Sonoma Partners: Cloud CRM Partner of the Year Delivers for Microsoft

Recently Sonoma Partners was named Cloud CRM Partner of the Year by Microsoft. Sonoma Partners, which today is celebrating fifteen years in business, specializes in helping professional services and manufacturing companies deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM to transform their sales, marketing and customer service organizations,.

"We've really focused on industries - professional services and manufacturing," says Ryan Toenies, vice president of sales. "And we drove some pretty large victories in the professional services space, for example, the IT consulting arena, some accounting firms, some architecture, engineering and construction firms. So I think that that for us is really how the recognition of this work came through for us."

Sonoma Partners sells both Dynamics CRM and Salesforce, but they have been able to balance those practices and still deliver the kind of results that Microsoft expects from its top partners, says Toenies.

Still, the Salesforce practice has at times created channel conflict, he says. "But we're able to overcome that because we focus on the license revenue for Microsoft," says Toenies. "And by going deep in these verticals and driving that license revenue for Microsoft," I think that helps overcome any channel obstacle that might exist."

As Cloud CRM Partner of the Year, Sonoma Partners understands how evolution of the cloud - just in the past year - has shaped some changes in the CRM landscape. For one thing, companies are now more willing to move their businesses to the cloud, even financial services firms, Toenies says.

"I think the benefit ...