microsoft dynamics crm - solution brief for a sales executive

Sales ProductivityDriving Profitable Business Growth

Revised December 2008

2 « Sales Productivity—Driving Profitable Business Growth Revised December 2008

Sales Productivity Overview

The old business cliché “time is money” strikes a particularly resonant chord in today’s uncertain business

climate, characterized by volatile market conditions and high levels of sales resistance from customers

reacting to global economic challenges. In sales organizations, time really is money—meaning that every

minute your people are stuck in unproductive or inefficient activities equals money slipping out of your

hands and into the pockets of your competitors.

This places critical importance on the need for sales organizations to be more productive with their time by

working smarter so they can sell more effectively. For example, your sales teams may be able to access data

about a customer from a CRM system, but if that data isn’t accurate, they are no closer to a sale. Likewise,

your reps may be skilled in identifying potential leads, but if slow and inefficient processes lengthen their

selling cycle, the end result is an inability to close deals quickly and a high cost per sale.

ContentsSales Productivity Overview ............................................................................... 2

Meet Julia, VP of Sales and Marketing .......................................................... 4

Microsoft Tools for Sales Professionals .......................................................... 7

Know Your Customers ........................................................................................... 8

Optimize Your Selling Cycle .............................................................................10

Realize a Connected, Collaborative Sales Force .......................................12

Turn Business Insight into Action ...................................................................14

Are you ready to work smarter and sell more effectively? .................16

Conclusion................................................................................................................18

Getting Started .......................................................................................................19

Why Microsoft? ......................................................................................................19


Sales Productivity—Driving Profitable Business Growth » 3Revised December 2008

A productive sales organization is one that performs at a high level to drive revenue growth while keeping

costs in check. Toward these ends, the more you empower people to make the right decisions, the better

results you will achieve. In order to arm your sales force with the tools to maximize their productivity and

drive business value, Microsoft has created CRM, collaboration, mobility, business intelligence, and unified

communications software that can measurably impact your company’s ability to navigate unpredictable,

constantly changing market dynamics. We believe this functionality is the foundation of a competitive

business—giving your sales department the tools to drive company growth and fortify your employees as

high-impact, strategic contributors to your business success.



In today’s tough economic environment, the priorities of Sales and

Marketing executives are to increase sales, grow new business, and

maintain momentum with established accounts. However, this is

easier said than done; it often takes months to get new reps up to

speed, and the productivity tools (such as a CRM system) companies

implement are often difficult to use and poorly adopted by those

who need them. The result: inconsistent access to data frequently

leads to unsatisfactory forecasts. No one understands the pressures

of sustaining momentum while increasing sales and growing new

business more than Julia, the VP of Sales and Marketing for a

300-employee manufacturing organization. Julia works closely with

the sales and marketing departments on a daily basis, and must make

swift, smart decisions about how to strategically spend her company’s

marketing dollars, pass leads efficiently between marketing and sales,

and most effectively distribute resources to impact growth potential.

Meet Julia, VP of Sales and Marketing

“I need to free up sales people to develop stronger customer relationships.”


Understand the challenges Julia facesIn several respects, Julia’s role seems to require more than one person to fulfill all of the demands placed on it. Julia knows

that inefficient processes—those that slow down her teams’ sales cycle or hinder the information flow she relies on to provide

forecasts to upper management—threaten to pull her from her primary objectives. Therefore, prioritizing how she spends her

time and budget is critical to support these high-level goals.

Learn how Julia addresses her challengesObserve how Julia maximizes her productivity and efficiency in order to drive her business forward.

7:00 A.M. On her way into the office, Julia reviews a strategic deal with one of her account teams via her Windows Mobile®-powered phone. Julia downloads the latest proposal document to her phone for reference on the call.

8:00 A.M. Upon arriving in the office, Julia reviews revenue performance numbers from shipping/accounting.

10:00 A.M. Julia holds a conference call with several Regional Sales Vice Presidents to review the current month’s sales pipeline and closing forecast. The pipeline figures closely match her forecasts, as Julia has increased business predictability through more accurate sales forecasting, pipeline management, and change controls in Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM.

11:00 A.M. Julia prepares for a meeting with the CEO to discuss up-to-date sales and marketing performance and validate previous pipeline forecasts in preparation for a quarterly board meeting.

1:00 P.M. Julia takes a call from a key customer (while reviewing their purchase/payment and support activity history). Julia accesses CRM data from within Outlook® to identify the customers with higher purchasing propensity and provide more profitable opportunities.

2:00 P.M. Julia meets with the Business Operations Manager to review month-to-date performance against T&E expense budgets. They cover how driving automated management processes across sales and marketing functions has resulted in increased sales productivity and sizeable savings.

3:00 P.M. Julia kicks off a sales training workshop for a new product. Part of the workshop establishes the best practices for team collaboration across marketing, customer service, and partner organizations, identifying and automating most effectively sales processes across the teams.

5:00 P.M. Julia attends a meeting with the Executive Operations Committee to develop the company’s five-year strategic plan. Because of the time saved by automating her daily management tasks, Julia has been able to spend more time aligning her sales force, addressing resourcing needs, and formulating a growth strategy for the business.


Sales Representative

Sales representatives are looking for solutions that will increase their selling time with the best customers.

• How can I better tailor my approach for each customer?

• How can I increase close rates?• How can I track progress to my quota?• What tools are there to help me stay

productive when on the road?

Sales Executive

Sales executives are in need of tools that will bring together actionable data and facilitate better decision making.

• How can I improve visibility into the sales pipeline?

• How can I monitor sales costs through team KPIs and performance metrics?

• How can I better capitalize on market trends?

• How do I increase customer retention?

Sales Operations Manager

Sales Operations Managers are mid-level executives looking to facilitate increased tool adoption.

• How do I gain better visibility into sales health across systems?

• How can I make tool and process adoption more consistent?

• How do I ensure process consistency across teams?

What are the team’s priorities?

Nancy Todd Kevin

Julia isn’t the only person in the organization who needs to reduce the inefficiencies that eat up selling time. Sales

Operations Managers may be frustrated because the organization has invested in productivity technology that no one

uses. Sales executives are often dissatisfied when broken processes along the pipeline slow down sales cycles. And sales

representatives can feel that they waste much of their time searching for information and people to answer their questions.

For every role in the organization, the answer looks a bit different, but the message is the same: your people need tools

that will help them increase the time they spend on value-added activities, and identify and reduce those processes that

are ineffective or inefficient.

For sales reps, the right tools will enable them to prioritize the opportunities that have the best chance of closing, maximize

upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and accelerate selling time. For sales executives, tools that enable real-time analytics

can improve company performance by providing a clear look into sales and market trends. And familiar and intuitive tools

that easily integrate into the existing activities of your team will make process adoption substantially easier for Operations

Managers, resulting in lower costs and less training.

You might be surprised to discover you can do all of this using software that is as easy and familiar to use as Microsoft®

Office. Read on to find out how Sales organizations can leverage Microsoft technology to help them increase sales, sustain

growth of market share, and retain their hard-won accounts.


Microsoft Tools for Sales Professionals

The key to profitability is productivity, which means spending less time laboring over administrative tasks

and more time with your best potential customers. A recent survey found that for each minute a new-

business developer with a US$2.5 million quota spends on administration, instead of with a qualified lead

or prospect, the company loses US$15 to US$20 in expected sales. And for a sales professional, shifting two

hours per week from administrative tasks to time with customers can be worth between US$90,000 and

US$120,000 in additional expected sales.1 How can you help your teams gain two hours a week to sell—

not just two more hours, but two more productive hours?

The answer lies in the tools you use to empower your sales force. Microsoft provides technology that fits

the way your people work, enabling you and your organization to better connect with and respond to your

customers, streamline selling processes, improve collaboration and communication, and increase sales

agility. Take a closer look at how Microsoft productivity tools can help you increase the performance of your

sales organization to drive deeper, more profitable customer relationships and ultimately escalate the fiscal

health of your business—despite the economic challenges you face today.

1 2008 Report on Sales Effectiveness and Compensation: Maximizing Sales Growth and Performance, Watson Wyatt



Know Your Customers

It is one thing if salespeople don’t have enough time to sell; it is quite another if they don’t know whom

they are selling to. Chasing the wrong opportunities sinks most sales organizations. Reps waste time on

prospects that will never buy. Others secure customers that actually cost the company money. Companies

may also miss significant opportunities presented by market shifts, such as changes in the market or

analytics. Either way, lack of insight into customer data makes it impossible to increase value from existing

relationships and effectively market to win new customers.

Challenge—How can I better know my customers?

• Improve ROI by segmenting and targeting high-value customers.

• Acquire new customers by uncovering and capitalizing on market trends and shift resources to impact growth.

According to Gartner, 40 percent of sales executives rate sales analytics as one of the top needs of their organization.2 That’s a

lot of companies that lack a good view of their customers. To do a better job than the competition, you need tools that help you

identify your most important customer segments, expand and retain the right accounts, and deploy sales forces appropriately.

Solution

With widespread access and full visibility into customers and prospects, Microsoft makes it easier to increase your revenue

potential with a complete, contextual view of customer information. Your teams can access all customer and prospect data from

within familiar tools they already know and use—such as Microsoft Office and Microsoft® Office Outlook—and then customize

those views according to their personal goals.

Improve ROI by segmenting and targeting high-value customers. Identify your highest-value customers using powerful

customer analytics integrated with familiar tools, including insight into customer purchasing behavior and the ability to pinpoint

high-probability deals for closing. Enable analysts and executives to gain insights into customer data with a single view across

systems—where users can see all accounts, cases, and interactions in one place.

Acquire new customers by capitalizing on market trends and shift resources to impact growth. Pinpoint key sales trends

and target your selling efforts through the analysis capabilities in Microsoft CRM technology. Predictive analysis, real-time

monitoring, and dashboards also enable you to analyze customer behavior and identify areas of the sales process that can be

improved. Better yet, you can empower different roles in your organization to act fast with role-specific, contextual delivery of

information and the offer of user-defined experiences that extend through the Web, phone, and PC.

For more information, go to www.microsoft.com/business/sales.

2 User Survey Analysis: Business Intelligence, Worldwide 2007: Gartner. Thompson, Ed, and Nelson, Scott D., "How to develop a CRM Strategy," (Gartner Research, December 27, 2004)


Key benefitsTake a look at how senior executives have deployed flexible solutions that offer a consistent view of information and interactions.

Distributor improves productivity, customer satisfaction, and retention

Noble Trade, a wholesale distributor, lacked visibility into critical customer activity and purchase history data. Legacy tools made

accessing and proactive use of purchase data difficult. This, in turn, limited salespeople’s ability to identify trends that could help

them increase sales or counter competitors’ inroads. Noble Trade implemented a hosted version of a Microsoft CRM suite that

integrated with their existing project quotation software and streamlined workflows to automate their sales processes. As a result,

their salespeople can now create ad hoc reports that access customer history data in the company’s database to identify trends

and respond more quickly to changes in the marketplace. And with centrally stored account data, sales and service employees

can engage customers while being fully aware of preexisting service issues. And by knowing the stage a construction project is in

and the specific products customers need, salespeople can better target their sales activities.

“The full marketing, sales, and service functionality in Microsoft CRM ensures that we cover all the bases with our customers to increase our retention rate.”— Deb Thornton, CRM Implementation Specialist, Noble Trade

Bank handles one million customer service requests annually using flexible CRM system

Portuguese bank, Credifin, saw a tsunami of customer service calls on the horizon when it was hired by a large distribution chain

to design, implement, and manage a customer loyalty card program. Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM business software as the

foundation, Credifin delivered an automated CRM solution in just six months that provides call center staff with fast access to the

data they need for responding to one million service requests each year. Credifin uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM reports to keep

tabs on program success, service level agreements, and other customer service metrics.

“When a customer calls, we can identify them right away and quickly pull up the information they need, including last purchase date, available discount points, and customer permission to receive direct mail.”— Paula Rego, Customer and Store Call Center Supervisor, Credifin


Optimize Your Selling Cycle

Once you have a good understanding of what your customers need, the real work begins. However, this is

where inconsistent sales processes or poor lead management can stand between you and a closed sale.

Challenge—How can I make my processes more efficient and effective to close more sales?

• Increase customer satisfaction through consistent, tailored customer experiences.

• Improve sales efficiency by integrating strategy and customer management across marketing, sales, and service units.

You can reduce the cost of closing sales and increase selling time by using solutions that capture and automate your organiza-

tion’s best sales processes. With this functionality, your business can reap big returns by optimizing workflows across teams to

ensure information flow, process consistency, and repeatability.

Solution

Microsoft software is designed to help increase your selling time by automating sales processes for a more consistent selling

experience. By optimizing sales management and providing a favorable customer experience through tailored interactions, you

can drive shorter sales cycles and higher close rates.

Increase customer satisfaction. Improve customer response times with individual and team workflows to automate manual tasks

and access CRM data outside the office via Windows Mobile-powered phones. Also, Microsoft tools are customizable, enabling

tailored engagements and processes that provide personalized, more impactful experiences for your customers.

Improve sales efficiency. Accelerate sales cycles by leveraging a familiar and easy-to-use environment to manage all customer

information, leads, and opportunities with CRM technology that is integrated with Microsoft Outlook. Create consistent, repeat-

able selling experiences based on best practices, saving your teams from having to “reinvent the wheel.” And auto-populate

proposals with price and product information from various databases, reducing the time/cost of data integration, processing time,

and error rates that result from entering the same data multiple times. Better yet, you can automate handoffs between groups

and accelerate sales cycles with streamlined lead qualification, management, and deal tracking.



Key benefitsTake a look at how some midsize companies have leveraged Microsoft technology to optimize efficiencies for increased selling time.

Customer and data management system helps maintain growth and increase revenues

MSI Systems Integrators is an IT solution provider that experienced 83 percent revenue growth in a four-year period. The growth,

however, occurred in the absence of streamlined data and customer management capabilities, resulting in inefficiency, lost

opportunities, and millions of dollars in lost revenues. To maintain its growth and capture more revenue, MSI teamed up with

two Microsoft partners to create a solution using Microsoft technologies and software. The new solution helps manage customer

relationships and thousands of documents and e-mail messages generated during a typical sales cycle. Benefits for MSI include

an estimated US$2.3 million return on investment and an 85 percent reduction in the time for processing bid certifications—

time that can be used for interacting with customers and increasing revenue.

“To sustain our revenue growth, we’ll need to do more in terms of acquiring new customers and … increasing sales. ... The efficiencies delivered by our new system will help us do that.”— Gina Morkel, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, MSI Systems Integrators

Forklift manufacturer improves processes and increases customer satisfaction

Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift Europe (MCFE) manufactures, sells, and distributes forklifts and their related spare parts throughout

Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. MCFE wanted a centralized system for tracking customer service requests, and also sought

to improve its forklift configuration application. MCFE selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM to track all customer service requests

and resolutions, and deployed a dealer-facing portal to streamline forklift configuration and other processes. With Microsoft

Dynamics CRM, service managers see the number of open service calls and their rate of resolution, as well as identify service

calls that were escalated. If a particular representative is underperforming, or if one group is completing calls faster and more

successfully than the others, managers can use that information to correct performance issues and share best practices, helping

to improve customer satisfaction across the organization.

“We have been able to reduce the amount of time we spend on service calls by an average of 80 percent per call. We now spend far less time chasing problems and more time improving the total quality of our business.”— Robert Vleeschhouwer, General Manager, Information Systems Department, MCFE


Realize a Connected, Collaborative Sales Force

The sales organization consists of many moving people and parts. How the efforts of one department

support and are communicated to the next is the driving force behind your brand equity, customer satisfac-

tion, and the cost and time of closing sales. However, poor information flow among your people, in or out

of the office, can be a major roadblock when you want to capitalize on new opportunities and plan for

growth.

Challenge—How can my sales force sell better together?

• Provide real-time communications across distributed teams.

• Enhance opportunity and document collaboration.

• Enable wide accessibility to people and information.

Effective selling is about making it easier to share information in ways that make your business more responsive. Part of effective

collaboration reduces the number of manual tasks you have to perform, since users can create an archive of reusable content

and best practices. With more reliable contact between team members and access to time-sensitive information, the right

collaboration tools can make even creating sales proposals an easier and more efficient process.

Solution

Microsoft technologies facilitate powerful collaboration and information-sharing capabilities, enabling everyone in your sales

organization, in the office or on the road, to easily reach out to the people who have the specific areas of knowledge they need.

Provide real-time communications across distributed teams. Enable greater sales efficiencies through technology that

delivers information at the right time and in the right way. For example, a single inbox for e-mail, voice, and fax helps speed the

right information to the people who need it when they need it. Instant messaging, integrated with CRM, helps accelerate sales

and improve customer satisfaction, while Web conferencing can help reduce the costs of sales.

Enhance opportunity and document collaboration. Enhance opportunity and document collaboration with online workspaces

where teams can share ideas and content in a security-enhanced environment. Also, automated workflows across systems help

improve sales effectiveness and efficiency.

Enable wide accessibility to people and information. Enable teams to stay productive on the road with access to messaging

technology, sales data, documents, and people. Such expanded information access helps improve customer responsiveness.



Key benefitsTake a look at how some midsize companies have deployed easy-to-use technology to improve collaboration and accelerate

sales cycles.

Decision analysis firm shortens sales cycle 30 percent with real-time collaboration

The process of developing and launching new products presented Fair Isaac with communications and management challenges,

given that e-mail and telephone were its primary methods of collaboration. With tight deadlines, missed messages resulted in

delayed decisions and forced some decisions to be made without complete information. Fair Isaac found the solution for its

communication needs in Microsoft® Office Live Communications Server and Microsoft® Office Live Meeting. Using Live Meeting to

respond to customer concerns faster, sales close an average of 30 percent faster, leading to an annual increase of US$1.5 million

in revenue. Additionally, with Live Meeting, inside sales can now pursue more than 200 new opportunities annually. Thus, the

company avoids US$500,000 in travel costs, while generating nearly US$5 million in revenue.

“Today, our sales close an average of 30 percent faster. The faster sales cycle means we collect an additional $1.5 million in revenue annually by closing deals quicker.”— Eric Herson, Vice President, U.S. Scoring and Origination Sales, Fair Isaac

Design firm expects annual savings of more than US$2 million with collaboration solution

Needing to increase the manageability of its content and enhance project management, design firm Wimberly Allison Tong &

Goo (WATG) wanted to find a way for its teams to work together regardless of connectivity. Upon learning about Microsoft® Office

SharePoint® Server 2007, WATG decided to upgrade its collaboration environment, develop a solution for team portal sites, and

adopt Microsoft Office® Groove® for ad hoc collaboration. By automating many of its previously manual processes, WATG expects

to realize annual cost savings of US$2,402,000. Because the solution is integrated with other Microsoft Office programs, nontech-

nical employees will easily be able to alter and post information themselves whenever they need to. And with improved knowledge

sharing, executives have the tools to disseminate information to keep employees informed about the firm’s strategic direction.

“When we look at the long-range implications of our new collaboration solution, we see the ability to respond more quickly to customer needs with greater operational efficiency and better use of internal resources. The new solution makes us feel less encumbered and more agile.”— Lawrence Rocha, VP and CIO, Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo


Turn Business Insight into Action

Supplying real-time customer insight, creating optimized selling cycles, and building a connected, collab-

orative sales force does little if you cannot see where your business is going. Without actionable business

insight, determining whether your sales/marketing programs are reaching their targets can be difficult.

This trend frequently extends throughout the organization, often stemming from poor CRM adoption,

inconsistent data updates, and lack of integrated sales processes. All of this adds up to low confidence in

your forecasts and a blurry picture of your business’s performance.

Challenge—How can I enable better decision making across my department?

• Improve business predictability through full visibility into accurate and relevant sales information from across systems.

• Improve decision making through timely information that enables changes/course corrections to improve future outcomes.

• Increase close rates by identifying key deals for executive participation.

Making better decisions is driven by getting better data. With reliable data, sales personnel can proactively identify revenue trends

and risks, build and execute effective account management and sales territory plans, and gauge the effectiveness of current and

projected sales models. Accurate data shows you not only what is happening, but why it is happening so you can make more

high-impact decisions.

Solution

Microsoft technology helps improve sales performance through powerful insight and forecasting, including real-time adjustments

to improve future outcomes. Microsoft empowers users with easy-to-use dashboards, scorecards, and charts that can be custom-

ized based on preference and work style, and these tools give each person the ability to target opportunities, track personal and

business performance, and reassess sales strategies on the fly.

Improve business predictability through full visibility into accurate and relevant sales information from across systems.

To help make the data more meaningful, Microsoft applications create data visualizations so it is easy to identify trends. Reporting

capabilities in Microsoft CRM technology also help you ensure that the business is on track with visibility into pipeline and sales

information from across multiple systems in a single location.

Improve decision making through timely information that enables changes/course corrections to improve future

outcomes. Real-time data can be dynamically linked to Excel® for real-time insight into sales forecasts, including advanced

notification of risks in the pipeline revenue. This enables modeling of “what-if” options to help improve decision making that

enables course corrections to improve future outcomes.

Increase close rates by identifying key deals for executive participation. Role-tailored dashboards and reports provide custom-

ized views into the health of the business and the deals that require executive participation. Scorecards and reports can be rapidly

assembled and connected through advanced KPIs and securely shared over the Web or delivered through Microsoft Office Outlook.



Key benefitsTake a look at how midsize companies have deployed solutions to drive results with better forecasting data.

New information management solution awakens business insight

Rapid growth at sleep system retailer, Wenatex, strained incompatible business systems, rendering users unable to get

consolidated profit and loss data or perform a monthly budget without heavy manual processes. By deploying a Microsoft data

warehouse that consolidates information from finance, sales, and telemarketing systems, Wenatex has gained total control over

the information users need to access, analyze, and share across departments to realize business goals. With finance, sales, and

telemarketing information in one place, sales executives can deploy “what-if” across their sales models to see how effective they

are, and consolidate call center statistics in a second to help monitor their operations. Greater understanding of their operations

helps them fine-tune their sales programs to optimize revenue.

“The integrated performance management approach from Microsoft delivers the best value. Now we have easy-to-use, flexible technology so everyone can harness business information and make it work for Wenatex.”— Harald Wohlfart, Finance Manager and Lead of Operations, Wenatex

ProCurve Networking by HP connects sales teams for greater efficiency

ProCurve Networking by HP is a prominent Ethernet switching vendor, with nearly four times the market growth rate in revenue.

To accommodate this rapid expansion, ProCurve wanted to replace its Web-based sales force automation solution with a system that

encourages greater user adoption and is easier to integrate with other business systems. Microsoft Services helped ProCurve tailor

Microsoft Dynamics CRM to its unique needs over a six-month period and roll out the solution to more than 400 employees around

the globe. After just six months, ProCurve has recouped its investment through greater productivity, improved collaboration, and more

accurate demand forecasting. In addition, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides the technical flexibility to support ongoing enhancements.

“We have much better visibility into our sales pipeline with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. That information has helped us inform our supply chain operations and allocate sufficient resources without producing excess capacity. We can free up more of our working capital for other areas of the business.”— Ed Rice, Worldwide IT Director, ProCurve Networking by HP


Are you ready to work smarter and sell more effectively?High-performing sales organizations empower their employees with tools that adapt to their business to address the unique

technology and business demands of today’s volatile marketplace. What if you could achieve this with a set of tools that readily

integrates with the technologies you already own? These tools are designed specifically to help you communicate internally and

with customers—whether in the office, on the road, or across the globe.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0—provides fast, flexible, and familiar business software that gives global organizations the tools

they need to improve marketing, sales, and customer service efficiency and effectiveness. This highly powerful customer relation-

ship management (CRM) system gives users the ability to create a holistic view of each customer, from initial contact through post

sales and service.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007—improves customer connections by making it easier for employees to find appro-

priate information and work with colleagues and partners to target, sell to, and support customers. Extend the value of CRM

investments by giving your employees access to business data in systems like SAP and Siebel, using out-of-the-box connectors in

Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007—improves the productivity of organizations by combining familiar Office applications with

the enterprise power of workflow, enterprise content management, business intelligence, and collaboration capabilities. It helps

organizations overcome complex communications challenges and improves sales productivity by making it easier for sales teams

to work together:

• Office Groove 2007—enables teams to work together dynamically and effectively inside collaborative workspaces for a

range of project activities, from basic document collaboration, to coordinating a product launch, to producing a response to

a request for proposal.

• Office OneNote® 2007—provides a single place for managing and sharing notes and information, so teams can work

together more efficiently.

• Microsoft Office Outlook 2007—increases sales productivity in the office and on the go by allowing sales teams the ability

to access to e-mail, voice mail, calendar, and fax from laptop computers and Windows Mobile smartphone devices.

• Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007—provides all of the functionality needed for performance management

in a single, integrated application, including scorecards, dashboards, management reporting, analytics, planning, budgeting,

forecasting, and consolidation.



Windows Mobile 6.1—helps sales and field service professionals build stronger customer connections by using Windows Mobile

phones to access important information when away from their desks.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007—delivers instant messaging (IM) and presence information as part of a

scalable, enterprise-grade solution that offers enhanced security, smooth integration with other Microsoft products, and an

extensible, industry-standard development environment. When sales and service professionals who are physically separated

by geography and time zones gain visibility into other people’s availability, or “presence,” this can help reduce communication

inefficiencies, such as phone tag or e-mail tag.

Supporting Products

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007—helps customer-facing professionals exceed the high expectations of customers by enabling

efficient access to the most critical aspects of their daily jobs, such as e-mail, calendars, attachments, voice mail, and contacts, at

their fingertips.

Microsoft Office Live Meeting—gives people a way to work with colleagues, customers, and suppliers, from various locations.

For online meetings, training, and events, people can use Live Meeting to collaborate with either individuals or large groups—

without leaving their desks.


Revised December 200818 « Sales Productivity—Driving Profitable Business Growth

ConclusionIncreasing sales, retaining established accounts, and sustaining growth of market share

in today’s economy demands a highly effective sales force supported by technology

that facilitates their work and eliminates barriers to success. Integrated CRM, business

intelligence, mobility, and collaboration solutions that use familiar Microsoft Office tools

deliver:

• CRM that works the way your people and business do.

• Role-tailored innovation and investments you can count on tomorrow.

• Easily accessible and actionable customer and business insight.

• Integration with Windows Mobile-powered devices.

• Secure collaboration and unified communications, to simplify work across teams

and organizations.

• Power of choice for flexibility and control: On-premise or Hosted Service.

When Microsoft empowers your people with the right tools and the right information,

they become vital, strategic contributors to your business success.

Revised December 2008 Sales Productivity—Driving Profitable Business Growth » 19

Getting StartedReady to get started? Find out more about the Microsoft perspective on sales force

productivity, customer stories and articles about current and future trends in sales,

get in touch with a Microsoft representative or one of our many CRM, Mobility, or IW

partners, and take the Microsoft Sales Assessment at www.microsoft.com/business/

sales. If you have questions or are ready to take the next step, please contact your

Microsoft representative:

Visit the Microsoft Sales Productivity Web site at 1.

www.microsoft.com/business/sales.

Learn how others have benefited from sales productivity solutions at 2.

www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies.

Request the Sales Productivity white paper from your partner or Microsoft 3.

representative to better understand Microsoft solutions for sales executives.

Why Microsoft?There has never been a more important time to position your organization’s IT infra-

structure and sales organization as high-impact, strategic components of your business

success. As a leader in business-enhancing solutions, Microsoft is the only software

vendor that provides midsize organizations with solutions that are:

• Transformative. Microsoft has a heritage of delivering business technologies that

transform the fabric of business and confer strategic advantage to organizations

that use them.

• Innovative and Ready for the Real World. Software that is familiar and easy to

use by all your employees, with inherent assurance that governance and regulatory

compliance are easily managed.

• Widely Supported. Business technology delivered with a broad choice of partners,

with wide ownership and deployment options, and integration with the broadest

range of hardware and software technologies.

• Accessible to Everyone. Microsoft has a long history of lowering technology

barriers by delivering the lowest cost of ownership for business technology that

can be used across all parts of an organization.

© 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, Excel, Groove, Microsoft Dynamics, OneNote, Outlook, SharePoint, Windows, Windows Mobile, and the Microsoft logo are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.


microsoft dynamics crm - solution brief for a sales executive

Technology

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