A report published by Gartner, the leading analyst firm in the technology industry, provides the latest evaluation of Microsoft CRM.

Sales Growth

New license sales are likely to be accelerating beyond the 82 percent annual growth rate seen in 2005 to more than 170 percent in 2006

The August 2006 report, titled "Status Report on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0," discusses the product's first year on the market as well as customer reaction to the solution.

Pragmatic CRM

"Gartner believes there's a growing market for 'pragmatic CRM,'" said Brian Prentice, research director with Gartner and the author of the report.

"This involves deployments, usually in subsidiaries and business units of Global 2000 organizations, along with discrete midsize businesses, in which the goal is to achieve higher user adoption rates for a system that automates one or two straightforward end-to-end sales, marketing and service processes, or a broader set of department-specific processes."

CRM Patterns & Themes

Although there doesn't seem to be a discernible pattern in the types of organizations considering or buying the product, there do seem to be a number of recurring themes in relation to the deployment approach being taken by those with which we've been in contact. They are:

• A desire to replace established CRM systems that have low user adoption

• A focus on pragmatic deployments using a small number of core CRM functional capabilities

• A reticence to undertake significant customization work to automate complex business processes

• Plans to adopt in smaller countries where there has been no previous local language support for CRM.

For More information please read the full summary of the Gartner Report here

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