reasons on Why using “Partner Hosted” MS Dynamics CRM 2011 is a cost effective solution

In our last blog, we spoke about the three different variants of Microsoft CRM Dynamics and how we considered the Partner Hosted (also known as a Partner Managed Service) to be in our opinion probably the best option for most Start ups and small businesses. Typically, this solution suits those organisations with from 5 (or less) users and up to say 30-50 users who may have limited IT internal resource and infrastructure and funds. 

The rationale behind this blog is we are often asked to explain why we favour this service for many of our SME Clients. This is because we believe that the Partner Hosted option is great for business ‘Start Up’s or indeed for larger organisations looking for a full rollout or often to establish an initial Pilot or Trial as ‘proof of concept’ testing and to help to  embed and measure how a CRM system  improves sales and marketing teams  processes, effectiveness and reporting. 

Here, we have listed what we think are the key factors in using a Partner Hosted service for your MS CRM implementation:-

1.       Pricing and Cash flow. No upfront investment is needed for either software licences or indeed in any new IT hardware. The MAS Partner Hosted service is a ‘pay as you go’ service with the flexibility to add or decrease your licences based on a known price per month per user. With only a monthly charge to be agreed, then cash flow is enhanced and no capital expenditure is required for example on new servers or licences.

2.       Fast Start and Rapid Customisation. You can start with a 14 day trial which can be set up in a few hours and this enables you and your team to start using the system almost the same day you decide.  You are then able to understand CRM and decide what enhancements or customisations you need after getting a feel for the system and feedback from your team. MAS  can also provide our Fast Track customisation and training service as well.

3.       IT investment is minimal with either Hosted or Online since there are no servers to upgrade, maintain and ensure that any extra software such as Microsoft SQL Server are not needed. Upgrades are included as part of your package and again with a Partner Managed Service solution, it is likely that upgrades will be applied quicker giving you maximum functionality as it is released.

4.       Speed of Service. Our research shows that the MS CRM Online option typically has some additional latency as the Data Centre is not in the UK and the ‘page load’ times can sometimes be up to twice that of our Partner Hosted offering.

There are also four additional reasons which are worthwhile mentioning and these are outlined in the email request for full blog articleemail request for full blog article in pdf form.

Overall, in our opinion, the Partner Hosted service for MS Dynamics CRM 2011 offers great value for a fast and easily supported implementation, plus it helps to free up your own IT resource and reduces any possible capital expenditure. All this without any lengthy fixed contract, just a notice period of 60 days. This gives you the time to embrace and measure the effectiveness of using MS CRM within your business as well as the ability to train up key user champions, often one of the key factors in any successful CRM project.

For more information on how we can help, call 0844 745 4588 or visit our website

Explaining MS Dynamics CRM 2011 Different Licence Options

We are often asked to help clients to choose between the three versions available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.  These differences can be difficult for clients to understand since the differences can appear minor and clients look at functionality differences first. 

A brief note on ‘the Cloud’ or ‘SaaS’ (Software as a Service).  As we all know, the IT industry is full of jargon, but ‘the Cloud’ and ‘SaaS’ are really interchangeable terms and just really mean that your data/information and software is hosted on the internet on someone else’s servers and you access over the ‘net.

However, all these versions can be accessed via an internet connection currently using only Internet Explorer (at May 2012) or by installing a plug-in solution for Microsoft Outlook directly from within MS Outlook as additional folders. Typically, Microsoft CRM 2011 works best with MS Outlook 2010 since it shares the same 'look and feel', but Outlook 2007 is fully compatible and supported.

Broadly, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 in IT terms can be deployed or accessed three ways:-

1.       ‘Microsoft CRM Online’ has been available in the UK since January 2011 and is the version hosted on Microsoft’s own data centres which comprise of three managed centres in Dublin, US and Asia. Further additional components like email routing and or SMTP services will need to be provided separately, incurring additional costs, along with a 12 month commitment under contract with early exit clauses.  'Online' tends in our view to suit businesses that are start ups and possibly from 1-10 or more users, although this is not a restriction. Other factors need to be accounted for.

2.       Microsoft CRM ‘On Premise’ is the same software, but is purchased as a business asset and deployed on your own internal architecture which is either owned or rented by an individual organisation. MS SQL Licences for the back end database are purchased separately. On-going Maintenance or software assurance needs to be built into any comparison to ensure upgrades are available. In theory from as little as 1 user up to many thousands are catered for, although we tend to find that due to the investment involved, then really from 25 users up is where this works best. Since IT involvement and infrastructure investment overall tends to be heavier, a dedicated IT team or department is usually in place within the company to help to support this level of investment.

3.       Microsoft CRM ‘Partner Hosted or Managed Service’. Where a specialist CRM partner acts as the host for your CRM and your data on a managed set of Infrastructure / Servers, This type of service offers a higher level of support for end users along with system and web integration, giving organisations much of the flexibility of 'On-Premise' with a similar price point of MS CRM 'Online'.  Again, from single users up to large numbers, although again over 50 users is where we tend to find a 'On Premise' comparisons also needs to be considered.

MAS favour for the majority of our own clients the Partner Managed Service as we find this offering is then delivered as a one stop provision and for many of our clients this offers the best of both options since there is no internal hardware to support or install, plus there is the flexibility of the On-Premise solution to link to other systems, but no need to worry about upgrades or maintaining the server. In our view, for organisations with say between 5 and 100 users they will benefit greatly from a Partner Managed Service which delivers not only a single point solution to the organisation but enables an organisation with limited CRM support knowledge to get on doing what they do as a business and not have to worry about IT implementation and IT support as it is already handled. 

For more information and to discuss which solution best fits your organisation since here we can only talk in broad terms, then contact ourselves or visit our website pages.

Next month, we will look at some of the factors in this decision.

Four Reasons why using a multi-CRM advisor can save you money!

Over the last few months, we have been asked why it is best to engage with a multi-CRM reseller such as ourselves and up until now, we considered this a benefit without really delving into the reasons why our clients come to us.  There are a number of key reasons which in my view help to explain why using a multi-CRM reseller such as MAS can help.

1/ The first real reason is independence. –you only pay for what you need. With a portfolio of products we are not tied into any one solution and can match the best product to our client needs.  Now this also means we need to choose our clients carefully to ensure the CRM portfolio we have chosen can meet these requirements, hence most of our clients requiring this type of advice may have between 5 to 25 users of the system, sometimes up to 50 users.  Above this user range, then higher end products are normally considered.

2/ Strong portfolio of pedigree products – we save you time by having searched the market for you.  Having spent 16 years in the CRM industry, we have seen many products come and go and whilst we cannot cover every CRM product, we are continually approached to take on new products.  Again, like our clients we are wary of new entrants who may be unproven or not have adequate resources. Often these are country specific products and we have found that over the years, international exposure is one true test of longevity in our view, having seen many localised only products not gain the required client base to sustain their developments.  All the products we take have either some special advantage or have a proven pedigree in the industry.  Of course, we have to choose, but our portfolio is continually being reviewed.  Broadly, we consider mainstream proven CRM products with a good development history, financial resources and a good network of other resellers able to support your system.

3/ Third party product knowledge and experience – helping you to source the incremental solution components you need reduces the need for bespoke development, in many instances, the CRM system may form the core system, but often for example, marketers may want E-mail marketing, SMS capability and this is also available since we have been involved with e-mail marketing including our own chosen tool since around 2004.  With third party add-ons, a ‘Google’ search doesn’t give you that extra industry in-depth knowledge and experience.  We maintain strong contacts with other resellers, partly as a result of our history in the industry and can review many products with a simple call as well.

4/ Consideration of the many client factors involved in choosing CRM . Our extensive customer experience enables us to anticipate requirements you may not have considered - Our portfolio has been chosen and is reviewed to offer two core, sometimes overlapping  user and functionality ranges, this capability means we can maximise our experience and knowledge to help our clients find the best fit.  We are confident that with the two entry-level CRM system -ACT! and GoldMine together with our two mid-level CRM applications-SAGECRM and MS CRM, available in different deployment options such as hosted, online or on your own IT system, then together with their respective approved add-ons we can cover around 85% of our mid-market client requirements for their CRM systems at an affordable price.

For more information on how MAS can help you, please Marketing Answers

CRM on a Tight Budget – Is Open Source the way to go?

Customers entering the relatively mature CRM market are increasingly looking for value for money from a wide range of open source or proprietary CRM products. Open Source in a CRM context is often perceived by most clients as a cheap or free CRM option with a low cost of ownership.

Open Source software is developed in conjunction with a community of interested developers around the globe sharing a common platform and adding to core code with the aim of continuously enhancing and developing that application with their own code additions being  tested by the other developers within the community.

The mature market means that core functionality can often be found in common usage across several products such as: leads, opportunities, contacts, contracts, cases etc, and this is equally applicable to both proprietary and open source software.  A combination of low perceived cost and core functionality has therefore stimulated increasing interest in open source CRM

Proprietary CRM systems typically require customers to purchase annual or ongoing maintenance arrangements, which open source advocates are sometimes quick to criticise. However, for many this also offers peace of mind and an understanding that the vendors will support and invest in the product longer term i.e. Over several years.   Increasing integration of CRM products with commonly used email clients and office applications already requires CRM upgrades to keep pace with new released applications and changes in web technology.

A recent review of the top 10 Open Source vendors (http://www.crmsearch.com/top-10-open-source-crm-systems.php)  was very illuminating.  From personal experience, only two of these applications-“Sugar CRM” and “vTiger” appear to have been adopted in the UK by customers in any numbers.

Implementation of Open source solutions are rarely cost free.  For example, the two leading brands Sugar CRM and vTiger, are associated with additional module costs, and indeed training and customisation are often provided as a separate cost.  For many IT administrators, much customisation could be carried out themselves.  Likewise  administrators with that level of CRM skill and knowledge should also be able to do that on proprietary CRM products as well.

However,, for most organisations selecting a  new CRM system, the well known proprietary applications such as the likes of ACT!, GoldMine, SAGE CRM and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce.com etc do still offer a number of advantages over Open Source such as:-

·         Proven Brand pedigree and customer base together with an investment and product development track record.

·         A wide choice of experienced resellers to support CRM application locally and this can give clients more control and choice of supplier to implement.

·         Ongoing development of the product can be more defined, often with available roadmaps . Future proofing depends on the actual uptake of each product and market share/ customer base and profile.

·         ”Cost Free” perception does not always translate into reality, since many Open Source appear to be ‘free’, often this is for a very basic system or a user limited version (typically less than 5 users).

·         User acceptance and compatibility with MS Office products including MS Outlook can be an issue since the Microsoft ‘look and feel’ is often desired. MS Outlook integration may be a future issue since MS Outlook 2010 seems to be less open to embedded applications ( MS CRM 2011 now uses the same source code as MS Outlook).

·         Integration with other systems either in the feeding into or from these systems may require specialist skills and still involve further cost.

·         Future migration of data, especially relevant for smaller organisations who may wish to move towards a more recognised CRM system after a few years, means that unforeseen data migration costs can be higher since it is unlikely that ‘off the shelf’ applications have any standard upgrade paths  available.

·          ‘Hidden cost’ of the acquisition of internal knowledge as opposed to sometimes more clearly visible external costs.

In conclusion, Open Source solutions can be an attractive proposition that may meet the needs of certain customers, but a closer examination of the leading Open Source brands still shows that there are invariably other associated costs that still need to be taken into account.  Potential CRM customers need to consider their own circumstances, plans and objectives for introducing or upgrading CRM and importantly choose a reputable CRM Adviser/Reseller with relevant experience.  A review of the proprietary applications would always be a recommended first choice, subject to a client’s specific requirements.

“Customer Satisfaction Survey Results for Summer 2011”

Since 2003, MAS  have undertaken a annual Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) missing only one year.

This has been used internally as a means to measure and score ourselves and benchmark feedback over the years. More importantly this has been a great method of gaining useful and often instinctive feedback from clients. Typically, this survey is a quick telephone call, made using either a temporary member of staff or a non-client facing member of our staff.  Historically, we have also had new starters doing this as one of their key jobs to enable them to further understand our own use of CRM.

This year we scored an average of 4.89 out of 6 but more detail on these results and our plans to improve our service will be sent out in our next Customer newsletter. 

However, for today, whilst not in itself a key justification for installing CRM, the CSS does help to demonstrate a simple method for obtaining extra usage benefits from installing CRM, which for most systems would need only minimal customization if at all. 

For instance, when MAS only used GoldMine internally, we started off using the ‘Other ‘ Activity’ type with a supporting script asking clients when called to “gives us your feeling of how we have done over the last 3-6 months”, this is scored and then we ask the client to add any extra comments within the ‘notes’ area for how we can improve.

This approach is a fast and easy way of obtaining a quick snapshot and possibly some real emotional information from clients without taking up too much of their time.  The “Activity Code” was updated between 1 (very poor) and 6 (Excellent).  This Likert scoring method means that it is easy to evaluate responses, anything at 3 or below is seen as worrying since it suggests from a clients perspective that we are only doing “just enough”.

Client comments are then reviewed and classified and over the years, we have found that the Survey can provide extra ideas on how to improve our service.

But what about an email survey?

 Well, for 2 years, we conducted the CSS as an email survey, but our response rates were lower,  we had to await feedback and we also found we then had to do reminders!.  So the expected time saving was a lot less than anticipated and the feedback was then based on a smaller sample.

This year, we reverted back to the tried and tested ‘instant’ response telephone survey which take less than a minute or two to complete.  Extra comments can then be added to the ‘notes’ section.  Extracting data and benchmarking is thus also easy to do and client comments are now visible to all!

So it was that this year almost 49% of our clients had completed the survey question compared to  the typical 10% to maybe 15%  response for the Email surveys.

To maintain interest and encourage participation from clients, we aim to communicate these results and our planned actions within 4 weeks of the end of the Survey. This is done via our regular Client newsletter together with regular Account Management calls.

Our annual CRM based Customer Satisfaction Survey thus provides us with a number of benefits including:-

- An excellent and quick way of getting useful raw feedback from clients

• A useful means for motivating staff
• A useful means of training new starters in CRM
• Survey helps to extend the usage of the internal CRM system
• Another means of improving our communications with customers
• Management visibility and the ability to take action

But crucially , the biggest benefit is to MAS since the annual survey gives us a customer inspired and prioritised roadmap for how we can continue to improve our own services and performance.

SAGE 7.1 Launches at TFM Show

Launched at the ‘Technology for Marketing Show’ on 1^st March , this product  is the culmination of over 2000 man days and 1200 days of testing and possibly one of the major events from SAGE’s CRM division this year.  This ws SAGE plc biggest presence focussed around SAGE CRM 7.1 global launch.

I am very encouraged in the enhancements in two main areas, which  impact user functionality and productivity.

First of all, the MS Outlook integration is now at the MS Exchange level and should make life simpler and easier for users when synchronising data such as appointments and tasks.  There are also a host of extra benefits and features including social media links such as to LinkedIn, increasingly useful for sales and marketing profiling and research plus the new interactive dashboards, always an excellent way to present information.

Although for me, wearing my “marketing hat”, the integration built in to activate and create Email marketing campaigns is a big winner and fills a general ‘gap’ in CRM that is still sadly lacking in other products.  This is an integrated option built-in as an option from Swiftpage, a leading Email marketing ISP who have been very close with SAGE plc, particularly ACT! for some years.  Indeed, ACT! has had integrated built in E-Mail Marketing module opt-in since the ACT! 2010 release in 2009 (ACT! 2011 is the current version).

Built-in Email marketing functionality offers  a great opportunity for Marketers at a very affordable price to encompass and integrate their email marketing directly into Sage CRM with a number of available pre-developed templates.  With the potential to also offer and create Drip marketing campaigns, for example customer notifications of Contract renewals, this enhances the traditional bounce and metric feedback to a new level which will complement SAGE CRM workflow functionality.  Importantly, with Email marketing at contact level this can give a full view of the marketing interaction with prospects and customer contacts to enable the sales team to maximize and use this information themselves.  Rather than the current model  for many CRM applications where information is either exported out, say email addresses and information then imported, sometimes back into CRM from off-the-shelf stand alone Email systems such as dotmailer.  Sales people can now see what has interested their prospects/customers when reviewing the contact profile.

This level of integration has been available for a while but was not well known or used but the key thing is it is now integrated into SAGE CRM 7.1 and user just need to sign up.  With a 60 days free trial for me,  this is a no brainer ‘try before you buy’. 

MAS became a Swiftpage Accredited reseller early on this year and are now able to offer Email Consultancy (which we have offered on our Newsweaver Email stand-alone product for some years), help in using Swiftpage on both ACT! and SAGE CRM 7.1.  More details on this help and our planned online seminars and workshops will appear in our next Newsletter.

MS CRM 2011 Launch

The First Major CRM Release of 2011

This month, I want to focus on probably the most important new CRM release of the last few years...

In my view, this is a great time to launch since the last few years, looking back, have been marked with minor releases or vendors filling in their functionality gaps or indeed catching up with their offerings.  All of which may not be unsurprising given that corporate buyers have been very cautious over the last year or so in their investment decisions. 

MS CRM Dynamics 2011

MS CRM 2011 on-premises was officially released last week, meaning MS CRM 2011 is now available in three different deployment models:-

• Hosted
• On site or On-premises installations. 
• 3rd Party hosted

This was MS CRM first launch of a major version upgrade for some time and uniquely, they launched their online version first in a global launch in 40 countries in January at an incredibly attractive offer price.  The MS CRM 2011 version on-premises can now be downloaded and was unveiled last week.

Unless you want or need to be at the cutting edge, then  we would generally  advise waiting a few months for this release to ‘bed in’ whilst we also able conduct our own tests on the final production version.  Generally, when speaking with our clients, unless there is some new critical functionality required, then we recommend waiting for the first  service pack release to appear.

There are a number of changes, not least the unique fact that MS Outlook and MS CRM are now written in the same code base, which is a big first.  Microsoft themselves have had over 25000  internal users on this system since the ’Fall’ of 2010 and interestingly MS CRM 2011 can now scale up to 150000 users!

MS CRM 2011 looks set to be a very exciting launch and with the offer price for the online version set (until June 2011) at £22.75 per user, based on a 12 month contract, this is a very attractive offer for those considering CRM for the first time, although there are some restrictions which may not appeal to all larger users.   How this pricing may translate to the other deployment offerings remains to be seen, but this does demonstrate an absolute commitment to by Microsoft to dominating the CRM hosted and on premises sector over the next few years.

I will return in more detail to this release over the coming weeks, in particular some of the customisation add-ons which enable you to extend the standard functionality.  However, for those of you interested in viewing how MS CRM can help your business, this link is an excellent MS CRM 2011 demonstration video