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How to Enhance Business Growth with Successful CRM Implementation

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How to Enhance Business Growth with Successful CRM Implementation

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Check out the importance of implementing successful CRM for your business that will help to streamline your business operations.

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Announcing FastTrack Implementation Services for Microsoft Dynamics 365. FastTrack is a fixed cost/scope, rapid implementation service that gets your company up and running quickly and cost-effectively. We offer FastTrack for Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing or Service.

Why a "rapid" implementation approach works - There are several things coming together in the CRM space that enables a FastTrack model to work very well. The Dynamics 365 solution has been greatly enhanced over the last several years, more and more functionality has been added to the product that previously would have required significant customization or even custom programming. Examples include Project Service Automation, Field Service, AI & Machine Learning. Also, significant improvements in the backend of the platform enable us to shift our focus from customization to configuration which can be done in a rapid approach.

Customers are demanding a lower cost, quicker time to value implementation model. I wrote a blog a while back "The Days of expensive, complex CRM implementations are coming to an end" With the shift to the cloud came a shift in how companies invest in technology, from capital expenditures (heavy investment upfront) to operating expenditures (pay over time). This is also causing organizations to re-examine how they consume professional services. We invented a new category - Professional Services as a Service (PSaaS). This allows organizations to consume professional services in a similar way to how they consume the technology.

Beware! Not all "rapid" implementations are alike! We built FastTrack based on 15 years experience implementing the Dynamics CRM/365 solution. We know what works and doesn't. The old adage you get what you pay for is very true in professional services engagements. Putting budget/cost over a clear path to success is a fatal mistake for the project. Most rapid models for Dynamics 365 are too rapid, they are missing key elements that are required to successfully implement an enterprise-class CRM solution. An example is around new business development and lead management. Most rapid offerings jump right to configuring the lead screens and largely leave it to the customer to determine the processes. The big missing piece is consultative guidance on the process that will be implemented along with the technology. Key elements are not addressed such as what is the qualification criteria for leads, required follow up and touchpoints by the salesperson, what is the trigger for a lead to convert to an opportunity, how will management monitor lead follow up. Also most rapid models do not spend near enough time on requirements analysis. Requirements analysis are critical to success with any CRM project. Ask just about any company that has had a failed CRM implementation, they will cite lack of proper requirements analysis as a failure point. Our FastTrack model begins with a planning session to take you through all the key elements of a successful implementation with a focus on requirements and business process.

Phasing is important. In a lower cost, rapid model some more complex use cases cannot be accomplished in a phase 1 rollout. We find that in most cases in a phase 1 your users are not ready for more complex use cases, they need to accomplish the basic blocking and tackling of CRM first. It is important to have a phased plan for any implementation. Our road mapping services are very helpful to plan and execute the longer term deployment model.

Is FastTrack a good fit for you? The sweetspot client for FastTrack is typically one not using a current CRM system, does not have overly complex sales, marketing or support processes and does not need integrations with other systems. We also find that smaller projects are a better fit for a rapid implementation model (a few users to around 20). If your implementation is larger but feel a rapid model is a good fit we are happy to discuss it with you.

We are there for you ongoing - Another key component to our FastTrack model is the ongoing engagement that is included - Total Solution Management. Total Solution Management is a comprehensive managed service for Dynamics 365 that provides ongoing support, configuration/enhancement services, training and consultative guidance. This keeps the project moving forward over the longer term roadmap and assures the solution stays aligned to the business and driving value.

Is it time? If your organization needs a Sales, Marketing and/or Customer Service solution but cannot spend the average $2000 to $5000 per user in upfront implementation services let's talk! We have been able to reduce Dynamics 365 implementation budgets by up to 70% without compromising value. Click here for more information on FastTrack, call us at 844.8.STRAVA (844.878.7282) or email us at [email protected]

About the Author: David Buggy is a veteran of the CRM industry with 18 years of experience helping businesses transform by leveraging Customer Relationship Management technology. He has over 15 years experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM/365 and has helped hundreds of businesses plan, implement and support CRM initiatives. To reach David connect with him on LinkedIn. To learn more about Strava Technology Group visit www.stravatechgroup.com

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FastTrack Implementation Services for Microsoft Dynamics 365 - CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

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Announcing FastTrack Implementation Services for Microsoft Dynamics 365 . FastTrack is a fixed cost/scope, rapid implementation service that gets your company up and running quickly and cost-effectively. We offer FastTrack for Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing or Service. Why a "rapid" implementation approach works - There are several things coming together in the CRM space that enables a FastTrack model to work very well.

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This episode is sponsored by D365UG/CRMUG.

Guest Profile

Neil has 10 years' experience starting and leading successful Customer Engagement practices in the UK, US and Australia.

With 15 years' experience, he is a specialist at winning, envisioning and delivering CRM projects that provide clients with amazing results.

He has been practicing agile CRM software implementations using Scrum since 2009, and is certified by both the Scrum Alliance and Scrum.org and has published online courses on Scrum for Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Neil has received the Microsoft MVP award for Business Solutions since 2010 for his contribution to the CRM community. He has spoken at numerous user groups and conferences; and has published two CRM books.

This episode is a production of Dynamic Podcasts LLC. Subscribe to the CRM Audio network of podcasts on Apple Podcasts.

In this Episode

Overview of the different methodologies used in Dynamics 365 Implementations

Using Agile on Dynamics 365 Projects

Community Question: How do you decide the right methodology for the implementation? Agile/Waterfall/Hybrid. - Andre Margono

Community Question: Implementation approaches for version upgrades? (E.g. like for like and enhancements)? - Andrew Ly

Community Question: Common pitfalls of certain methodology & lesson learned? - Andre Margono

Community Question: Can fixed fee delivery work on a Dynamics 365 project? - Joel Lindstrom

Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step

Community Question: How relevant is SureStep in today's climate? - Andrew Ly

Community Question: What is the difference between Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step and Microsoft Lifecycle Services in your view? - Mohamed Gomaa

Community Question: Can you use Microsoft Lifecycle Services for Dynamics 365 Deployments as you can for Operations? - Mohamed Gomaa

Community Question: What are the techniques have you found most successful to map business processes you get from customers? - Nadeeja Bomiriya

Community Question: Have you used XRM Metadata tools from (https://www.xrmtoolbox.com) for Dynamics 365 and have you found it's useful for redundant entity analysis? - Prash Sinha

Community Question: What is the best way to categories work items (tasks to be completed by the team members) for features? - Nadeeja Bomiriya

Community Question: What are best practices when taking over a project mid-way through with incomplete documentation? - Prash Sinha

Community Question: What have you found works from a best practice point of view when it comes to toolsets for implementations? (Visual Studio, Jira etc.) What else? - Andre Margono

Community Question: What best practices have you seen in change management and overcoming user resistance? - Peter Schmidt

Community Question: Human Centred Design: A consultative approach - Muhammad Asimuddin - LinkedIn post (Empathy in implementations) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/human-centred-design-consultative-approach-muhammad-asimuddin

Community Question: What would you consider to be the main drivers of methodology choice?

g. would any of these factors inform your choice?

project size, public vs private, industry, organization size, client organization's approach to / experience level of change management. - Anton Wilson

Book Recommendations

Resources Mentioned

Contact Details

Please Subscribe, Comment and get in touch
For topic and guest suggestions, please use the following link: https://www.nz365guy.com/podcast
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Music Credit

I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque

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Dynamics 365 Practice 9: D365 Implementation Methodologies with Neil Benson

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This episode is sponsored by D365UG/CRMUG. Guest Profile Neil has 10 years' experience starting and leading successful Customer Engagement practices in the UK, US and Australia. With 15 years' experience, he is a specialist at winning, envisioning and delivering CRM projects that provide client

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Once a company has selected Microsoft Dynamics 365, momentum is high. Employees and executives are excited and want to jump right into implementation. But an effective Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation readiness phase is important to ensure your project's success.

First, it helps to understand how projects like these typically unfold: your D365 system integrator appears at your doorstep ready to start designing, configuring, and deploying your shiny new technology. The problem is, you haven't yet defined your future operational model, assembled your project team, or started to build the internal competencies to engage with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 consultants in a meaningful way.

The impact of this lack of preparedness is significant. I have seen many of these symptoms in my experience as a Microsoft Dynamics expert witness. Here are just a few of the symptoms that proliferate as a result:

Executives aren't aligned on the direction of the project

Internal decision-making regarding how the business will look slows down the project

Internal project team members become overwhelmed with the multitude of decisions they need to make as a result of the software's flexibility

Project costs escalate while the meter is running on the expensive consultants

Employees revert to the old ways of doing things because they are under too much time pressure to make meaningful changes

The internal project team is incomplete and ineffective, since most organizations don't have their team ready on day 1 of implementation

Organizational change management issues - which are already a challenge in any project - are further magnified

Your internal IT organization doesn't have the internal competencies to effectively support the D365 implementation and offer sustainable post-go-live support

There isn't a clear enterprise architecture and integration plan for the various phases of the rollout

Your team becomes frustrated with the delays and project overruns

On the other hand, executing an effective Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation readiness strategy will mitigate these risks. It makes your implementation go smoother, faster, and more effectively than if you skip the process altogether. Many of our clients equate this to a sort of insurance policy to hedge against the various risks of your transformation.

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 Implementation Readiness : Preparing for a Successful Digital Transformation - Third Stage Consulting Group

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Once a company has selected Microsoft Dynamics 365, momentum is high. Employees and executives are excited and want to jump right into implementation. But an effective Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation readiness phase is important to ensure your project's success.

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Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM) gives companies a robust cloud-based platform for managing and leveraging data for sales, customer service, marketing, field service, and more. With its intuitive user interface, automation, interoperability with other Microsoft tools, and customization capabilities, it's built to help your business operate more efficiently and grow its revenue.

As the first Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner in the world, Cargas specializes in helping businesses like yours implement and optimize the solution for maximal benefit. We work closely with you to ensure we understand your needs and streamline your processes.

Of course, implementing a CRM demands a collaborative methodology. To fully tap the advantages of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM), customers need to be actively engaged in the implementation process from start to finish.

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Planning A Successful Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM) Implementation

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Planning A Successful Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM) Implementation Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM) gives companies a robust cloud-based platform for managing and leveraging data for sales, customer service, marketing, field service, and more. With its intuitive user interface, automation, interoperability with other Microsoft tools, and customization capabilities, it's

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For many U.S.-based companies, making the decision to take their ERP implementation global comes with many potential benefits, but can also seem quite daunting when faced with the initial decision.

Many factors can drive the decision to "go global" with your ERP system. It could be that M&A activity in other countries is necessitating that systems are merged or maybe you've simply made the decision to create legal entities in each new location where you are doing business. In any case, a balance needs to be struck to ensure that you are getting the best of a single, consolidated ERP system while maintaining the flexibility to meet the local regulatory, tax, and market conditions of each country you operate in.

To learn more about how to plan your global implementation of Dynamics AX or Dynamics 365, watch our OnDemand webinar How to Manage International Entities in Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations: Part 1.

One of the benefits of choosing Dynamics 365 to go global is the ability to handle the various international standards for accounting procedures and financial reporting. Many non-US countries use the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) whereas, the US aligns to GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) standards. Some countries, especially in Europe, have country-specific guidelines and financial reporting needed to operate in compliance with local regulations.
Previously, it was typical for companies to deploy country or region-specific ERP instances in order to handle this diversity of needs. This made consolidated reporting across the whole company very complex, time-consuming, and expensive. In addition, business users that worked across multiple countries or regions might not have access to all of the information they needed. For example, it might be difficult to view real-time inventory from another country that you could sell in your home market if that other country was using a different ERP application. In addition,users might be required to be trained and to perform daily finance and operations tasks in multiple systems.

Dynamics 365 solves many of these issues. It can be configured to provide a global chart of accounts using financial dimensions and masking enabling firms to create a consolidated, global roll-up of their ledger. The Microsoft business model has always been to have approximately eighty percent or more of the requirements for global companies handled in the out-of-the-box application and then to have available ISV products or localization products (written in the same development language) that meet the very specific country requirements. Some of the most common accounting procedures and reporting that need to be handled at a country-level are taxes, tax reporting, depreciation of fixed assets, as well as how gains and losses on assets are reported. In most cases, the localization capabilities are available as part of your Dynamics licensing and this enables Microsoft to create a global offering for customers that goes beyond the limits of their broad application to cover all of the hyper-local needs. You no longer have to buy a French software product to do French reporting or a Chinese product to cover China which would result in disparate charts of accounts and siloed information.

Another strategic functionality within Dynamics 365 is the ability to have global master records. Customers, Vendors, and items can be shared across entities worldwide. Inventory can be transferred from one entity to another, and the underlying financial transactions are handled automatically. In many other ERP systems, these requirements are handled by duplicating master records across companies and manually creating orders between entities.
The mostsuccessful global implementations are the ones where key people are included throughout all phases of planning, testing and implementing the new system. This includes critical business users in finance, operations, and other departments - both at headquarters as well as involvement from the people in the trenches or in the regions.

Getting stakeholder buy-in is critical to ensure the balance is kept between global requirements and country-specific needs. A financial controller at headquarters may want to standardize reporting in a way that will not provide enough flexibility enough for the regions. Users in each country might not have the longer-term perspective of the business, such as what new markets are the company entering where a global ERP system could accelerate that expansion. Also, high-level managers will want to keep an eye on what localizations are needed for statutory reasons and what asks are being made by the regions that are not required and might add unnecessary complexity to the system or make global reporting difficult.

This team of stakeholders should make basic structural decisions, such as whether to make the chart of accounts global. Can financial dimensions be standardized, such as company number, legal entity number, common departments, business units and cost centers? How will taxes be handled? Everyone has to buy-in on what will be a global requirement and what won't. Once those decisions are made, each country needs to validate that they can operate within the global chart of accounts and that their 'last mile' reporting in each country can be covered.
Finally, once decisions are made, it is important to document all of them andprovide the users with the training they need to adjust their business processes to successfully adopt the new standards.

Western Computer has helped many companies go global with Microsoft Dynamics AX, NAV, and Dynamics 365. To learn more about how to plan your global implementation of Dynamics AX or Dynamics 365, watch our OnDemand webinar How to Manage International Entities in Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations: Part 1.
If you need further ERP assistance, feel free to contact Western Computer's team of experts today!

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How to Prepare for a Dynamics 365 Global Implementation

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For many U.S.-based companies, making the decision to take their ERP implementation global comes with many potential benefits, but can also seem quite daunting when faced with the initial decision. Many factors can drive the decision to "go global" with your ERP system.