New Microsoft Study Quantifies Costs, Risks, and Benefits of Dynamics CRM 2011 Implementation

Microsoft has released the results of a new study it commissioned that, it says, demonstrates measurable ROI and productivity benefits from an investment in Dynamics CRM 2011. 

The study, based on interviews with Dynamics CRM 2011 customers hand-picked by Microsoft who primarily had no CRM or were replacing legacy or homegrown systems, concludes that a 2,000-employee organization (based on several interview subjects) with an initial deployment of 50 users on Dynamics CRM Online would experience a three-year, risk-adjusted ROI of 243 percent over a payback period of 4.1 months.

Forrester Consulting, the report's creator, interviewed nine customers including an Australian university, a Hong Kong-based IT infrastructure solutions provider, a municipal government, an Indian engineering firm, and a car dealer in the UK, among others.  The customers reported having no cross-department or organization-wide CRM solution prior to implementing Dynamics CRM 2011.

Customers provided many of the same positive comments that Microsoft has itself trumpeted about Dynamics CRM 2011 for over a year.  Outlook integration was "fundamental to their choice of a CRM solution".   The UI integrated into Outlook was perceived to improve the implementation and rollout to users, but companies also relied on policies and incentives to reinforce use of the solution.  Customers also perceive Dynamics CRM to be a cost effective solution that had the flexibility to scale in the future and support many customizations without the use of external experts.

While the study is overwhelmingly positive, it also provides some useful points of analysis, including a breakdown of various elements of a solution's cost, different benefits other customers have tried to realize, risks, and the system's flexibility for future initiatives.

Different costs of a CRM implementation project were broken out in terms of software license fees, partner implementation fees, internal labor for planning, design, implementation, ...