ToutApp wants Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers to refocus on sales productivity

Sales productivity startup ToutApp, which recently closed a new $15 million round of series B funding, has its eye on the productivity of sales reps that use Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The company is part of an emerging software category that aims to re-focus companies on maximizing the productivity of sales people and improving CRM adoption at the same time. The trick is giving sales people an optimized interface that captures the right data and integrates to CRM but focuses exclusively on the activities that make sales most productive.

Microsoft has for years hung its hat on the popularity of its Outlook integration to Dynamics CRM. In reality, the Outlook integration advantage of Dynamics CRM has been thinning for a few years. The topic came up almost three years ago at WPC 2012 as the Dynamics CRM team arrived at a crossroads in the product's evolution. The team chose a path forward that included a reimagined user interface with a greater focus on building an experience that guided users - including sales reps - through business processes more intuitively.

Since then, Dynamics CRM has overhauled much of its approach to sales, starting in earnest with the CRM 2013 release and continuing with CRM 2015. Business process flows and a streamlined interface now offer user something completely different from the world of CRM 2011 and earlier. It is an approach that would support the concept of improved productivity for sales and other users.

But the email-centric needs of sales people ...