Inside View from Ireland: In conversation with Neil Tanner

I SPENT THE EARLY afternoon chatting with Neil Tanner, Microsoft Ireland's Business Solutions Group Manager, about a topic he will present at the INBITE 04 conference, scheduled at the Tipperary Institute in Thurles on Thursday, November 18th. After the first few minutes, Tanner had me convinced that the "C" in CRM stood for "collaboration" instead of "customer". Tanner won't attempt to rewrite business textbooks on the definition of the CRM acronym but the business processes he shares with audiences suggest an important subtext in how CRM should be handled by SMEs. "Collaboration is actually the cornerstone." And well it should be.

Tanner maps Outlook through Sharepoint to create an impressive dynamic environment of documents shared between account executives.

Microsoft Business Solutions introduced this concept last year after the company identified big leaps that small businesses could make by mapping CRM processes
onto their Windows desktops. This is Microsoft CRM driven from Microsoft Outlook and it incorporates time-tested strategies inside a familiar Outlook user space.

Microsoft wants its flavour of CRM to make it easy for employees to share complete customer information across teams and departments. It helps automate sales and customer service processes. It makes sales associates look much more informed, which should result in better, timely decisions.

Microsoft CRM integrates with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Business Solutions for Financial Management, and other business systems to give employees a complete view of customer information. The learning curve remains relatively flat because the tools integrate with Microsoft Office Outlook. It revolves around easy-to-use wizards and intuitive drill-down menus. This translates into being able to work online and offline with access to sales functionality.

As is the case in many bits of technology, companies often sit idly on solutions without leveraging the capability they have purchased within existing IT budgets. SMEs running Microsoft Office Professional 2003 and Microsoft Small Business Server would be foolish not to explore the CRM wizards built into Outlook. As Tanner’s short series of screen shots shows, Microsoft has bolted CRM onto SME desktops.

Most people understand the fundamentals of CRM applications. Their functional components are straightforward, the technology robust and mature, and the benefits of successful deployments clearly generate value for organizations. Until now, many CRM applications proved too expensive to buy or rent. The big change is in the muscle behind Small Business Server (SBS) and the user familiarity with Microsoft Outlook. Run SBS behind the scenes, show users where the pull-down menus reside in Outlook and you have a potent CRM application ready to empower a sales force.

Couple those functions with Microsoft Sharepoint and you land in a sweet spot for collaboration that ultimately translates to higher closure rates.

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