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When Microsoft Dynamics CRM Is Too Smooth, Here's How to Sabotage Your Internal Competition

by David Lee
President & Founder, Vertical Marketing, Inc.,

The boss has asked you to join the Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation team.  The
problem is, you don't really want the new sales and marketing guys to have a tool this powerful.
 
They might start selling more than you do and make you look bad.  You like
things just the way they are.  Don't worry. Here are two techniques to seemingly improve the performance of Dynamics CRM that have killed projects in the past.

1. Make new entities for different categories of people. 

This seems like a great idea.  An entity is seen in Dynamics CRM as a
separate input screen, and in the database it is a separate table.  Contacts,
Opportunities and Leads are examples of entities.  Dynamics CRM allows you
to create as many as you like.  Since you track different information about
vendors and customers, and other categories of contacts, it makes perfect
sense to create specialized entities for each. 

Other marketing people will never realize, until it is too late, that this will render the
system very confusing, perhaps unusable.  People will fall into multiple categories.  You will not be able to properly link calendar activities to the appropriate entity.  The
system will very quickly become so confusing that people will stop using it.

If you try this tactic, be aware that someone might suggest ways to incorporate
different categories of information into sections of a contact record, and resolve the problem you intend to create before you even get ...

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About David Lee
Dr. David Lee is president and founder of Vertical Marketing, Inc., a CRM sales and consulting practice incorporated in 1987 with 5 offices world wide. Through VMI he has been involved in more than 1,000 CRM projects ranging in size from single users to thousands of users.
He has experience in all phases of the CRM life cycle including CRM baseline measurement and ROI analysis, sales process design, RFP development, system selection, system design and configuration, custom programming, Data cleaning and import, system integration, training and train-the-trainer, ongoing support, and rescuing faltering CRM projects.
Dr. Lee holds scores of CRM awards and certifications from customers, vendors and training organizations. He is personally certified on 7 CRM systems with separate certifications for specific modules and versions in many cases. He holds additional certifications and awards for countless third party applications. He is a Certified Sales Process Consultant and Certified Trainer.
Dr. Lee is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Northern Virginia and is working with the staff to develop a CRM course as a part of the MBA program. He is author of Microsoft CRM for Dummies as well as scores of articles and white papers on CRM subjects. He speaks on various CRM topics.
Prior to launching VMI, Dr. Lee held positions as a programmer/analyst, a US Army officer and as VP of Marketing for a Legal Time and Billing software company.
More about David Lee