Growing Pains: How to Adapt Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Your Changing Business

FYI: Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been rebranded and reimagined into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales.

Have you outgrown your implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 or 2015? Perhaps it is getting to cumbersome to manage, has too big of a database, too many users, the data is bogging down the system, or other problems? Are you missing integration with your other systems? What do you do?

Spoiler alert: you keep using it!

But not the same way as you have been. Dynamics CRM is a great product, but like any product, it has to be designed and scoped for the purpose at hand. If you started using CRM when you had twenty five users, there is a zero percent chance you can keep using it as-is when you reach 1,000 users without any modifications.

If this sounds like you, it's time to bring in the experts. Thankfully, that business challenge is one of the reasons you made a good decision when you selected CRM - it is incredibly scalable and customizable. There are dozens of excellent consulting firms that can tailor CRM specifically for your organization (if you need some recommendations - let us know!) Organizational change and growth is also one of the reasons many clients grow out of a product like SalesForce.com or Dynamics CRM Online and make a switch to a private cloud solution that includes better infrastructure specifically designed for high-usage CRM cases, as well as integrated features that are not included in the out-of-the-box CRM.

Here are some quick tips on how a consultant or VAR can help your growing business keep using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015:

• Customize the views, dashboards, and fields: These views can be role based and give sales reps the information they need at their fingertips, as well provide customer support teams with quick access to entirely different data

• Clean up your data: remove duplicates, errors, etc.: You might be surprised how ‘bloating' will not only cause slow-downs behind the scenes in the database, but also how it slows down your end-users who have to spend double or triple the time to accomplish any given task.

• Setup workflows: a hidden secret, workflows can automate to make your life easier: Organizations often find significant gains through automation in areas like urture marketing to prospects, automatic responses to tickets, and escalations to managers based on non-responses.

And when using a private cloud solution for Microsoft CRM, then you have even more opportunity to customize your application and leverage it for advanced functionality, including:

• Business Intelligence capabilities

• Exchange integration and other email functionality

• Lead scoring

• Nurture marketing

• Microsoft Lync integration

The truth is that Microsoft Dynamics CRM has almost unlimited capability. Even once you discover and implement every feature that is built in, there is still a vast range of customizations and add-on products that can be added as well.

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