Brokerage Firm Raymond James Moves to Incorporate Microsoft Dynamics CRM Into Ever More of Its Operations

Slowly but surely, brokerage firm Raymond James is moving its thousands of advisers toward ever greater reliance on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. 

A key, says Brian Balboni, senior product manager, is educating the company's users on the software's value for their everyday needs.

It was last fall that the regional brokerage firm in the southeastern U.S. upgraded 3,000 its people to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 from version 3.0. (The firm didn't upgrade the 4,400 people originally anticipated because, in the end, it upgraded only those actually using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, rather than everyone who had access to it.) Raymond James represents one of Microsoft's largest CRM user bases.

"We had a 90%-plus success ratio," says Balboni of the upgrade, noting that only a small percentage had to call in for help.

"It was a long path to get to that point," he observes, but "very good from a performance standpoint."

Balboni credits the CRM User Group with helping speed the adoption process. "I've learned a lot on calls just listening to other users ask questions and describe their approaches" to implementation, he says. "It's also given me people to talk to about adoption."

He notes that Raymond James has been something of an anomaly in the CRM User Group. "People are still pretty shocked that we still run an all-volunteer operation with CRM. But in the end, we have a stronger more compelling value proposition because we have to build it so people want to use it."

In encouraging ever-wider adoption and use of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 among its investment advisers, Raymond James is moving "to get ...