versus 8 Reasons Microsoft is the Better Investment
2015 versus : The Choice is Clear When you choose a business management system, the last thing you want is to be surprised once you ve gone through the implementation. No matter how smoothly data migration and training go, a business system implementation takes time away from your primary work. You want to make sure that you cover all the bases and know that they system will deliver as promised. Business leaders like you, having whittled down the list to the market leaders, have a tough choice. and are formidable competitors, both have a history of excellence and plenty of reference accounts that will sing their praises. But your business is unique, with different challenges than other companies. At AbleBridge, we ve been implementing CRM (Customer Relationships Management) for a long time. After seeing too many companies make unfortunate mistakes, we want to share the lessons learned so that you can make a more informed decision. We ve posed some questions below and will help you sort through the facts with practical, real-world answers. 1. Does the real Office experience matter? 2. Is cloud always the best choice? 3. What is the cost/benefit trade-off? 4. What are the potential hidden costs? 5. A dashboard is a dashboard, right? 6. Is there value in keeping salespeople focused? 7. How important is digging into the detail? 8. Users don t want to adjust the interface to suit them, do they? When it comes down to it, is often selected over Microsoft Dynamics CRM because of the name recognition. We ve seen some of the results of that choice and want to make sure companies go in with their eyes open. Ryan Plourde, CEO AbleBridge With the information that follows, you can feel more confident in whatever decision that you make. Let s get started.
Does the real Office experience matter? Your sales and marketing people likely spend a big part of every day in Microsoft Outlook. It s the hub of communication with customers, prospects, and fellow employees. When your team uses, they don t have to change the way they work. As opposed to, which only has an Outlook plug-in, is fully integrated, is a true which means workers don t leave Outlook, they can add leads or Microsoft Outlook application, not complete tasks while they are there. just a plug-in. While Outlook has long been the hub of our daily lives, the has removed collaboration and social tools like Lync, Skype, Yammer, Outlook features like the ability to SharePoint are becoming more ingrained. With Lync, chat and manage opportunities and leads. presence allows employees to have conversations instead of email strings. Yammer connects everyone in the business to the announcements, documents, and discussions. As business processes evolve, will always be in the center of activity. The real Office experience does matter and will become even more important. Technology hasn t finished changing the way we do business, it s just begun. Is cloud always the best choice? is offered through the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which means you pay a monthly fee to rent access to the application. There is no option for you to bring the application on-premises or into a hosted environment if your business requirements change. can be With the power of choice in deployment, deployed in the cloud, on-premises allows you to implement in the cloud, on-premises, or have your or hosted. solution privately hosted. And, allows you to transition between deployment models as business needs is only available dictate. in the cloud. Your business is unique and circumstances change over time. Having the option to change could save you considerable time and expense.
What is the cost/benefit trade-off? When comparing the costs of versus, it s critical to evaluate the functionality to make sure that your organization receives the expected value. Salesforce automation: does not provide visibility into customer lead history, competitors, credit status, payment terms, and other key account management data. Microsoft Dynamics supports all of the above, plus more. Marketing automation: limits users to 250 email messages per campaign in Professional Edition, and 500 email messages per campaign in Enterprise Edition. Microsoft Dynamics does not impose these limits. Online Basic Edition: $30/user/month Professional Edition: $65/user/month Professional: $65/user/month Enterprise: $125/user/month Unfortunately, these limitations are just the start. The bottom line is that costs as much or more than and delivers less. What are the potential hidden costs? In addition to missing functionality, customers often find their business requirements change as the business grows and technology changes. Since the Salesforce. com Professional Edition has a very limited set of functionality, they have to move to the very expensive Enterprise Edition. Online In contrast, Online Professional Knowledge base: included Edition is a complete CRM solution, recognized as a leader by Offline access: included numerous analysts. Storage: $9.99/gigabyte/month To make sure you get the functionality you need, ask about additional functionality, including: Knowledge base:$50/user/month Visual workflow Offline access: $25/user/month Partner and community portals Storage: $250/gigabyte/month Mobile support Outlook integration Data migration and de-duplication.
A dashboard is a dashboard, right? While provides a basic set of tools to create reports and dashboards, there are significant limitations. Users must go back to the home or specialized pages to access dashboards. There is no automatic notification that a dashboard needs to be refreshed, so users can be looking at old data without knowing it. Perhaps most importantly, the combinations of data that can be compared or tracked are Inherits security and data privileges limited by the design of the database. Allows charts, lists, iframes display Real-time data Data visualization is one of s real strengths. Dashboards are easy to create on any combination of fields to provide individualized insight. It doesn t matter if No security or data inheritance it is a campaign, understanding your customers, analyzing Only reports can be displayed sales, or driving results. You can bring all the data you want Lag of 30-60 minutes into a single view to fit the business and the viewer. Not all dashboards are created equal. Data is the new currency of business and you better have a crystal clear window into every aspect of your information to remain competitive in a fast changing world. Is there value in keeping salespeople focused? A recent study found that the typical sales person spends as little as 22% of their time actually selling. Imagine the sales results you could get if you cut back on the distractions and focus your sales team s efforts. Mobile apps across devices with offline With, sales people have to flip between apps access to recently viewed records at no and the social experience, Chatter. (In addition to having a additional charge. Social for everyone separate license.) Without an Outlook plug-in, they need to included in user price. leave just to send an email. With, sales people can spend their entire day in the application, even if they are on the road. Users can t manage opportunities and leads in Outlook. No access to Outlook, Lync, Skype, and Yammer for social collaboration opportunities, cases, or contracts from are all part of the Dynamics CRM experience. For productivity, Chatter. the centralized user experience changes the game.
How important is analytics to your business? If analytics are important in guiding your business strategy, it s critical that you understand the limitations that imposes on the export of data to Excel. Based on a proprietary platform, s database architecture restricts the ability to search and export data without expert assistance. Not only are the dashboards and reporting within Microsoft Inline analytics Dynamics CRM flexible and easy-to-use, the ability to connect Easy one-click drill down with directly to Power BI for sales and marketing is a must-have for inherited access and security organizations that want to combine the power of their data for predictive analytics. No inline analytics With Power BI, you can integrate data from all sources to turn Drill down from static image them into rich information that can predict what your customers takes 7 to 15 clicks. will buy, spot trends in buying patterns and match data from outside sources for even bigger insights. The future of business strategy lies with data consolidation and analysis. Users don t want to adjust the interface to suit them, do they? In the end, user adoption determines whether a CRM implementation is successful or not. If users start working outside the system because it s easier, data gets separated and productivity goes down. limits personalization to power users and administrators, forcing most users to work with screens that may Drag and drop customization not fit their business priorities. capability for end users With, end users seamlessly work in the tools they know and love including Outlook, Excel, Word, Yammer, and SharePoint. The Navigation Bar conforms to the way users work as they progress through sales, service, or business processes. Automated workflows supporting business processes that match your business requirements makes it easier, not harder, for users to do their work. Personalization features reserved for power users and admins No reversion of personalizations
Next steps We hope that you have found this information helpful as you compare and. The decision will impact your business for years to come. As you continue your evaluation, let us know if there is any additional information that we can provide. How we can help At AbleBridge, our belief that is the better choice is based on over a decade of CRM experience. We understand how businesses use CRM and we know the common pitfalls that undermine user adoption and expected outcomes. We can help your organization get the optimum value from. We bring the experience and personal commitment of a very special group of CRM functional and technical professionals. We love our work and take pride in the outcomes that we deliver to our clients. We ve helped hundreds of companies streamline their sales, marketing and service operations by implementing. We re a trusted resource for Microsoft and the technology service providers alike when they need specialized knowledge of. Let s talk about your business success. Call us today at 877-600-2253 or send an email to info@ablebridge.com. 69 Milk Street, Suite 222 Westborough, MA 01581 877-600-2253 www.