Gartner’s latest survey shows Microsoft CRM out growing all comers. http://marketingautomation.ulitzer.com/node/1040172 . This is great news for all the partners and ISV’s that have backed the Dynamics range for many years.

Microsoft CRM is a great tool for the right customer, and from my experience wins deals for a few key reasons:

1. Integration with Outlook (ease of understandability)
2. Ease of configuration/customization
3. Microsoft Brand (despite those that believe Microsoft is bad)
4. A large and experienced reseller channel. (Both Classic and Dynamics)
The existing Dynamics GP, SL, NAV and AX customer bases are a fantastic opportunity for Dynamics resellers to leverage the work Microsoft have done in the past few years and actively take CRM to market. I am not suggesting ground breaking work trying to build new markets. VAR’s need to focus on their existing customers, existing relationships, their existing expertise and existing consulting teams.
There are more than 45,000 annual maintenance paying GP customers. Lets pretend for a minute that GP VAR’s were able to sell CRM into 25% of this base. That is 11,250 CRM implementations and integrations. Doing some quick maths, lets guess an average 15 day CRM implementation start of finish, at $1,300 per day. There are $219,375,000 in services waiting to be collected. I repeat these conservative numbers, $219 million just for GP VAR’s. If we bumped the penetration to 40%, implementation to 25 days and day rates to $1600 we are talking $720 million!
The above is based on the assumption that ERP customers (specifically GP) need a CRM system. Here is a couple of reasons why:
1. The analytical data that should drive sales comes from GP
2. Existing customer activity and trends come from GP
3. All business can treat their customers better. Truly leverage Customer Relationship Management.
4. Users need he right tool. Let them work in CRM, Outlook, Excel or wherever they should be
5. CRM is easily customisable and is web delivered. If you need a custom module – build it in CRM and integrate back to GP. Better delivery and easy integration.
So with up to $700 million o the table (excluding the software margin) so more like well over a $1 billion, on the table it is time to go and collect it.