History of Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of those magnificent concepts that swept the business world in the 1990’s with the promise of forever changing the way businesses small and large interacted with their customer bases. In the short term, however, it proved to be an unwieldy process that was better in theory than in practice for a variety of reasons. First among these was that it was simply so difficult and expensive to track and keep the high volume of records needed accurately and constantly update them.
In the last several years, however, newer software systems and advanced tracking features have vastly improved CRM capabilities and the real promise of CRM is becoming a reality. As the price of newer, more customizable Internet solutions have hit the marketplace; competition has driven the prices down so that even relatively small businesses are reaping the benefits of some custom CRM programs.

In the beginning…

The 1980’s saw the emergence of database marketing, which was simply a catch phrase to define the practice of setting up customer service groups to speak individually to all of a company’s customers.
In the case of larger, key clients it was a valuable tool for keeping the lines of communication open and tailoring service to the clients needs. In the case of smaller clients, however, it tended to provide repetitive, survey-like information that cluttered databases and didn’t provide much insight. As companies began tracking database information, they realized that the bare bones were all that was needed in most cases: what they buy regularly, what they spend, what they do.


Advances in the 1990’s

In the 1990’s companies began to improve on Customer Relationship Management by making it more of a two-way street. Instead of simply gathering data for their own use, they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of the obvious goal of improved customer service, but in incentives, gifts and other perks for customer loyalty.
This was the beginning of the now familiar frequent flyer programs, bonus points on credit cards and a host of other resources that are based on CRM tracking of customer activity and spending patterns. CRM was now being used as a way to increase sales passively as well as through active improvement of customer service.

True CRM comes of age

Real Customer Relationship Management as it’s thought of today really began in earnest in the early years of this century. As software companies began releasing newer, more advanced solutions that were customizable across industries, it became feasible to really use the information in a dynamic way.

Instead of feeding information into a static database for future reference, CRM became a way to continuously update understanding of customer needs and behavior. Branching of information, sub-folders, and custom tailored features enabled companies to break down information into smaller subsets so that they could evaluate not only concrete statistics, but information on the motivation and reactions of customers.
The Internet provided a huge boon to the development of these huge databases by enabling offsite information storage. Where before companies had difficulty supporting the enormous amounts of information, the Internet provided new possibilities and CRM took off as providers began moving toward Internet solutions.

With the increased fluidity of these programs came a less rigid relationship between sales, customer service and marketing. CRM enabled the development of new strategies for more cooperative work between these different divisions through shared information and understanding, leading to increased customer satisfaction from order to end product.
Today, CRM is still utilized most frequently by companies that rely heavily on two distinct features: customer service or technology. The three sectors of business that rely most heavily on CRM -- and use it to great advantage -- are financial services, a variety of high tech corporations and the telecommunications industry.

The financial services industry in particular tracks the level of client satisfaction and what customers are looking for in terms of changes and personalized features. They also track changes in investment habits and spending patterns as the economy shifts. Software specific to the industry can give financial service providers truly impressive feedback in these areas.

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 provides fast, flexible and familiar business software that gives worldwide organizations the applications and tools they need to improve marketing, sales, and customer service efficiency and effectiveness. Power your business growth with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. This highly flexible customer relationship management (CRM) system gives users the ability to create a holistic view of each customer, from initial contact through post sales and service. Microsoft Dynamics CRM business software also provides the Power of Choice to make it easy for you to evolve your business unencumbered by technology limitations.

Because it is built using reliable industry-standard technology, Microsoft Dynamics CRM easily adapts, grows, and scales right along with your business. Native Microsoft Office Outlook® experience coupled with a solid analytics platform means that Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help you attain rapid user adoption, adapt to market changes, deliver products faster, and achieve a fast return on investment. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 provides a host of new features, enhancements, and capabilities that can empower your entire organization. The improvements in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 enable your organization to:

Enhance Usability
Encourage user adoption and enable people to work more productively by providing a CRM solution with a familiar, intuitive user interface. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 delivers CRM functionality and data as an extension of Microsoft Office Outlook so users can work in an environment they already use and understand.

Streamline Business Processes
Promote consistent, rapid execution of marketing, sales, and service processes with an extensive platform and workflow tools. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 provides exceptional access to design tools built for end users, power users, and administrators so they can build custom solutions that streamline everyday processes and capture best practices.

Support Global Business Requirements
Compete on a global basis with enhanced support for multiple languages, currencies, and time zones. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 enables your organization to work seamlessly in multiple languages and currencies, whether at a single location or across the globe.

Effectively Manage CRM
Provide administrators with real-time visibility into how the CRM system is functioning and enable them to identify and resolve issues quickly. Diagnostic viewers and troubleshooting tools in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 enable your IT staff to keep the system running responsively every day and reduce losses caused by unscheduled downtime.

Improve Management Efficiency
Enable your IT team to deliver powerful CRM capabilities while keeping costs under control. Centralized management, streamlined tools, and painless upgrades to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 help improve efficiency so IT professionals can concentrate on strategic business initiatives.

Deliver Availability, Performance, and Scalability
Ensure that your CRM data is available when it’s needed without interruption. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 includes significant enhancements to availability, performance, and scalability to help ensure that CRM data is available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, no matter the size of your organization.

Quickly Develop, Innovate, and Deploy
Customize and extend your CRM solution with sophisticated and flexible development tools based on standard technologies. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is built on the .NET platform, allowing you to call upon a deep pool of existing developer talent to help make your customization effort fast and cost-effective.

New Features in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 include…
* Multi-language Support
* Multi-currency Support
Ø * Multi-tenancy
Ø * Smart Search
Ø * Metadata Application Programmer Interface
Ø * Internet Facing Deployment
Ø * Advanced Relationship Modeling
Ø * Advanced Diagnostics
Ø * Portable Application Model
Ø * Duplicate Detection
Ø * Data Import Wizard
Ø * Workflow Wizard
Ø * Web Mail Merge
Ø * Offline Reporting
Ø * Scheduled Reporting
Ø * Smart Navigation
Ø * Offline Customizations
Ø * Smart Tracking
… and many more!