October 27th, 2011
Microsoft announced a new update on October 25, 2011 in a press release that will allow for social capabilities. Social CRM seems to be the hot buzz word in the marketplace as organizations are now trying to tap into integrating CRM with social technologies. GM of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Management Group was quoted in saying, ” Across Microsoft, we deliver social capabilities that help customers and businesses build more productive relationships. By bringing together new social collaboration capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM with familiar collaboration technologies such as Office, SharePoint and Lync, businesses will be able to expand their relationships with customers and gain even deeper insight and understanding.”
The new release will include the following capabilities:
- Activity feeds: Real-time notifications on important relationships and significant business events.
- Mobile activity feeds: View your feeds when you’re away from your desk and out of the office.
- Micro-blogging: Status updates and notifications regarding important events and actions.
- Conversations: Post questions, observations, suggestions and status updates. This will allow users to collaborate in real-time.
- Automated activity updates: Post information to activity feeds directly. This includes a subscribe function.
With these new capabilities, Microsoft is continuing to place itself as one of the top players and game changers in the CRM marketplace.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL RELEASE
Tags: crm, customer relationship management, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, Social Media, Social technology
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August 9th, 2011
With today’s competition, if you’re not going mobile, you’re going backwards.
Make no mistake, mobile Business Intelligence is coming fast and its impact will be significant and lasting. QlikView offers the first Business Discovery mobile BI experience. It puts business users in control of exploring and exploiting their data without limits on any device.
Mobile Business Discovery offers new possibilities to bring informed answers right to the spot where people are asking questions. This white paper provides a glimpse into some of its game-changing facets.
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About the paper:
Mobility Is Exploding: Are You Ready?
This paper deals with the explosion of mobility and the implications for business users. Includes use cases for how business users can bring business discovery tot he front lines of the business. Written by CITO Research and sponsored by QlikView.
Tags: BI, Business, Business Discovery, Business Intelligence, business users, data management, data mining, data presentation, iPad, Mobility, QlikTech, QlikView
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July 7th, 2011
I enjoyed reading this article entitled the “Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople.” The author Steve Martin identifies what to some may sound counter-intuitive: (1) That most successful sales professionals scored high on the “Modesty and Achievement Orientation” portion of the referenced personality test, and (2) That most successful sales professionals show 30% less gregariousness. Those findings sure correct two oft-repeated salesperson stereotypes!
Here is the complete list of characteristics according to Martin that great salespeople demonstrate: 1. Modesty. 2. Conscientiousness. 3. Achievement Orientation. 4. Curiosity. 5. Lack of Gregariousness. 6. Lack of Discouragement. 7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. The following sentence particularly struck me as critically informative to sales professionals. “The evidence suggests that the personalities of these truly great salespeople play a critical role in determining their success”. After reading that, one might ask this obvious question. If you seek the highest performance in the IT sales profession, how do your characteristics, preferences, and tendencies compare to this list?
Clients will be the first to tell you that what they are looking for in IT service partners is straightforward — serious, disciplined, highly competent professionals. The article is clearly stating that clients in fact will only trust professionals who are perceived as both authentic and intentional. In complex IT solution sales, be it BI or CRM solutions, or IT technical staffing services, clients are demanding from partners both solutions they can have confidence in, and teams they can trust. The central point comes down to this — clients are not interested in big sales personalities that have overwhelming levels of self-confidence. Sales people that don’t have the traits identified in Martin’s article most often come across as self-centered, and perhaps even sketchy – and won’t exude the characteristics that grow into a relationship based on confidence and integrity.
Here are four quick questions for every IT sales professional to ask themselves.
- Are you in an IT sales profession because of an extraordinary interest in successfully addressing client needs?
- When notified that a client is extending their trust to your firm, is your first reaction a commitment to perform above their expectation?
- Once you have learned enough to close the sale, is the next step to engage your team to learn even more about the overall picture of client requirements so you know enough to drive a successful project?
- Does the resultant detailed discovery and understanding precede any effort to optimized client business processes, skills and talents, and enabling technologies?
Modesty is first on Steve Martin’s list. In other words, do you have enough modesty not to start every IT services relationship or project with ready-made answers? Modesty in face of complexity demands a firm start it’s relationships and projects with a motivated and discerning team of subject matter experts who are committed to the tireless and creative effort of addressing client interests within the client’s boundaries and frameworks.
This is how this value chain works. If your firm and its individuals can wrap themselves around the natures and culture identified in this article, you will improve your ability to drive client success. Client success is the underscoring prerequisite to personal success.
Tags: Sales, sales performance, sales tips
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June 28th, 2011
Gartner conduct a research report and placed Microsoft among the CRM software leaders for customer service contact centers. Brad Wilson, General Manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM stated, “Microsoft Dynamics CRM, through its familiar, intelligent and connected experiences, gives customer service professionals a complete view of their clients, along with insightful and actionable guidance enabling them to deliver the best possible customer service.”
Microsoft has been able to leverage their presence among customer service professionals through the new version of their Customer Care Accelerator available with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. To learn more about this feature, CLICK HERE.
To read the full Gartner Magic Quadrant report, CLICK HERE.
Tags: crm, CRM 2011, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, MSCRM
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June 27th, 2011
A little over a decade ago, CRM could have been considered optional, a nice upgrade to one’s sales process. However, it now seems that CRM is not only prevalent but a necessity. Brad Wilson, General Manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 stated in an interview with Software Advice, “It is a critical tool for differentiating your business and building your customer service. Customers expect more in this day and age and the capabilities within Microsoft Dynamics CRM make those demands easy to meet.”
The article that highlights the mentioned interview above identifies four ways Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 has changed the CRM landscape and put its mark on the CRM game. There are two features that I feel really stand out and enhance the business process on a daily basis.
1) “Flexible Configuration and Customization: With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can create point and click configurations and easily turn a vanilla solution to one specific to your business needs.” Now more than ever, business processes are manageable and elevated to new heights with this ability to customize almost every facet of CRM.
2) “Better User Experience: User adoption is the number one pitfall of implementing a new technology solution.” There is an important emphasis on the functionality for the end user, which is sure to quickly become a favorite among the people who utilize this tool the most.
Although I only highlighted two key features that I feel are sure to make Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 an instant favorite, there are a number of different features that cater to one’s overall business strategy.
To read the full article, Click Here.
Feel free to also check out my previous entry that also delves into some key enhancements, Click Here.
-C.E. Greenbauer
Tags: crm, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, MSCRM
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April 7th, 2011
I wanted to take the time to analyze how Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 can optimize the performance of an Inside Sales professional. When I think inside sales, I think telemarketing, email marketing and appointment setting. 
Telemarketing is tough enough as it is; therefore, it’s essential to have the best resources available for your telemarketers/inside sales people. CRM itself, really is the number one tool an inside sales professional relies on to achieve their goals. I took a step back to flesh out how MSCRM 2011 has leveraged our own telemarketing efforts and the typical duties of an inside sales professional. Here is what I came up with.
MSCRM 2011 has brought efficiency to the overall telemarketing effort in the following ways:
- TRACKING: The ability to track calls, campaigns and emails more effectively. Without having to manually track everything, more phone calls and overall productivity has been achieved. (i.e. the integration with Outlook and SharePoint)
- NAVIGATING: Navigation has been easier with the ability to create and customize a personal dashboard. Follow ups and warm leads are easier to manage; therefore, creating a higher % for closing opportunities. We can also utilize some other features such as the use of Favorites to flag important records and the ability to few your recent history of calls. Overall, navigating around the tool has been more efficient.
- PERSONALIZATION: All of us have a different approach. Going back to the dashboards, this feature has been impactful as we have formatted our dashboards to cater to our style/approach to telemarketing. With this we can track our progression, stay current with our follow ups and make sure we reach our defined goals.
- VISUALIZATION: The BI application provides an ability to utilize visual components within CRM without having to use external tools. This can be everything from creating graphs which document daily calls to bar graphs providing month to month appointment totals.
- UNITY: We’ve streamlined the telemarketing efforts with recruiting and sales more efficiently. This has given us a true ability to stay on track with the entire sales effort and create an information/data warehouse for all sales staff to access. This has also allowed us to modernize our weekly meeting process by allowing us to access everything we would need right through CRM.
- GOALS: This can also tie in with many of the categories already referenced. With the ability to visually access and manage daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly goals, the entire sales team can improve the probability of actually achieving them. We would not have to go through the many steps it takes to formulate an excel spreadsheet. See my previous blog below, “AUTOMATE YOUR GOALS…,” for more information.
- TRAINING: It has been an actual training resource. With the guided dialogue feature, we’ve customized certain conversations in order to achieve optimal results and qualify leads more effectively. The dashboard function has helped increase the learning curve by providing all pertinent information right at your fingertips. Easier navigation and tracking has shortened the time it takes to learn shortcuts.
The overall functionality and adoption of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 has allowed the telemarketing team to reach their fullest potential. If information is entered correctly then the features and applications MSCRM 2011 offers should allow all users to have better conversations the first time around. With the ability to bring new team members up to speed, track calls and email with ease, personalize/customize to our individual sales approach, visualize our production, maintain defined goals and unify our efforts with the rest of the sales team, we’ve become a cohesive unit and are going above and beyond what we set out to accomplish.
Tags: calls, crm, CRM application, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, MSCRM, revenue, Sales, Technology with Methodology, TopLine Strategies
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March 25th, 2011
When it’s comes to sales, nothing is more important than reaching defined goals and achieving results. I’d like to stress the importance of DEFINED goals. Every professional has a certain amount of productivity they must maintain. In order to do so, it’s important to not only define your goals, but to also clearly understand them. As for me personally, this has become relevant as our last team meeting addressed how we must all begin to actually document our goals and put them in writing. At first, this seemed like a no-brainer. Write them down and stick to them; however, I underestimated the value this brought. Our team has now adopted this somewhat obvious practice and feel this strategy will help optimize our productivity.
Although I’m not discounting the benefits of putting pen to paper and documenting one’s sales goals, but Microsoft has added an important feature to their newest version of CRM that could automate and revolutionize goal management for their users. Not only will this feature allow the end user to import/insert their individual goals, but will also allow that data to be configured and transformed into visuals, such as charts and graphs through the BI functionality.
According to dynamicscrmtrickbag.com, it’s explained that goal management can be applied to anything really as long as it can be conveyed in one of the two following ways: “1) As the sum of a numeric field. An example of this is a sales goal, specified as the sum of the “Est. Revenue” field for opportunity records for a specific time period. 2) As a record count. An example of this is a goal for qualified leads, specified as the number of lead records closed with a status of “Qualified” for a specific time period.”
It’s rather exciting to see there is now an ability to track a variety of goals through CRM. Whether they are daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and even yearly, they now can become automated and configured into a salesperson’s number one sales tool. I think this will have a positive impact on our entire team’s performance and overall ability to manage our defined goals. Below is an example image of how goals can be displayed visually with the BI functionality.
To read more about goal management, you can check out the articel referenced above HERE.
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March 2nd, 2011
Now that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 has been released, let’s take a moment to look at some new enhancements and features that are available. Luckily for me, as I am an end user, most of these features and applications apply to people that rely on this tool the most. As you may have read in the previous blog post, “Perspective From the Everyday User…”, I stated that it can sometimes be difficult for end users to make changes to CRM without having to get in touch with an IT professional; however, it seems MSCRM 2011 has heard our cry for help and made it easier for us to personalize and customize our CRM tool. This is just one example of the improvements that have been made for the everyday user.
According to a recent blog entry from crmsoftwareblog.com entitled, “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Top Features to Be Excited About” outlines a handful of features that could encourage organizations to upgrade CRM 4.0 or even consider switching over to MSCRM 2011 entirely if they are using a different system.
- Compliments of Ben Dzanic
As I stated above, one of the main enhancements is the ability to personalize and customize. With drag and drop functionality and an actual customizations tab, making simple changes to your personal setup is now faster and more sufficient. It’s also important to emphasize the real-time dashboards and graphical charts. One disadvantage with CRM 4.0 was the lack of visuals through charts and graphs. Now the end user can create and apply an array of data into charts and graphs, place them on their dashboard, and even make that dashboard their homepage.
Additionally, some other important features for the end user reside in the ability to assign team ownership to records and even a goal management function. Team ownership is important as often times there is not one sole owner of an account or record. Now one can apply a certain team to records; for instance, the inside sales team. The goal management feature provides the ability to track personal goals and stay on track throughout the week, month, quarter and year.
Now let’s switch gears and take a look from a developer’s perspective on what makes Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 great for the IT folks. Just like the end users, it seems easier for developers to customize and personalize. According to our sister-blog .NET’ers, there are some changes when it comes to form scripting, web services, JavaScript libraries and plugins, but there seems to be a general consensus that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 has made great strides from a customization and development aspect for both the end user and IT professional. Here you can find some great resources and videos for Customizing and Developing MSCRM 2011.
Tags: cloud, crm, CRM application, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, MSCRM, Sales, Technology with Methodology, TopLine Strategies, usability, Web 2.0, Workflow
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February 17th, 2011
Straight from the release party in Redmond, Washington! 
Today, Microsoft announced its newest CRM tool, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, is now available for on-premise and partner-hosted deployments. This launch accompanies the earlier release of Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM Online in January. It’s now available worldwide and can be downloaded through the Microsoft Download Center.
According to Microsoft’s recent press release, “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 provides customers and partners with a wide range of benefits, including point-and-click configurability, enterprise scalability, and easy interoperability to existing applications and databases.” There seems be a significant emphasis on some major upgrades through powerful dashboards, user personalization and customization, optimal integration with Outlook and SharePoint; as well as, new intelligent experiences with guided dialogs, goal management, and business intelligence functionality.
This innovative CRM solution promises to makes some waves and catapult Microsoft into the upper echelon of the CRM industry. The full version of the press release can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/feb11/02-16OnPremisesPR.mspx
Also, be sure to sign up for our Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Webinar on 2/24/11 @ 10:00am MST Here.
Tags: cloud, crm, CRM 2011, CRM application, Economy, Enterprise 2.0, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, MSCRM, Office 2010, Productivity, revenue, Sales, Salesforce.com, Technology with Methodology, TopLine Strategies, twitter, usability, Web 2.0, Windows Azure, Workflow
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February 7th, 2011
February 24th, 2011 will mark the third webinar TopLine Strategies will host regarding the latest version of CRM from Microsoft. What makes this event so special is the fact that not only have we had the opportunity to polish our presentation, but everyone will have an opportunity to download a beta and start utilizing the newest features after the webinar as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is now available on the cloud. For the less adventurous, our webinar will cover the newest features and applications this version has to offer.
The webinar will focus on the complete integration Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 offers with Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint, new powerful dashboards and the advanced ability to personalize and customize. Not to mention some of the unique applications, such as a dialogue and goal management feature. So if you’re in the market or just looking to gain a better understanding of this particular CRM solution, our webinar should be informative. Sign up for our webinar today!
Tags: calls, cloud, crm, CRM application, Economy, MSCRM, Office 2010, Productivity, revenue, Sales, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Technology with Methodology, TopLine Strategies, twitter, usability, Web 2.0, Workflow
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