Microsoft Dynamics CRM “Wave 2” Accelerators –
Social Networking, Partner Relationship Management, and Portal Integration
Q: What are accelerators?
A: CRM Accelerators are free-of-charge, add-on solutions being developed for Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and partners. Accelerators add instant functionality to customers at no additional cost.
The vision around accelerators is consistent with Microsoft’s approach to business software. Accelerators are part of the rapid innovation Microsoft is providing to customers.
Q. Will customers have to pay more for this new functionality?
A: No. Building upon our promise to offer the CRM industry’s best price-to-value equation, the new CRM Accelerators are free to existing customers. Customers will not be charged incremental fees to take advantage of them. As with all incremental innovations to Microsoft Dynamics CRM since the delivery of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, CRM Accelerators are intended to provide new business benefit on a regular basis at no cost to the customer.
Q: What accelerators were announced on July 9th, 2009, and what functionality do they add?
A: On Thursday, July 9th, we announced three new solution accelerators for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The new accelerators include:
- Social Networking Accelerator
- What: Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers can now add Twitter as a channel to their CRM deployment.
- How: Allows businesses to
- DISCOVER important conversations
- IDENTIFY influential people, and
- ENGAGE to drive successful customer service and sales operations.
- Which: Currently, the accelerator will allow for Twitter integration, with additional social networks coming soon.
- Value:�
- Drives customer satisfaction by improving responsiveness to customer needs
- Increases pipeline opportunities by identifying new prospects
- No additional cost for customers
- Fast / easy deployment = fast time-to-value
- No additional cost and fast deployment = great price-to-value equation
- Partner Relationship Management Accelerator
- Allows businesses to distribute sales leads and centrally manage sales opportunities across channel partners, even extending integration to help automate business processes. The accelerator also includes extensions in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s sales force automation functionality.
- Value:�
- Centralizes sales and partner revenue channels on one system
- Reduces overall maintenance costs associated with managing multiple systems
- No additional cost for customers
- Fast / easy deployment = fast time-to-value
- No additional cost and fast deployment = great price-to-value equation
- Portal Integration Accelerator
- Allows businesses to connect Microsoft Dynamics CRM to an organization’s portal and / or web experience through point-and-click configuration to extend business processes to the Web.
- Examples:
- Differentiation / Value:
- Can expose any CRM entity to the web portal – not just contact, account and cases (more flexible than SF.com)
- Customers can create as many portals as they need for different audiences at no additional cost (you need the external connector license but no other hidden charges – different from sf.com)
- No additional cost for customers
- Fast / easy deployment = fast time-to-value
- No additional cost and fast deployment = great price-to-value equation
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- Lead generation and capture via external web sites
- Lead distribution to partner portals and extranets
- Bi-directional information share and update capabilities, eg, project tasks and plans surfaced in SharePoint or 3rd party portal
Q: When will these accelerators be generally available?
A: The three new accelerators The new CRM Accelerators will be made available in the next few weeks. Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and partners can download each of these solutions from http://crm.dynamics.com. To date, CRM Accelerators have exceeded 50,000 downloads to drive new customer value and partner innovation with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Q: How does the social accelerator differ from Salesforce.com’s offering?
A: SFDC describes the use of Twitter in the context of Service (eg, a notification of service outages or product issues) and outreach to affected customers. This is a very narrow view of how an organization could benefit from the conversations that take place on social networking sites.
The Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is built around the premise of managing conversations and perceptions which may be around brand, sales queries, product announcements, market segmentation, service cases – or a variety of other topics. In addition to the scale of applicability, it also offers a broad scope in analytics and dashboards that allow the organization to measure message effectiveness, map out the influencers and get early insight into developing trends (positive or negative) about the brand, all actionable from within CRM.
Q: Why are the accelerators newsworthy?
A: With Microsoft Dynamics CRM Accelerators, customers and partners benefit from new functionality on a frequent basis. Unlike our competitors, we don’t nickel and dime our customers for this added functionality – Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers receive accelerators at no charge.
Q: Are these the first accelerators you have introduced?
A: No, accelerators were first introduced in July 2008 at WPC. In the last year, we have introduced more than 12 accelerators (including the three new ones being announced on July 8, 2009) that include Analytics, Event Management, eService, Notifications, Social Networking, PRM, Portal Integration, and others. The CRM Accelerators give our customers additional functionality to drive productivity and effectiveness at no additional charge. (Full list of accelerators: Analytics, eService, Event Management, Enterprise Search, Sales Methodologies, Extended Sales Forecasting, CRM Notifications, Business Productivity, Social Networking, Partner Relationship Management (PRM), and Portal Integration. More information is available at: http://www.codeplex.com/crmaccelerators.)
Q: How often do you plan to introduce new accelerators?
A: Microsoft is committed to delivering incremental innovation to Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers. Since November 2008, more than 12 accelerators (including the three new ones being announced on July 8, 2009) that include Analytics, Event Management, eService, Notifications, Social Networking, PRM, Portal Integration, and others. The CRM Accelerators give our customers additional functionality to drive productivity and effectiveness at no additional charge.
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Mobile Express for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a new feature that enables users to access Microsoft Dynamics CRM data from a mobile Web browser on a Web-enabled mobile device. This feature must be installed on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server, and can work over the Internet if Microsoft Dynamics CRM is set up for Internet-facing deployment, or within a company intranet. It is available as a free download for English versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Once installed, users can view and modify Microsoft Dynamics CRM data from a web browser on their device.
Mobile Express for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Forrester summarized Microsoft Dynamics CRM with the following:
Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Over the past five years, Microsoft has established itself as a major
CRM player thanks to deep capital investment, a formidable strategy, and strong branding. The
product is strong in SFA, internationalization, and usability. Arguably its greatest strength is
its native Microsoft Office user experience. The solution is set up to look, feel, and function
like Outlook. Sales analysis tools, opportunity management, and setup and configuration
capabilities are the application’s key SFA strengths. The product also is available in multiple
deployment options and is attractively priced below many of the alternative products in the
market. The solution is built on the Microsoft .NET framework and integrates seamlessly with
other Microsoft productivity tools, like Office, Outlook, and SharePoint.
Where the solution is weaker, however, is in support for eCommerce and industry business
process support. The product does not possess deep industry vertical capabilities, and offers
minimal partner relationship management (PRM) capabilities natively, forcing buyers that
want deeper PRM capabilities to augment the application through integration to BLUEROADS.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is best suited for organizations that are Microsoft-technology-centric
for their business applications and technology
You can download the full Forrester reports if you want read all of the details:
- Forrester Wave Midmarket report: click here.
- Forrester Wave Enterprise report: click here.