Customer Relationship Management - News and Articles

See http://www.180systems.com/blog/labels/CRM.php for more recent articles.

Customer relationship management doesn't have to be complex and expensive

February 7, 2007 from ITbusiness by Vawn Himmelsbach – “While the idea of installing customer relationship management (CRM) software can be intimidating to smaller businesses, it shouldn't be. In fact, it doesn't have to be either complicated or expensive for those companies that consider themselves SMBs…

Both small and large companies require a central repository of customer information, says Michael Burns, president of Toronto-based 180 Systems. The most basic CRM systems include a contact management system; but more sophisticated features include sales force automation, marketing automation and service management (but as a small company, some of these features may be overkill)…

At one point in time there was a differentiation between front-end systems, like CRM, and back-end systems, like accounting or ERP, but that distinction is gradually fading, says Burns. Now it's recognized that you require both, and even the most basic of systems will usually contain CRM components. Several accounting packages have tight integration with products from top-tier CRM vendors, for example.

"It's hard for any company that has an application that automates your enterprise to exclude CRM," says Burns. But, he adds, if you don't have it, you're going to have a hard time down the road selling your wares.”

180 View – Great article by Vawn especially considering that she has quoted us.

Salesforce.com and Deloitte Consulting Ally

January 30, 2007 from Destination CRM – “Salesforce.com is pairing with Deloitte Consulting in a strategic alliance that may enhance the on-demand CRM giant's ability to further penetrate into larger organizations. As part of the alliance, revealed on Tuesday, Deloitte will incorporate Salesforce.com's on-demand CRM apps and the Apex on-demand platform into its consulting services.

Salesforce.com's alliance with Deloitte will help give enterprises the confidence they need to develop, customize, integrate, and deploy on-demand applications with consultants that can help them address their global requirements, according to Bobby Napiltonia, senior vice president of worldwide channels and alliances at Salesforce.com. "The largest enterprise businesses worldwide are realizing they too can take part in on-demand success," he said in a written statement. "With Salesforce Winter '07 and the Apex on-demand platform, companies are able to extend the benefits of on-demand applications to any part of the enterprise."

"Salesforce.com's on-demand model can help change the way large organizations approach their customers," said Paul Clemmons, Deloitte Consulting principal and emerging solutions leader, in a written statement. "We look forward to working even more closely with Salesforce.com to help our clients in their efforts to realize significant results from their on demand applications. The Salesforce.com Apex on-demand platform represents an opportunity to expand the benefits of on-demand computing across many facets of an enterprise."

The announcement dovetails with the findings of a study unveiled today by Nucleus Research and KnowledgeStorm, a search resource for tech solutions and information. More than half of the 198 organizations surveyed use on-demand solutions, and nearly two-thirds plan on implementing an on-demand offering in the next year, according to the study. "This survey shows that the on-demand model is beginning to outgrow its image as a small business solution that, while cost-effective, couldn't scale reliably," Jeff Ramminger, executive vice president of KnowledgeStorm, said in a written statement. "Now, companies of all sizes can take advantage of the efficiencies of these types of solutions."

Salesforce.com has been trying to move up-market for a while, says Timothy Hickernell, associate senior analyst at Info-Tech Research Group. "At some point in this process, software vendors do need to have credible system integration partnerships to get their foot in the door of large firms. The key will be to see how many resources Deloitte--and other SIs--ultimately put towards this partnership, such as full-time consultants trained and certified on Salesforce.com's technology."

180 View – This article is interesting partly because of the statistics supporting the on demand model as well as Deloitte’s commitment to it. Another view is about lack of independence. Deloitte has other strategic relationships including with Cognos, Lawson, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Our perspective is that Deloitte (and the other firms like it that offer implementation services with specific systems) will be unable to provide independent consulting advice in business process improvement projects that potentially involve either replacement or upgrades.

Third annual CRM survey

December 1, 2006 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “Welcome to our third annual roundup of customer relationship management systems. This year, we have 16 systems, including ACT!, Epicor, Epiphany, Exact e-Synergy, GoldMine, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, NetSuite, SageCRM.com, SalesLogix, Salesforce and SAP Business One. We are fortunate that many of the leading CRM vendors are participating in our survey this year. We also interviewed Microsoft, Sage and Salesforce.com for their views on trends and what they think makes them different.

The big CRM trends this year are hosting, integration and open source. Salesforce.com and NetSuite paved the way for application service providers to become a respected method for deploying this type of software. ASPs host applications on their Internet sites, which are typically equipped with state-of-the-art technology and security. This allows organizations to avoid the costs associated with managing the computer and database that goes with it. In 2006, both Microsoft and SAP jumped on the ASP bandwagon...”

Onyx acquired by Made2Manage

June 6, 2006 from Managing Automation - "In a marked expansion of its enterprise applications rollup strategy, Made2Manage Holdings Inc., the holding company of ERP vendor Made2Manage Software Inc., today disclosed an agreement to buy stand-alone CRM software vendor Onyx Software Corp. in a cash transaction valued at $92 million.

180 View - What's interesting is the merger of ERP and CRM. It is now difficult for some CRM companies to be successful as a stand alone offering.

Salesforce.com bites bullet on need for more integration

July 24, 2006 from ComputerWorld - "Salesforce.com Inc. last week rolled out the latest version of its hosted software with added features that include a built-in link to SAP AG's ERP applications. The move is part of an effort by the customer relationship management vendor to address integration shortcomings cited by current and former users.

Several IT managers and corporate executives said that despite its continued momentum in the CRM market, Salesforce.com still faces the inherent limitation of selling a best-of-breed offering that doesn't easily connect with other business applications…

There will always be a debate over whether it's better to standardize on a single application platform or use best-of-breed systems, he noted. But he said that he's willing to accept the inherent problems of the latter approach. By using Salesforce.com's software, Kramer added, "we don't sacrifice on the technology that manages our biggest asset: our customer relationships."

In some cases, though, the lack of widespread integration offerings and the cost of running separate CRM and back-office systems have led users to defect from Salesforce.com.

"If I were to say one single reason for our change, it was that we needed tight integration," said Flora Sun, chief operating officer at Adina for Life Inc. in San Francisco. "We needed fully functional end-to-end processes."

180 View - "End-to-end processes" is today's mantra of the ERP systems, and it includes processes embedded in CRM. If Salesforce.com is to continue its leadership role in CRM, we think it will need to develop hooks to many other ERP systems.

SAP Gets On-Demand Religion (re CRM)

February 2, 2006 from Business Week - "Marc Benioff, the boisterous boss of Salesforce.com (CRM), has been heralding the end of software as we know it ever since he co-founded the San Francisco software outfit seven years ago. Sooner or later, he predicts, most businesses will hand off the task of managing their own server computers and software applications to companies like his that deliver software on demand over the Internet. Salesforce.com's rapid growth has made it a Wall Street darling, but so far, the big industry wide shift Benioff predicts has been slow in coming.

That may be changing. And the signal comes from a surprising source -- the leader in sales of traditional corporate applications, SAP. On Feb. 2, the German software giant announced its first on-demand offering, a service that manages sales, service, and marketing for large and midsize businesses. Like Salesforce.com, SAP's customer-relationship management (CRM) service will be sold as a subscription. SAP's prices start at $75 per month per user, compared with Salesforce.com's $65 per user.

"IT'S A NEW DAY." SAP calls the new application a "hybrid." It's designed to work as a service or on a customer's own computers. "This is not the end of software," says Shai Agassi, president of SAP's product and technology group. "It's just another way of deploying it."

Analysts praise SAP's strategy as a pragmatic way of dealing with a looming challenge to its primary way of doing business. While market researcher IDC estimates that on-demand sales made up only about 6% of the roughly $9 billion CRM market last year, it says that percentage could rise to as much as 25% in five years. "It's a new day for software," says Mary Wardley, CRM analyst at IDC, who had been briefed by SAP. "Now, this ceases to be a limitation for SAP."

SAP's message was carefully scripted. While this product introduction endorses the on-demand approach, it does so tepidly. SAP says it believes most large corporations that buy CRM as a service will use it only temporarily and eventually move the applications on-premises. "Most customers are hitting a wall in terms of flexibility and the ability to integrate with other programs," says Peter Graf, SAP's executive vice-president for solution marketing.

WILL THEY SWITCH? By approaching the market in this carefully calibrated way, SAP gets to have the on-demand option, but without giving it a big boost. "They're positioning on-demand as a niche offer," says analyst Jason Maynard of Credit Suisse First Boston. "That's smart. If I was SAP, the last thing I'd do is validate on-demand as the biggest trend in the software industry. They'd be crazy to do that."

Will the new service be a winner in the marketplace? Analysts warn that the tentative tenor of SAP's marketing could dampen its sales prospects. But SAP says it expects a lot of corporations that already own its traditional software for accounting, manufacturing planning, and supply-chain management will switch to the CRM on-demand offering. One of them, DuPont (DD), says it will stick with Salesforce.com for now in the departments where it's in use, but will also buy SAP CRM on-demand for other departments.

In the future, it plans on standardizing on one CRM application -- but hasn't decided which. Mike Michlovich, director of marketing and sales in the DuPont info-tech department, says the company wants an enterprise wide system that integrates well with customer and order data kept in its back-end SAP software packages. That would seem to indicate SAP has the upper hand.

"THEY'LL COME BACK." If Benioff is worried, he doesn't act it. "This is very much a defensive move by SAP," he says. "We're penetrating their customer base. Customers realize they're not getting what they need from SAP." Salesforce.com now has 18,700 customers with 351,000 individual users, and it's not just for small businesses and small corporate departments, either. More than 50 of its customers have at least 600 users, and a handful have thousands of users.

Benioff acknowledges that Salesforce.com is vulnerable in companies that already own a lot of SAP software. Those include DeutscheBank, DeutschePost, and Vodafone (VOD). But he predicts, "Even if we lose out initially because of customer politics, we'll eventually win. The SAP stuff won't be deployed and they'll come back to us."

One Salesforce.com customer that also owns a lot of SAP software says it will continue to subscribe to Benioff's service. Fred Rosenzweig, president of Electronics for Imaging (EFII), says his technical people have examined the SAP CRM on-demand offering and decided they were better off sticking with what they have. "There's different DNA for a traditional software company and on-demand software company," Rosenzweig says. "Salesforce.com has a very nice easy-to-use interface. They're good at listening to their customers."

AGGRESSIVE RIVALS. While SAP's battle with Salesforce.com is lively, its most ferocious competition is with Oracle (ORCL), the No. 2 corporate applications company. With the completion of its $5.58 billion takeover of Siebel Systems on Feb. 1, Oracle overtook SAP to become the leading traditional CRM software supplier.

Oracle already has both traditional and on-demand CRM products, as does Siebel. Now, with the combination, it expects to make headway against SAP in both spheres. That's partly because the uncertainty about Siebel's future has been resolved and customers are feeling more comfortable about buying its software again. Juergen Rottler, executive vice-president of Oracle On Demand, says Oracle will be much more aggressive about pushing on-demand services than SAP. "We believe that on-demand is the future of our business," he says.

Microsoft CRM Update

December 9, 2005 from E-Business News - "Microsoft has updated its customer relationship management (CRM) offering, going straight to 3.0 after a 1.2 debut in 2003. Microsoft's CRM splashdown in 2003 was a huge event, with many onlookers predicting an impact across the entire industry. However, the ubiquity of Microsoft's own tools has caused something of a cannibalization syndrome: "many [customers] still use the company's desktop tools (especially Excel) in lieu of packaged CRM," says analyst Robert Bois of AMR Research.

Plus, the CRM market in 2005 is quite different from what it was even a few years ago. Back then, the on demand paradigm of CRM championed by companies like Salesforce.com, Netsuite, and RightNow, did not enjoy the status and popularity it does today, especially in the small and mid-sized business (SMB) segment.

Microsoft is very strong in the SMB segment, but Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is not an on demand product. This means that companies truly interested in on demand CRM "should look at other options or wait," according to Bois. That said, 3.0 does have some selling points beyond the on demand issue. For example, Microsoft's productivity tools are integrated even more closely with CRM 3.0. "With the click of one button, a user can turn a task such as authoring an e-mail into a tracked sales opportunity, complete with workflow, visibility, and reporting," explains Bois.

Microsoft's goal here is to make CRM 3.0 a simple step up from Office and Outlook, and an experience that remains grounded in Office and Outlook. Bois is sanguine about this approach, concluding that "morphing [CRM] with a pervasive tool users already know will significantly increase adoption." For the article (although all of it was reproduced), click here.

Review: Sage Software ACT 2006

December 2, 2005 from CRM Daily - "Sage Software's updated customer management offering, ACT 2006, adds a new level of integration and ease to customer-relationship management (CRM) applications. Whether working with e-mails, attachments, or appointments, ACT centralizes all your activities with business contacts for easy access. The 2006 version includes an enhanced interface, mobile readiness, and improved integration. ACT is system-intensive software, requiring at least 512 MB of memory, so users should be aware that it might eat up a lot of processing power before installation." For the rest of the article, click here.

Second Annual CRM Survey

December 2005 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns - "A lot has happened since last year’s customer relationship management survey. The biggest news is Oracle Corp.'s US$5.85-billion buyout of Siebel Systems Inc. The purchase makes sense, since Siebel has been very successful with larger companies over the past 10 years, but has had a tough time lately competing for new business. For Oracle, this new move comes on top of its acquisition of PeopleSoft in December 2004 for US$10.5 billion. Siebel adds 4,000 customers and 3,400,000 CRM users to the company’s customer base.

Oracle is just one of the 15 CRM vendors in the survey chart. Others include ACT!, Chordiant, Clientele, CommenceRM, Exact e-Synergy, GEM-CRM, Legrand CRM, Microsoft CRM, NetSuite, Oracle E-Business Suite, Sage CRM, SalesLogix, and Salesnet. " For the rest of the article and the CRM comparison chart, click here.

Coming From Microsoft: 'Hosted Everything'

October 26, 2005 from Information Week - "However Microsoft proceeds, the company knows it must explore new software and service delivery modes. Microsoft faces rising competition from vendors like Salesforce.com and NetSuite on the CRM/ERP front, yet by moving ahead with hosting Microsoft also could end up taking on longtime partners that host Microsoft software. Microsoft officials have told partners that the company’s hosting offerings will be "revenue-neutral" to them. Presumably, that means partners would sell and even customize applications for customers that could run on Microsoft servers." For the rest of the article, click here.

Old friends collide in online software showdown

October 28, 2005 from CNEWS - "Now, Ellison is straddling another set of fractured friendships in a drama unfolding around Salesforce.com Inc. and NetSuite Inc. The pioneering upstarts -- conceived by a younger generation of Ellison's corporate progeny -- have been helping steer the business software industry in a new direction with applications that are accessed directly over the Internet.

Once considered a crazy idea, the concept of online, or "on-demand," software has turned into a hot market as thousands of companies decide they would rather lease applications monthly than pay an upfront licensing fee and then deal with the costs -- and headaches -- of installation, maintenance and the inevitable software upgrades. Earlier this year, the research firm IDC estimated spending on "software as a service" -- another euphemism for over-the-Internet corporate computing -- will double during the next five years, totaling $10.7 billion in 2009.

The rise of on-demand software already contributed to Siebel's downfall, driving the distressed company into Oracle's arms in a $5.85 billion sale expected to be completed early next year. Siebel boasted a $50 billion market value in early 2001 before its deep sales slide. Ellison knows the on-demand market well. He invested early in Salesforce.com and NetSuite in a show of faith in Marc Benioff and Evan Goldberg, former protégés who started their own companies during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.

Although smaller than Salesforce.com, NetSuite is starting to attract more attention. Unlike its rival, NetSuite has always tried to be a one-stop shop for online applications, aiming for growing businesses with fewer than 500 employees.

The approach appears to be catching on. With 2004 revenue of $41 million, NetSuite ranked as the nation's second-fastest growing technology company during the past five years, according to recent study by Deloitte. NetSuite expects to

Hosted CRM vs. In-House: Which Direction Should Your Company Take?

September 2005 from CRMindustry.com - ""There’s a huge interest in hosting,” says Esteban Kolsky, an analyst at Gartner. Beyond the usual drivers, he says, on-demand models are attracting adherents who got burned by costly in-house CRM projects that didn’t deliver the expected results. Hosting is particularly attractive, he says, if companies are looking for more tactical, point applications, such as campaign management, pipeline management, and email management.

What CRM model businesses choose, of course, depends largely on their individual needs and circumstances. Do they have an IT department? Do they need highly customized applications, and if so, do they have skilled developers? Is their workforce distributed or mobile? Do they have key back-office systems that need to be integrated with new front-office functionality? What are their security restrictions? The answers to these and other pertinent questions should dictate approach, say experts." For the article, click here.

Small Business CRM: Pitfalls and Mishaps

September 21, 2005 from CRMDaily.com - "CRM products are but one tool in developing and maintaining customer relations. It should not be used in isolation. Thinking technology is the end-all and be-all goes hand-in-hand with the third pitfall: buying an application before understanding what the true CRM requirements for a particular business are...

As Yankee Group's Kingstone advised, "Think small steps and keep it simple. Ensure that the application empowers the end user with few clicks to enter information and an easy way to find the right information at the right time." For the article, click here.

Oracle to buy Siebel Systems for $5.85B

September 12, 2005 from ComputerWorld - "Oracle Corp. has agreed to acquire business applications software vendor Siebel Systems Inc. in a deal valued at approximately $5.85 billion... The deal marks Oracle's latest step in its bid to remake itself as a global business applications powerhouse, following the closure of its $10.3 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft Inc. at the start of the year....Buying Siebel would push Oracle past SAP AG as the world's largest vendor of CRM software, Oracle said, bringing it 4,000 customers and 3.4 million individual CRM software seats." For the article, click here.

CRM Gains Ground as Management Tool

September 7, 2005 from ComputerWorld- "Customer relationship management is gaining importance as a management tool among executives globally, according to a recent study by Bain & Co. Survey respondents ranked CRM second to strategic planning among 25 of the most popular management tools and techniques.

CRM was used by 75% of the 960 executives responding to the latest Bain "Management Tools & Trends" survey, a massive study tracking the usage of various management techniques over the past dozen years. That's a sharp increase from the 35% usage reported in 2000 -- the first time Bain asked about CRM. The popularity of CRM reflects two trends, according to Bain: an increased focus on customers and better knowledge of how to do CRM right. Because CRM requires sophisticated software and massive amounts of data, companies take some time to learn how to succeed with the practice." For the article, click here.

An eBay For Business Software

September 2005 from BusinessWeek - "Benioff (CEO of salesforce.com) introduced a technology, named Multiforce, that he calls an operating system for the Internet. Customers and software makers can create applications for Multiforce that can be used over the Web like Salesforce's own software. In essence, he turned Salesforce.com into a platform for others to build upon -- much like Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) Windows.

Now, Benioff is planning an even more sweeping initiative. On Sept. 12, he's scheduled to unveil something called AppExchange, which he envisions as nothing less than the eBay (EBAY ) of corporate software. It's an online marketplace where software makers and customers can swap and sell applications they develop. Companies interested in new software capabilities can search through a menu of applications. When they find something they're interested in, they can read reviews by others, try it out for free, and buy it with a few clicks." Click here for the article.

Multiforce also sounds good but beware of integration, different user interface and support issues. AppExchange sounds good, but enterprise software requires expertise to implement.

Three CRM user pitfalls

July 19, 2005 from ITBusiness.ca - This article was written by Adam Pletsch based on an interview with Michael Burns.

"Don't believe (all) the hype
People get sucked into believing CRM technology is in some way magical. CRM got a lot of attention four or five years ago but unfortunately people jumped on the bandwagon and implemented it for technology reasons. That's a big mistake, says Michael Burns, president of Toronto's 180 Systems, a firm offering technology consulting to mid-size businesses. Burns says companies who thought the software was going to solve all their customer issues didn't stop to figure out what those issues were. "They'd get on board without really having a clear idea of what the business case of this technology was," he says. And if SMBs don't understand how CRM can benefit their company, how will they know whether their implementation has been successful? Burns says one of the tasks he recommends before any implementation -- CRM or not -- is determining a company's measurements of success. "You can spend a lot of money, but what other measurements are there? You need a business reason for going ahead with this," he says. Fortunately, these problems were more prevalent when the technology was newer and less well-known. And large companies were often the culprits, tarnishing the technology's image with their mistakes and lack of preparation. "Lately there's a general trend toward business being back in the driver's seat," Burns says.

Understand the scope and recognize the workload
Many CRM implementers don't recognize the effort that will be required to link their back office and front office applications (the front office being primarily CRM and the back office being things like accounting, distribution and manufacturing). "I'd heard many stories about trying to plug in Great Plains and Siebel, for example, even a few years ago, when Microsoft had said Siebel was a partner. That was crazy. There was tons of work involved. And there's still a lot of work involved." Integration can mean getting information to the CRM system from an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, an accounting system, wherever customer data is held. Luckily, says Burns, many more "end-to-end" products are emerging that include CRM as part of the product from Day 1. "For smaller guys, we're starting to see products coming out (in which) there's no difference between the front office and the back office. They're both there at any time. So you don't have to worry about the integration work."

Try an attitude check
While it has very little to do with technology, to make successful use of CRM, staffs have to want to share customer information with their colleagues. Sadly, to some, knowledge is power. "Why do I want to share my knowledge of this customer and give away my reason for power?" they ask. It's an attitude that goes way beyond technology, Burns says. But if instead everyone shares what they know about customers, other team members won't make (or repeat) mistakes when dealing with them. Sometimes time is a factor. Staff members are running as fast as they can and now they've got to spend time updating some system, says Burns. To be fair, he adds, there's something to be said for the frustration that comes from spending time putting in reams of detail that nobody's ever going to look at. The company must have a policy that says what and how much information is required, so that data in the CRM system is valuable and worthwhile. The bottom line is that management has to be clear as to what goes in and what comes out. It's supposed to save time and generate more business, not waste time and generate more work. " For the article (although you have now read it all), click here.

Microsoft previews next-generation CRM

July 5, 2005 from CNET news - "Among the functional upgrades promised in the 3.0 package is the introduction of a set of marketing automation tools, an established element of most CRM systems that had been lacking in Microsoft's first attempt at the applications. The software includes tools for managing client lists, tracking advertising and marketing campaigns, and for sorting customer responses to those initiatives.

Other additions pledged in 3.0 include increased support for the development of specialized applications for niche markets to be used with the CRM system. The package also boasts expanded customization alternatives for use with specific business processes. In addition, the offering promises more powerful scheduling tools linked directly to the calendar section of Microsoft's Outlook e-mail software.

Perhaps the most significant addition to Microsoft's CRM package, at least from a competitive standpoint, may be its move to make the tools available as an on-demand offering. The company had previously allowed some of its resellers to market a hosted version of the software whereby the applications were run off-site and accessed online, but the expanded on-demand strategy will offer customers subscription-style pricing for the applications and a version of the tools built with Web-based delivery in mind." Click here for the article.

Is this the end for CRM as we know it?

April 257, 2005 from Contact Centre Today - "Now that Siebel Systems is sinking -- sales drifting down, big investors unhappy, no apparent turnaround strategy, CEO Michael Lawrie booted out the door after less than a year -- is customer relationship management headed for a fall too? At first glance, it doesn't look that way. It looks a lot like Siebel's troubles are, well, just Siebel's. Lots of other companies, both vendors and customers, are doing fine with CRM.

After all, the idea behind CRM is solid -- maybe even brilliant. Customers are where the money comes from. We all want to get as much money as we can from them and to keep our best customers as long as possible. That's what the best salespeople have always done. So using technology to help salespeople stay close to customers, to cross-sell and track each customer's value, doesn't just make lots of sense. Implemented right, it should also make lots of dollars.

It certainly made plenty of money for Siebel after the company invented packaged CRM. Siebel was riding a CRM rocket in the late 1990s. Then competitors took notice. SAP , Oracle and PeopleSoft ate away at Siebel's application sales on the high end. Salesforce.com went on a tear through the market for Web-based CRM, which is focused on smaller customers. And since 2001, Siebel has lost 40 percent of its revenue and employees.

What was wrong? Why couldn't Siebel manage relationships with its own customers?

Siebel was built, inside and out, on CRM. Siebel was all about automating CRM as a business process. Trouble is, customer relationship management isn't primarily a business process that can be automated. Real management of customer relationships is a culture, a strategy, a way of doing business." Click here for the article.

Organizing for CRM

The McKinsey Quarterly, 2004 Number 3 - "CRM and the forces impeding its success are both growing up: early problems that mostly concerned technology and the misaligned goals of different organizations within the same company are giving way to perennial organizational challenges. Companies are increasingly getting the business-alignment and technology issues right, but many must still tackle the hardest challenge of all: motivating organizations and making them accountable for results.

Business commentators have spilled oceans of ink describing the gut-wrenching rise and fall of these programs' reputations. Most large companies have implemented some form of CRM, and many have followed their early disappointments with full-scale CRM remediation efforts.

Indeed, more than half of all companies investing in CRM consider it a disappointment, according to several recent surveys. What's wrong? It's not that companies are spending wildly; many of them build robust business cases before making their investments, which at this point are likely to be incremental. Nor does the fault lie with the technology itself—most systems provide the required features. Companies have lavished attention on business and technology issues because both were glaring early impediments to CRM's effectiveness.

The core of the problem now is that too few companies are paying enough attention to the organizational challenges inherent in any CRM initiative, whether it involves delivering a new solution, fixing a foundering application, or tweaking a functioning CRM capability. These challenges stem from the wide variety of people—frontline sales and service providers, business analysts, IT professionals, and a broad array of managers, to name just a few—who must collaborate to ensure that a CRM program is defined, delivered, and deployed. This diversity creates accountability issues and complicates the challenge of persuading employees to embrace CRM...

When the responsibility for different aspects of the solution rests in different places, it's often hard to muster the organizational resolve to pull in the right people, unclog bottlenecks, and make effective decisions. At worst, companies wind up with the kinds of problems that plagued Soviet-style planned economies: a lack of ownership, a failure to choose the right features, and an inability to meet performance goals. One large computer manufacturer's CRM program, for instance, foundered because no one could free up the time of the end users who were needed to help define the solution's requirements. Business operations personnel who served as the end users' proxy lacked the right kind of frontline expertise. As a result, the solution didn't meet the needs of the business...

The large number of stakeholders involved with CRM doesn't just complicate accountability; it also magnifies the difficulty of effecting behavioral change in managers, salespeople, and business analysts—all groups whose recalcitrance can cripple an initiative. Consider the problem of sales-pipeline management. CRM helps managers to see quickly when salespeople are not hitting their targets and remedial action is necessary. But management can act only when salespeople input timely, accurate information and analysts generate the right reports. If management doesn't augment the underlying performance metrics, frontline employees are likely to go on behaving in the old way.

Yet it's easy to see why salespeople and managers might drag their feet. The former are inherently skeptical because they think that information flows only in one direction (which it often does) and is therefore unlikely to benefit them, even if it helps the company. Salespeople also fear that new systems and bureaucracies will bog them down. Managers, by contrast, often recognize the potential long-term benefits of a successful CRM program but worry that they will be penalized if short-term results suffer during implementation. (Productivity often drops during deployment periods, but few operating plans take this reality into account.) When midlevel managers hedge their bets, they aren't likely to infuse the deployment with energy or to modify the metrics for evaluating frontline employees...

In my experience, a simple but powerful structural solution can help organizations overcome the accountability issues that bedevil CRM efforts. Instead of holding businesspeople accountable for determining the requirements of a CRM solution and IT personnel for developing it, companies should make both parties responsible for all of its aspects, from designing process shifts to managing change to implementing technology."

There's a lot more in this article - take a look by clicking here. (will require free registration)

Microsoft again delays CRM update

February 10, 2005 from ComputerWorld - "Microsoft Corp.'s famously slippery ship dates are sliding once again when it comes to the company's long-delayed Microsoft CRM 2.0 update. The company said today that it is expanding the software's feature set and delaying its release-to-manufacturing date until the fourth quarter of 2005. The move comes one week after Microsoft installed ex-PeopleSoft executive Brad Wilson as its new general manager of its CRM product."

This is interesting partly due to the slippage but also it's worth noting the arrival of one of PeopleSoft's executives at Microsoft. It is anticipated that many of Oracle's competitors will be be the beneficiaries of senior people jumping ship.

Now back to the story - "The delay means that almost three years will pass between the initial release of Microsoft's CRM software, in early 2003, and its first comprehensive update. Last year, it released a 1.2 version that addressed a number of critical gaps and bugs, but customers say the current software still lags competitive offerings.

"We've basically stopped using it until Version 2 is available," said Michael Kruger, information systems manager for Designer Doors Inc., a door maker in River Falls, Wis. His company picked Microsoft CRM as its sales management software in late 2003, but soon hit major problems with lackluster Outlook synchronization and reporting capabilities. "We're disappointed. We were hoping [Version 2] would be ready soon," Kruger said. "However, I'm pleased they're not going to release it until it's ready. All things considered, I'd rather wait for the right product."

Microsoft has been tight-lipped about what new features will be added in Version 2.0, but it said today that the expanded scope of the software now calls for enhanced process workflows with all parts of the CRM suite, including new marketing and service automation features, simplified installation procedures, and component services enabling easier integration with other applications and data sources.

Microsoft CRM is Microsoft's bid for a share of the business applications market, where vendors such as SAP AG and Oracle Corp. dominate the high end and hosted service providers such as Salesforce.com Inc. are increasingly gaining traction with smaller businesses. Sonoma Partners' Snyder cited Salesforce.com as the main rival he encounters on new business pitches. Microsoft claims a customer base approaching 3,500 companies for its CRM software.

Kingstone said that in retrospect, Microsoft should have held off on releasing its CRM software into the market if it was going to need such a long development time before the 2.0 release. However, she sees midmarket CRM as an open field, in which vendors are better off focusing on slow, solid development rather than racing to capture market share.

Despite the compromises Designer Doors has made, Kruger said he still feels Microsoft CRM was the right choice. "I do believe that when Version 2 is out, it will be close to the best product on the market," he said."

Stay tuned, and click here for the article although most of it you have already read.

CRM Customer Survey

December 1, 2004 from destinationCRM.com - A recent study evaluated 14 CRM vendors : Best Software, Cobault Limited, FrontRange Solutions, Lynk Software, Maximizer Software, Microsoft, Oncontact Software, Onyx Software, Oracle, Pivotal, Salesforce.com, SalesPage Technologies, Saratoga Systems, and Siebel Systems. A total of 149 vendor clients were interviewed, which was not enough to give the study any statistical reliability. There were also a number of vendors that could not participate. Nevertheless the results are interesting.

Best Software - 80 percent were very satisfied with SalesLogix, 10 percent were satisfied, and 10 percent were somewhat satisfied.
Salesforce.com - 78 percent were very satisfied with Salesforce.com and 22 percent were satisfied.Cobault - 55 percent of clients were very satisfied with Cobault and 45 percent were satisfied.
Oncontact - 29 percent of clients were very satisfied with CMS, 57 percent were satisfied, and 14 percent were somewhat satisfied.
Onyx - 55 percent of clients were very satisfied with Enterprise CRM, 22 percent were satisfied, and 22 percent were somewhat satisfied.
Oracle - 17 percent of clients were very satisfied, 50 percent were satisfied, and 33 percent were somewhat unsatisfied with E-Business Suite.
Pivotal - 60 percent of clients were very satisfied with Pivotal CRM, 20 percent of clients were satisfied, 10 percent were somewhat satisfied, and 9 percent were unsatisfied.
FrontRange - 29 percent of clients were very satisfied with GoldMine, 14 percent were satisfied, and 57 percent were somewhat satisfied.
Lynk - 40 percent of clients were very satisfied with Everest, 40 percent were satisfied, and 20 percent were somewhat satisfied.
Maximizer - 37 percent of clients were very satisfied with Maximizer Enterprise, 36 percent were satisfied, and 27 percent were somewhat satisfied.
Microsoft - 13 percent of clients were very satisfied with MS CRM, 74 percent were satisfied, and 13 percent were somewhat satisfied.
SalesPage - 30 percent of clients were very satisfied with SalesPage and 70 percent were satisfied.
Saratoga - 30 percent of clients were very satisfied with iAvenue, 60 percent were satisfied, and 10 percent were somewhat satisfied.
Siebel - 37 percent of clients were very satisfied with Siebel, 27 percent were satisfied, 18 percent were somewhat satisfied, 9 percent were somewhat unsatisfied, and 9 percent were unsatisfied.

For the article, click here.

2004 CRM Survey

December 2004 from CAmagazine - As you may know, we have published surveys of the leading Accounting and ERP Systems (September 2004), Business Intelligence (June 2004), and Professional Services Automamtion (March 2004). This time, it's CRM. We have detailed information on ACCPAC CRM, ACT, Clientele, CommenceRM, E.piphany E.6 CRM Suite, InterAction, Luxor CRM, Maximizer Enterprise, Microsoft Business Solution CRM, mySAP CRM, NetSuite, Oracle E-Business Suite, QuickBooks Customer/Client Manager, and SalesLogix. Our survey includes about 200 questions about cost, user base, target market, technology and CRM functionality. Check out the survey and the cover article written by Michael Burns by clicking here.

Mass E-Mail the Next Competitive Feature for Online CRM?

November 5, 2004 from CRM Daily - "For the most part, the online CRM vendors have achieved rough parity in their feature sets, with some excelling in one area over another. However there are still bits and pieces of functionality that are true competitive differentiators -- at least until the other vendors catch up. One such area appears to be mass e-mail marketing -- at least, again, until the other vendors catch up. "This is gearing up to be a big point of competition for hosted vendors," Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone tells CRM Daily. In general, she says, most of the major hosted CRM providers offer the capability -- but with significant limitations. "Either they cannot send out more than a thousand e-mails at a time, or they have to partner with another company to provide this feature..." The article focuses on hosted CRM, but it's also a differentiator for traditional on premise systems. There are differences in how to select the target contacts, in the server used to send the email, in performance and in history (what stored and where) of email sent. Click here for the article.

ACT! Reacts to Barrage of Complaints

October 22, 2004 from CIO Today - "Many of the customer complaints center around bugs in the new application, lost data and other performance issues. Other users do not experience any trouble at all -- except that the system crashes eventually, and the user is required to reboot. Released in August, ACT! 2005 was essentially a complete overhaul of the company's previous CRM application. It replaced the old flat-file structure with a relational and was re-architected with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in order to scale for larger workgroups..." Click here for the article.

CRM leaders

July 8, 2004 from E-Business News - "AMR Research has issued a new study that brings good news for the customer relationship management (CRM) application area of e-business as a whole. But the point of central interest will be the revelation that Siebel, the vendor universally identified with CRM, is about to lose its leading global market share to enterprise applications provider SAP...

While SAP and Siebel sit atop the enterprise CRM segment, Microsoft is making rapid progress in the downstream market. Microsoft's CRM revenues were $148 million in 2003, compared to $71 million for Salesforce.com. Further, AMR expects Microsoft CRM revenues to grow 40 percent in 2004, compared to 21 percent for Salesforce.com. According to an AMR survey, the reasons for Microsoft's CRM growth have to do customer and prospect confidence in the company's long-term viability, integration with Outlook, and ease of use." For the article, click here.

CRM as a service over the web

June 2004 from infoconomy - "IT industry analysts at Gartner estimate that around 8% of small and medium-sized enterprises that use some form of CRM technology subscribe to an application service; and by 2006, that proportion could grow to 25%. To ease the headaches of managing complex CRM software, small and medium-sized businesses' IT managers are increasingly becoming receptive to the 'low-cost/good-enough' mantra that is at the heart of the ASP [application service provider] idea...

'Headache' does not even come close, say critics of licensed CRM packages. Tales of disastrous implementations and negative ROI became almost commonplace in 2001 and 2002. A survey by AMR Research found that only around 16% of on-site CRM projects provided real, reportable business returns, while about one-in-eight CRM projects failed to go live at all. And as the backlash set in, so spending crashed: in 2002, the market shrank by 25%.

Although CRM as a service over the web does have advantages, it's not a panacea. Concerns include service availability, lack of integration with back-office systems and that costs could be more expensive over the long-term. For the article, click here.

Case Study on the SalesLogix CRM system in the February edition of the Bottom Line

SalesLogix is a market leader especially in the small and mid-sized CRM marketplace. Lloyd Sadd is happy with the product and their solution provider, Avante Solutions. Click here for a reprint.

Case Study on ACCPAC CRM published in the January edition of the Bottom Line

Inortech was one of the first companies to implement ACCPAC CRM about 2 years ago. Although it was an uphill battle, ACCPAC CRM is now working well and is used by all employees. Click here for a reprint.

2003

Pivotal Goes to CDC Software

December 8,2003, Line56 - "CDC Software, has signed a definitive arrangement to acquire Canada-based CRM provider Pivotal Corporation in a deal worth between US$53 and US$57 million depending on shareholder options." The purchase looks positive for Pivotal, one of the leading mid-market CRM vendors. CDC does not have an existing CRM system and so there is no reason to be concerned that Pivotal will be replaced by another product, which could have happened if one of their competitors acquired Pivotal. CDC is a subsidiary of chinadotcom, which is in the process of creating a mid market force in North America that includes CRM, ERP and other technologies. CDC purchased Ross, a leader in process-manufacturing ERP software in September 2003. We can expect CDC to bring their integrated suite of technologies to Asia, which is a huge untapped market and could potentially make CDC one of the leading software companies in the world. For the article, click here.

Customer Relationship Management article published in the November edition of the Bottom Line

A couple of years ago, most small and medium sized companies had never heard of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Today, it is hard to avoid hearing about CRM, and the decibel level will only increase. If you're interested in CRM issues and vendors, click here for a reprint of the article.

Customer Relationship Management in accounting firms

For a speech to the Scarborough District Chartered Accountant Association on October 8, we researched the state of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in accounting firms. We called many of the CRM vendors to find out whether accounting firms have implemented CRM and to our surprise, CRM is not being used. The reasons include cost, lack of integration, reluctance of partners to share information and missing functionality. Accounting firms and other professional service based organizations depend on relationships to grow their business. A CRM system for professional service based organizations should include the ability to identify multiple relationships for each contact. And each relationship should be setup only once.  The CRM article in the November edition of Bottom Line expands on this topic. Click here for a reprint of the article.

2003 Market Leaders

August 2003 from CRM magazine - The article discusses the leading high end and mid market CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems and contains information about CRM such as "IDC predicts the worldwide CRM market to grow at a rate of 18.9 percent annually, reaching $45.6 billion in 2006. The mid-market companies will do most of the additional spending. Market researcher Gartner claims that only 2 percent of small businesses and just 20 percent of midsize companies are currently using CRM solutions." The article also contains 2003 market leaders in BI. For the article, click here.

CRM wars - Goldmine vs Microsoft

August 12, 2003, from AberdeenGroup - "FrontRange Solutions, the corporate parent that owns the GoldMine SFA product and the HEAT help desk and customer support product...has seen its revenue, profitability, and cash position suffer, following the entry of Microsoft into the small and midsize business (SMB) CRM market. Microsoft’s entry effectively froze end-user expenditures for all vendors in this space for almost two quarters. FrontRange’s near-term outlook may have been helped by three missteps from Microsoft’s Business Solutions organization and its Microsoft CRM product: First, Microsoft underwhelmed resellers...with the functionality of its 1.0 product release. Second, Microsoft announced about three months ago that any Microsoft distributor could sell the Microsoft CRM Standard Edition. This move quickly inflated the MS CRM VAR headcount to more than 30,000 from roughly 6,000 and created significant potential for channel conflict among Microsoft VARs now competing for the same business. Third, Microsoft announced a volume licensing policy for MS CRM that lowered the margins from more than 40% to as little as 10%. VARs have expressed their discontent and frustration with this pricing policy publicly and privately, and several FrontRange VARs are now returning to the fold." For the article, click here.

CRM Light from Intuit

August 25, 2003, from E-Business News - Intuit, the developer of QuickBooks will be shipping a light version of CRM in September 2003 in the US. (Awaiting when available in Canada). "Microsoft CRM is focused on medium-sized companies that could be as many as 1,000 employees. Ninety percent of the QuickBooks user base has 20 employees or less. Lest anyone think that market segment isn't worth much, estimates are that of the 22 million businesses in the U.S., 14 million have 20 or fewer employees." For the article, click here.

Sales Automation: Sync or Swim

August 14, 2003, from CIO Today Magazine - The article points out that there can be big differences in how synchronization occurs when a sales rep synchs with the corporate database. For example "Does the system have automatic retries? Can it recover data if the connection crashes...Other questions to ask include whether the application is "smart" enough not to have to send all the data all the time, but rather knows enough to send incremental data or updated data". For the article, click here.

Microsoft CRM reseller channel is about to grow rapidly

July 31, 2003, from webCPA - "Microsoft just opened the doors to CRM authorization to the rest of its resellers. These include networking and hardware VARs who tend to stay in their fields... The original Microsoft statement on the expanded channel is that “Later this year, the Standard and Professional editions of the solution will be available through both the open and certified Microsoft partner channels.” The official count of Microsoft Certified Partner Organizations is 28,712.” Currently Microsoft CRM is sold through Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) resellers who number about 6,000 worldwide. For the article, click here.

The Application Service Provide (ASP) model works for Customer Relationship Management at Salesforce.com

March 3 - BusinessWeek - "In the three years since Salesforce.com launched its (Customer Relationship Management - CRM) service, the privately held company has amassed more than 6,000 customers with 80,000 individual users in 110 countries" With Salesforce.com you rent their software for about $65 US/user/month. You only need a browser to access the system, which is maintained by Salesforce.com.

Salesforce.com has targeted small and medium-sized companies, and has not had too much competition until Microsoft launched its own CRM system on January 22, 2003. Just like Salesforce.com, Microsoft CRM can be accessed with just a browser, but you can't rent the software from Microsoft. However, it is expected that Microsoft resellers will soon start to offer Microsoft CRM via the ASP model as well. Fierce competition is expected between Salesforce.com and Microsoft CRM. But in either case, the ASP approach is going to be a winner. For more, click here.

IBM and Onyx have just teamed up to offer another ASP for Customer Relationship Management

March 25, 2003 - From CRM magazine, "Onyx software announced today that it has teamed up with IBM to offer a new, hosted, "on-demand" CRM solution targeted to the mid-market. Available for a monthly charge and implemented in 30 days or less, the on-demand CRM service is being managed and delivered by IBM. The utility service is based on open architecture supporting multiple users from disparate platforms, and will be accessible by customers using nothing more than a Web browser."  For more, click here.

Would you believe that 75 percent describe their CRM implementations as satisfactory?

Based on a survey of 111 large companies, Forrester Research says that "Despite all of the unfavorable press, the majority of large companies are relatively pleased with the progress of their CRM efforts." Forester also found that "When asked about problems with their CRM projects, 45.9% of execs identified resistance to process change -- a far greater proportion than the 34.2% who cite back-end integration and the 33.3% who gripe about software costs". For more, click here.

Entry Level Microsoft CRM out of the bag

Feb 25, 2003 - CNET News.com reports that Microsoft inadvertently posted a beta version of Outlook 2003 on their developer web site, which was later pulled. But the cat's out of the bag. Microsoft Outlook 2003 will contain an entry level CRM system that will probably compete with products like ACT and Maximizer. Microsoft CRM, which was discussed in last month's newsletter (see below) is aimed at organizations with 25-500 employees. For a company that has 25 people using the system, expect to pay about $50,000 for software and implementation, plus hardware upgrades for Microsoft CRM. The costs are unknown for Outlook 2003, but it will likely be buried in the cost of Microsoft Office. Microsoft's plan seems to be to get their customer base to upgrade to the latest release. It may also make an upgrade to the full Microsoft CRM hard to resist. For more, click here.

Microsoft unveils first CRM software

January 22, 2003 — In an article from ZDNet News, "The world's largest software company is slightly behind schedule with the release of the product, its first foray into a multibillion-dollar software (CRM) market ... The company bills Microsoft CRM as a scaled-down version of the sprawling CRM packages offered by SAP, Onyx, Epiphany and Siebel. Microsoft's applications are designed for companies with fewer than 500 employees, bringing them into head-on competition with products from companies like FrontRange Solutions, Best Software and Salesforce.com."  For a link to the article, click here and for a link to a Microsoft press release, click here.

January 28, 2003 - In another article by Mary Jo Foley of Microsoft Watch, “Architecting the product around the .Net Framework, Microsoft wrote MS CRM from scratch. It is a true 1.0 release, warts and all. Only a miniscule number of companies beta-tested the software (compared to the cast of thousands that typically test Windows and Office). One beta tester described the near-final Beta 2, which Microsoft released last fall, "unusable." ” Mary Joe concludes that “I wouldn't count out MS CRM. Not in the least. Microsoft is betting big on its Business Solutions Division and is going to put a lot of marketing and development muscle behind MS CRM”. For this article, click here.

Late breaking news - On February 6, 2003, Microsoft launched Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Canada before a crowd of more than 1,000 people at Toronto's Royal York Hotel. The room was packed to capacity with standing room only by the time I got there. In fact, Microsoft needed to turn people away who tried to register for the event. The event included a presentation by Frank Clegg, President of Microsoft Canada, and an interview with a company that has tested Microsoft CRM. It seemed as if every Microsoft Business Solution salesperson in Toronto was there including all the Great Plains and Navision specialists. For more about this, click here.

2002

Battle for hosted Customer Relationship Management (CRM) by Salesforce.com and NetLedger

With both salesforce.com and NetLedger, you don't purchase CRM and install it on your own computers. These CRM systems (also called front office systems) are hosted by the Application Service Provider (ASP). You pay a monthly fee and access the system just with just a browser over the internet. Salesforce.com launched its 1st version in the fall of 1999, and now has more than 5,400 companies worldwide. NetLedger released its own CRM a few months ago. NetLedger also offers a back office system that includes accounting, payroll (US Only), order processing, inventory management, and time & billing. Without consideration of functionality or performance, Netledger has the advantage of an integrated front office and back office system. Salesforce.com will appeal to those companies that don't want to switch their back office system. For a link to an article by E-Business news, click here.

Microsoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM) delayed

Microsoft CRM was scheduled to officially launch on December 16, 2002. A few days before the launch, Microsoft announced that the product would be released in "early 2003". There is intense pressure for a successful launch of Microsoft CRM because of the huge potential market. As well, Microsoft CRM is the 1st Microsoft product built using Microsoft's .NET tools. It has been said that Bill Gates has bet the company on .NET. We have recently completed an analysis of a Beta version of Microsoft CRM for publication in CAmagazine. Microsoft CRM should be worth the wait. For a link to an article on the delay of Microsoft CRM, click here.

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, says that Web Services is "big, big, big, big, big, the biggest thing that's going to happen in the industry"

Web Services are self contained business functions that operate over the internet enabling any application to share information with another application. Web Services should solve the problem of integration between systems and enable eCommerce to become a reality. However, don't expect integration utopia for at least a few years. In order for Web Services to work, there must first be agreement on standards. So we have competitors such as Microsoft and IBM joining The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) to set the standards. Just a few weeks ago, WS-I opened up some room at the table for Sun Microsystems, which is Microsoft's main rival for web services standard setting. For articles on WS-I from InfoWorld, click here and here. For an article on the battle between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems from Destination CRM, click here.

IBM announces strategic alliances with 2 mid market vendors

IBM announced on September 26th a pair of strategic alliances with mid-market CRM vendor Clear Technologies, and ERP mid-market specialist MAPICS. This is just the beginning of the consolidation of companies that will take place over the next year to battle it out with Microsoft in the mid market. For more from E-Business News, click here.

The reseller agreement between Microsoft and Siebel (leading CRM system) ends this year

According to AMR Research "The original pact between Siebel and Great Plains allowed Great Plains to resell Siebel’s CRM applications to Small and Midsize Businesses (SMB), and the contract continued when Microsoft acquired Great Plains. Since that time, however, Microsoft has decided it will develop and sell its own CRM applications for its partners to offer the SMB market." The gloves are coming off in this battle over CRM starting in 2003 between Microsoft and Siebel. For the AMR article, click here.

Can’t get enough information about Customer Relationship Management (CRM)?

The Patricia Seybold Group has recently released a free, 43 page executive guide to CRM. For all you ever wanted to know about CRM, click here.

Want to know more about Microsoft’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System?

There will be lots of buzz about this over the next few months. To obtain more information about Microsoft CRM, click here. This link is to AMR Research, which is one of the better sources of technology information.

Did you hear that Microsoft is about to release its own CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System?

In many organizations, customer data is often inside someone’s head or scattered across marketing, sales, service and accounting. CRM brings it all together and allows organizations to pro-actively respond to opportunities and manage existing relationships. So far, CRM has been pitched mostly to the larger organizations and has been very expensive to implement. There are CRM solutions for small and medium-sized business, but there is no market leader and confusion about the differences between products. With a huge potential CRM market for small and medium-sized business, the time is ripe for Microsoft to march into CRM. Click here to read more.