Archive for the ‘Dynamics CRM’ Category

The most common starting point for many organizations is reporting.  Many organizations need to improve reporting whether this means speeding it up, making it more flexible or reducing the reliance on internal or external IT experts to provide this information.  This is especially important when looking to add Business Intelligence to Microsoft CRM.

This white paper describes a step by step approach to building business intelligence (BI) capabilities starting with reports and ending with a combination of dashboards, what if analysis as well as automatic alerts when certain key conditions arise.

To read this white paper click here. 

5 Reasons To Consider Microsoft CRM 2011 Online

If you are not to the point of embracing Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 2011 Online, here are five reasons you should at the very least consider it for your business:

1. Scalability- You can get as many or as  few licenses as you need.

2. Availability- Microsoft promises 99.9% uptime, and will offer a service credit of 25% for uptime between 99% and 99.9%.

3. Security- Microsoft's security strategy covers a number of aspects from information security to asset management, but also to human resources security, physical and environmental security, and much more.
 

4. No Infrastructure- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online is available at $34 per user per month through June 30, 2011. (If you're a qualifying non-profit, that cost can be as low as $9.99 per user per month.)
 

5. Free Trial- You can get the full feature set of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to test for an entire month.

If you're now considering Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online, sign up for a free 30 day trial.

If the benefits above speak to you, it's time to contact us at 858-541-1820 or at info@rbdata.com  to learn more.

One of the most important topics in Customer Relationship Management or CRM that can have the biggest impact on your business is known by several names.  Some people call it "Business Intelligence" or "BI".  Some people call it "Analytics" and some people just call it "Dashboards".

Microsoft is referring to it as "Actionable Intelligence". 

But what is it and why should you care?

For many organizations, perhaps I should say most, putting information into their CRM system is like putting it into a black hole.  You know it is there but it can be tough to find.  More importantly, it can be darn near impossible to use that information to quickly make sound business decisions.

Sound familiar?

Virtually all businesses can be made more profitable if the management team know their essential 5 to 10 core business drivers, or metrics, and can instantly access that information.

These core business drivers vary business to business but some common ones include:

Year to date sales compared to this time last year.

Sales pipeline opportunities with an 80% likelihood of closing in the next 30, 60 & 90 days broken down by region and sales rep.

Sales quota versus actual sales broken down by region and sales rep.

Which marketing activities have been successful and which have duds with hard numbers to back up those findings?

Which marketing activities have produced the highest number of closeable leads and what was the cost of per lead?

What is the average lifetime value of a customer?

Number of open support tickets.

Number of open support tickets that have been unresolved for over 3 days.

What are the top 5 support issues along with the solutions?

Again the key is to know what your key business metrics are and to be able to quickly access that information.

The most common starting point is reporting.  Many organizations need to improve reporting whether this means speeding it up, making it more flexible or reducing the reliance on internal or external IT experts to provide this information.

This white paper describes a step by step approach to building business intelligence (BI) capabilities starting with reports and ending with a combination of dashboards, what if analysis as well as automatic alerts when certain key conditions arise.

To read this white paper click here. 

Aren’t we all? Attend this Microsoft-led webcast titled Productivity, Process & Time Management tips with Microsoft Dynamics ERP, Outlook and CRM at 10am PT on May 12^th to learn about common time management challenges people face, and to gain insight on using technology you may already have to address these time management challenges. Learn how applying process, sharing data, and making a few simple changes can free up time and help prioritize the tasks most important to you. This is a must attend session for anyone that feels overwhelmed with the volume of things being thrown at them. Whether in finance, operations, sales, marketing, or customer service, if you use a computer, this session can help you better organize your time. We can’t guarantee you won’t still be overwhelmed, but we do believe some of the tips and hints in this session will be well worth the 1 hour spent.

To learn more about Microsoft CRM contact us at info@rbdata.com or call at 858-541-1820.

According to this Gartner Report, software as a service (SaaS) drives customer relationship management (CRM) market growth despite leaner budgets, while the competitive environment intensifies. Worldwide SaaS revenue within the enterprise application software market reached $9.2 billion in 2010, up 15.7 percent from 2009 revenue of $7.9 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.  

The market is projected for stronger growth in 2011 with worldwide SaaS revenue totaling $10.7 billion, a 16.2 percent increase from 2010 revenue.

Putting your Microsoft Dynamics CRM "in the cloud" may just be the answer for your business. Download this PDF

to learn more about adopting the cloud with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Efficiency. Seems simple enough right? If you look up the definition you may get 3 different explanations:

    1.       The state or quality of being efficient.

    2.       Accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort.

    3.       Effective operation as measured by a comparison of production with cost (as in energy, time, and money.)

The ratio of the useful energy delivered by a dynamic system to the energy supplied to it.

Does it still seem simple enough?
    

Perhaps not, but it is a word that we hear every day in our businesses and impress upon our employees that they need to be efficient. 

How do you know if you are efficient within your company?

If you think you are efficient because your revenue is good, you may be mistaken.  It's definitely a benefit if you have good revenue, but you may still have inefficiencies which are hindering an even larger revenue potential. 

If you are struggling to hit your revenue goals, then this is a telltale sign that you can be more efficient in your operations.
 

As a business operates we need to look at our efficiencies on a daily basis to measure our successes.

Take some time to review your current software, reports, processes, cross-department communications and workflows to see if they still make sense in your business.  You may quickly find out where you can redefine your business to become more efficient.

For more information on how RB Data Services can make your  organization more efficient, contact us today at
858-541-1820 or at info@rbdata.com. 

The recent release of Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 2011 for On-Premise installations complements the latest version of the online customer relationship management (CRM) version as a powerful successor in the Microsoft Dynamics® CRM platform. The new versions have been designed together to provide a seamless experience for users regardless of how it is deployed. 

With new software releases there are always two questions that can cause concern within an organization: 1. “How will I be able to grow with this platform?” and 2. “How easily will the end users adapt to the new interface?” Here are the answers to help alleviate those concerns:

1.     Scalability is always a concern and this version delivers the ability to have up to 150,000 concurrent users on a single instance while still delivering response times of less than a second.  This just goes to show just how well designed this solution is!

2.       Ease of use is achieved through a familiar Microsoft Outlook like interface, guided dialog, and point and click configuration through the web interface. End users can easily customize dashboards and personalize the interface to provide the information that is relevant to the decisions they need to make.

Read the full press release from Microsoft for more information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. Contact us today at 888-685-6370 (toll free) or at info@rbdata.com  to discuss how we can design a solution around this powerful new platform that will help your business experience the Power of Productivity.