Why choose xRM/CRM as a Business Platform
Background to Microsoft CRM
Replace the C in Microsoft CRM with a small x and you‘re have
Microsoft xRM (where x is anything that interests your business).
Microsoft CRM is in reality is a platform for developing
applications that manage and track information and processes
around business real-world objects.
The object could be a customer, client or citizen, but it could
also be a soldier, container, or anything else. If you need to
track the information and activities related to this entities,
Microsoft CRM deserves some serious consideration as your platform
of choice due to a number reasons which are detailed below.
When Microsoft was originally designing CRM its plan was not a
product as such, but rather a platform and a series of API's that
Microsoft customers could use build business solutions fast that
were also easy to maintain. This in turn would promote and expand
Microsoft development tools further into the marketplace.
Due to Microsoft's own frustrations around a bought-in CRM
product called Seibel CRM, it was decided that it would kill two
birds with one stone, if Microsoft could use its new platform and
API's to design reference product which they could also sell.
Hence Microsoft CRM was born.
Obviously it took time to fill in the functionality gaps in
this new product, but when CRM 4.0 was released in December 2008,
we had in effect a full business development framework platform.
There are many advantages of Microsoft CRM from the point of
view of developers and businesses including:
-
You can build fast agile
solutions that can change as quickly as your business does.
-
The solutions you build are easy
to maintain and grow.
-
Customer's development teams are
able to focus on the more enjoyable and productive high end
development tasks to deliver solutions fast and leave the low
end time consuming tasks such a designing a security system
and infrastructure building to the CRM team at Microsoft.
The main disadvantage of Microsoft CRM is the initial cost. You
have a higher end user cost than you would if you used other lower
level products such as VB or C++.
However, this cost is relatively a one off cost which, over
time, is easily recovered by the savings you make in development
effort, system reliability and easy of maintenance.
Jason Hunt and Aaron Elder have written an excellent white
paper 'Microsoft CRM as a Business Development Platform' which can
be downloaded
here.
F1: xRM/CRM Consultancy Services
F1 fully support the philosophy of Microsoft xRM and we
therefore focus on consultancy services to help customers
implement diverse solutions based around the xRM technologies and
platform that are tuned to the specific needs of the customer.
F1: CRM Empowerment Champions
F1 have over twenty years experience in developing CRM products
and solutions for our customers. We are firm believers in
empowering all levels of users and management to make best use of
the power of Microsoft CRM while ensuring that system integrity is
maintained.
We do this by providing consultancy services and our own
produced CRM training courses that focus on showing people how
easy it is to customise and extend the out-of-the-box Microsoft
CRM product.
We produce a consultancy and training plan tuned to each group
of users with the customer's management and IT teams to empower
them made best use of the CRM/xRM Business Development Platform.
For information on the content of the F1 CRM/xRM enhanced
courses, please also refer to our courses
F1028,
F1029 and
F1030.