The Value Propositions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs Salesforce.com

Microsoft has made much of its price advantage over Salesforce.com. But there are obviously other considerations besides price, and Robert Kuhlman of AdvancedSPS describes two of them in a recent article.

He recalls that as sales VP for a direct marketing firm, he had to compare Dynamics CRM with Salesforce.com.

The first advantage of Dynamics CRM was "flexibility." He notes that flexibility quickly turned out to be extremely important: "Microsoft's flexible solution allows you to easily move your entire installation from a hosted environment to your site, with all of your customizations and data intact.  Thankfully, we made the right decision, because less than six months after we implemented our hosted solution, it was moved on-premise."

The second advantage was "productivity." The productivity issue manifests in any number of common tasks that sales people need to perform, from re-scheduling to automatically tracking incoming email to coordination with Microsoft Outlook.

Says Kuhlman, "Frankly, using Salesforce.com can be as easy as any other CRM system out there, but it can also be a big hassle when it comes to rescheduling activities - I know, because I've used it as well.  Sales people need to easily and quickly reschedule calls, tasks and appointments, and doing so within Microsoft Dynamics CRM is very easy with native Outlook experience.  Other benefits include flexible email smart matching to automatically track incoming messages in CRM and the fact that attachments automatically preserved whether it is the Web client or Outlook client...And the ease-of-use doesn't stop there.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a natural extension of Microsoft Office and Outlook and that familiar look and feel helps reduce ramp-up and training ...