CRM 360° chooses Microsoft Dynamics CRM

There is one big contradiction in the consultancy area related to the CRM scenario. When a company, acting in whatever industry field, requests some kind of support to a consultancy company for the implementation of their own CRM strategy and the related Packaged Application, it expects something that goes beyond the possibilities it has internally.
Apart from the mere expertise on the customization of the platform (being Oracle Siebel, SAP CRM, Microsoft Dynamics or others), the consultancy should postulate a professional expertise in the business context that the application supports, that is the Customer Relationship Management as a general integrated approach to identify, acquire and retain customers.
Have you ever asked your provider which platform do they use internally to support the services they are offering to you, as a client?

Our point of view is that last five years and hundreds of unsatisfactory implementations around the globe should have taught that CRM is not just deploying a more or less customized Packaged Application in a company. We know, there's never time to do a complete analysis of the business and an optimization/adaptation of the processes, once we decide we have to implement something that helps us in the daily interaction with our customers. But this, moreover, underlines the importance of a qualified and business aware consultancy. Once delimeted the business sector, and (why not) the immediate low level requirements for a CRM implementation (salesmen need a concrete support? Contact Center operators should have access to the history of a client to provide better quality services?) a good consultancy should indicate the best solution for you and, above all, how to implement it not to throw your money in something you will never use or, on the contrary, bribing you with easy, light and simple solutions that will cost you in time, facing integration problems and an unrealistic view of your customers.

The real question we asked ourselves is: "how can I really sell myself as a CRM implementation expert and seriously offer my services to my clients, if I don't apply CRM both strategically and technically in my own organization?". Well, it's not so obvious, and daily experiences in many international projects show how poor the strategy in the relationship among the different stakeholders is. No, look, think about it: in consultancy often we are still just on the ERP processes matter, above all on the billing side...

We are aware that, if we don't live the same approach, no real professional support on the delivery of a complete and coeherent CRM infrastructure can be offered.
Let's face the truth: a company that wants to be customer oriented and consequently puts care in the relationship with its customers, doesn't receive the same kind of quality level from the consultancy it receives. This does matter!

Following this concept, based on an analysis of our current business, we have done a coeherent analysis and a consequent software selection, finally deiciding to implement Microsoft CRM (for the moment).

The reasons of this coiche rely on a clear knowledge and awareness of our business and our action scope, together with the functional and technical experience in different platforms.
Microsoft Dynamics is undoubtedly one of the lighter and general purpose CRM solutions. In comparison with other PAs it currently lacks of specific ad-hoc verticalizations, and we cannot exactly talk of functional flows that reproduce business processes in the navigation of the application. Even technologically, above all on the Contact Center side, there are limitations.
Microsoft CRM has the advantage of a full integration with the spreaded Office Automation tools (shall we discuss about the main analysis tool of many sales people, even if the organization has a main BI Tool?).
In any case, the main CRM Domains are there, and a good Model of the main CRM components can be available directly on your Outlook client and that of your colleagues and employees.
After some days of installation I would personally have something to say regarding the platform and component requirements, as well as of the lack of some notes that should be included in the official documentation, but let's keep this for another post...
In the meantime, think about this, and feel free to share with us your opinion. Your impression does matter!