Microsoft launches CRM to improve business growth
Microsoft launches CRM to improve business growth
Microsoft Australia launched its new Business Solutions CRM 1.2 application today, designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses to improve customer service and free up more time to concentrate on future business goals.
Users will have access to the Microsoft CRM solution either online or offline with Microsoft Outlook. Outlook will be integrated with sales reports, customer records, , invoices, accounts, information about future deals and product details held in the company database. Users will have quick and easy access to this key information so that they will be able to update records effortlessly.
The CRM solution integrates all of Microsoft's applications, such as Word and Excel, so there is no need to keep switching between different software. It also automatically records a history of alterations to each account order, customer query, sales record and other forms.
This will allow each worker a chance to track the history of every customer at the click of a button from Outlook, instead of trawling across the server for past records in different applications. Each record will be easy to print, email or converted into another format.
Ross Dembecki, lead product manager for Microsoft Business Solutions Australia talked about how he expects companies will receive this solution. "Our product is aimed at being used by sales, customer service and marketing people. We spent a lot of time making it easy to use, and we thought the system would be familiar if combined with Microsoft Outlook, which is where these kind of people spend most of their day, corresponding with people and scheduling activities.
We did a lot of work on making it extensible too. We chose the .NET framework as the platform to develop the product in, which is all built on XML services, because this makes it easy to extend the CRM into your financial management application, website, and other software."
Dembecki added that the successful use of this CRM system could help businesses increase their revenues and also create new avenues for business. "It certainly frees up the resources to enable well run businesses to better focus on their people and take on new business initiatives. Having a single repository where reps can put their data and in and get it out will allow them to do their jobs faster.
"It should free them up to spend more customer face time, which will give them the chance to uncover new opportunities. From a business status point of view, the various reporting tools over sales performances will allow them to assess their strategies more efficiently. For instance they might say. 'It seems like in Western Australia, we are doing very well in the mid-market manufacturing area. Why is that? So let's replicate those practices in NSW.' It will certainly set themselves up to be more agile when looking for new business opportunities."
Dembecki insisted that Microsoft is not looking to charge into the enterprise market with this product, although he did say it was capable of being used at this level. He believes that the CRM market is more co-operative than competitive, because many businesses do not have a CRM strategy in place yet and need to be educated on the benefits of such solutions.
Will Arnott, the executive general manager of supply chain, business development and marketing at Linfox outlined the benefits of the Microsoft CRM solution, which have been fully implemented into his company. "We needed to update our existing CRM solution to improve visibility of our customer interactions and enhance our decision-making ability regarding customer opportunities along with our resource allocation methods.
"As we have standardised on the Microsoft platform, we saw Microsoft CRM as a natural progression which would enable us to leverage our previous investment in other Microsoft technologies. We now have complete visibility into our customer relationship which is critical to growing our business."
Microsoft foresees an exciting time ahead for the CRM market. It aims to make future developments which incorporate more automated processes, which will free up even more time for companies to focus on new ideas.
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