Salesforce.com had an early entrée into providing a hosted contact management and sales force automation solution; however, Microsoft took its time, studied the merits of its on-premise CRM solution and answered the call for a full-service online CRM solution.

Salesforce.com observations:

• Challenging on-site support for customers – while online and telephone support are nice, sometimes you just need a live body for on-site assistance and configuration
• No on-premise CRM capability (on-demand only) – making for taxing migrations should a company ever decide to migrate to an on-premise solution
• Limited vertical add-ons, but no vertical functionality – specific customization for verticals can be difficult and time-consuming
• Limited integration capabilities with existing productivity software – leaving companies without the ability to maximize their business practices and systems

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online differentiators:

• Support: the online and on-premise solutions are supported by a global network of resellers, integrators, and ISV partners worldwide. These solutions partners have deep experience building custom and vertical solutions demanded by many customers.
• Ease of use: designed in a native Office and Outlook Interface so that businesses can work in a familiar and easy environment
• Scalability: hosted, on-premise or hybrid deployment models mean that customers can migrate their solution to the best model as their business needs change and grow
• Client options: will work with a variety of clients - Outlook, web browser, mobile, or online/offline
• Configuration: customers and solutions partners can easily configure and customize data types, workflows, role-based views, etc, through solution capabilities and standard web services
• Cost: businesses can take advantage of existing IT investments/infrastructure and in-house expertise to help minimize the total cost of ownership
• Price: by design, CRM Online is priced lower per user than SalesForce.com; with no hidden fees and easy to understand flat rates, CRM Online

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 4:37 pm and is filed under CRM Online. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.