Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a cloud-based CRM solution which allows integration to track business leads, automate field services, and drive sales. Dynamics has three key functions as Sales, Marketing, and Service (Charest, 2017). With its mobile platform, the sales team can build a stronger relationship with the current or potential customers by accessing more relevant, valuable, and productive data while on the move (Charest, 2017). All its features allow your company to provide the best quality service to your customer while empowering your team to go beyond customer expectations. With Dynamics mobile app, you carry your work along with you. It allows its users to work offline, and once you are reconnected to the internet, it automatically uploads all changes to the cloud, allowing more productivity (Charest, 2017). It was often reported that Dynamics has improved customer engagement, resulting in the increased productivity. While Dynamics provide great features, customers report some short-comings. Despite being a bit over-priced, some of the customers at times found that Dynamics would run slow, which could be a result of a large number of integrations and add-ons (FinanceOnline, n.d.). Although Chaster (2017) claims that Dynamics offers a world-class customer service, there were a lot of customer support complaints reported, stating that they were unable to contact to the support during the time of crisis (Capterra, 2017).
Zoho is another popular cloud-based CRM solution. Zoho's (enterprise edition) main functions are contact management, sales, and purchase control, and its key features include automation of daily operations, track sales, and engage customers on different platforms (FinanceOnline, n.d.). It also offers a mobile app platform that provides the power of all business features in your hands with quick and real-time updates. Zoho allows integration support with other applications and systems. Zoho is not only capable of automating the daily sales tasks, but it can also convert web visitors into hot leads (FinanceOnline, n.d.). Zoho has the capability to import prospects from external sources and parties, such as direct emails. Zoho also allows you to forecast revenue monitor and adjust sales quotas while monitoring and adjusting individual and team performance (Software Advice, n.d.). In their reviews, customers praised how smooth and easy on the eyes the interface of Zoho is, while many were impressed with its low bandwidth usage (Software Advice, n.d.). Zoho has its biggest advantage based on the price, where the free version allows a lot of customization and options, and it does not require a large amount to purchase the software (Software Advice, n.d.). However, Zoho has some areas of improvement. With the missing offline work feature, Zoho application cannot be used in ares with no internet. There were a lot of customer support complaints reported, which range from the lack of response from the support team to the field limitation issues (Software Advice, n.d.). And although the base software is offered at low cost, the additional add-ons and features could quickly increase the cost drastically.
For a very basic company which is using Microsoft Excel to keep track of the records, an upgrade to Microsoft Access could be beneficial, although it will mean that they will be building a CRM from the ground up, which could be extremely difficult. The transition from Excel to Access will be quite easy, but getting the Microsoft Access program off the ground with a maintenance plan can probably result in someone going home with a headache every day. Another problem that could arise is with the size of the company, which increases the size of the Access file. The bigger the Access file gets, the harder it will become to maintain it. Access lacks the sales growth for your company, as compared to other CRM solutions. It also lacks fancy customer management features which provide a competitive edge to an organization. Since it is not cloud-based and doesn’t run off the connection of the internet, it needs to be installed and setup on every system. Though Access could be a good option for a very small business, it can be eliminated as a contender for our project.
For other CRM software options, visit Software Advice or Technology Advice website.
Salesforce
|
Dynamics
|
Zoho
|
Access
|
|
Popularity
|
Ranked #1
|
Ranked #4
|
Ranked #2
|
N/A
|
User Rating
|
4.17 / 5
|
3.42 / 5
|
3.93 / 5
|
N/A
|
Scale
|
Enterprise
|
Enterprise
|
Small Business
|
Very Small Business
|
Pricing Tier
|
High-end
|
High-end
|
Low-end
|
Low-end
|
Cloud Support
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Mobile Platform
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Offline Mode
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
Free Trial
|
Yes
(30 Days)
|
No
|
Yes
(lifetime - 10 Users)
|
Yes
(30 Days)
|
Popular Paid Plan
|
$150
(per user / month)
|
$210
(per user / month)
|
$12
(per user / month)
|
Included with Office 365 Home and
Personal
|
Benefits
|
- Frequent innovation
rollout
- Offline work
compatible
- Great after sale
support
|
- Better customer
support than Zoho
- Solution offered as
cloud-based and license based
|
- Many features
- Integration with
Google Apps and social media
|
- Included in Office 365
bundle
- Better features than
Microsoft Excel
|
Issues / Risks
|
- High total cost
- Cloud-based solution
- Data security and
privacy
- Learning curve
|
- Less innovations
- Unsatisfactory support
- Compatibility issues
with Apple products
- Over-priced
- Cloud-based solution
- Data security and
privacy
- Learning curve
|
- Too many features make
it confusing
- Unsatisfactory support
- Cloud-based solution
- Data security and
privacy
- Learning curve
|
- Lack of features that
are present in Enterprise level CRM solutions
- No integration support to other
applications
- CRM development from
scratch
- Setup per system
required
- Less error tolerable
|
So, how does Zoho and Dynamics measure up to Salesforce? Well, it always comes down to the business needs at the moment. Zoho is the winner of the 2015 Marketing Software of the year award (FinanceOnline, n.d.). With that being said, if your company’s main focus is marketing, then Zoho would be the best at that, especially with its capabilities to forecast sales. Microsoft Dynamics would be a bad choice as it is not compatible with Apple products, making it tough for sale representatives to access information from an iPhone or iPad device. While Zoho provides a good number of features, it failed to satisfy its customers on the support. Since Zoho provides more integration features than Salesforces, it may win many companies over the ability to be integrated with the social media, google apps, and outlook. Zoho's low-price and a pay-as-you-go plan against Salesforce's contract-based plan add to its advantages. Salesforce's customer support team is far better than Zoho, which can actually be the deciding factor between the two. Salesforces's Client Satisfaction rate is a 99%, compare to Zoho’s 96% (FinanceOnline, n.d.). Ultimately, you have to weigh out your company’s needs and what is the main focus of your business model to pick the best CRM that could take your company to a higher level.
References:
Borowski, C. (n.d.). Best CRM Software - 2017 Reviews, Pricing & Demos. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/#top-products
Capterra. (2017, November). Top 20 Most Popular CRM Softwares. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://www.capterra.com/customer-relationship-management-software/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&users=&sort_options=Highest+Rated#infographic
Capterra. (2017, November). Dynamics CRM reviews. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://www.capterra.com/p/95570/Dynamics-CRM/#reviews
Charest, F. (2017, August 15). What Do You Need to Know About Microsoft Dynamics CRM? Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://www.sherweb.com/blog/what-is-microsoft-dynamics-crm/
FinancesOnline. (n.d.). Compare Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs Zoho CRM 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://comparisons.financesonline.com/microsoft-dynamics-crm-vs-zoho-crm
FinancesOnline. (n.d.). Compare Zoho CRM vs Salesforce CRM 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://comparisons.financesonline.com/zoho-crm-vs-salesforce-sales-cloud
Technology Advice. (2017, November 16). Compare the Best CRM Software. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from http://www.technologyadvice.com/crm/
CRM Software development using Microsoft Access. (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2017, from http://www.interestingarticles.com/programming/crm-software-development-using-microsoft-access-3396.html
FinanceOnline. (n.d.). Microsoft Dynamics CRM Review. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://reviews.financesonline.com/p/microsoft-dynamics-crm/#user-review
FinanceOnline. (n.d.). Zoho CRM Review. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://reviews.financesonline.com/p/zoho-crm/
Gallaugher, J. (2016, July). Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology. version 5. Retrieved from http://scholar.flatworldknowledge.com
Software Advice. (n.d.). Zoho CRM Software. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from https://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/zohocrm-profile/
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