SPIE, the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, serves the needs of the optics and photonics community by publishing technical journals, reference materials, and manuscripts, and organizing technical conferences, trade shows, and short-course educational programs for researchers and developers in scientific fields related to light.
SPIE’s in-house It team recently deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a tool to support the organization’s sales functions, and quickly extended the solution to replace the custom applications that support event management and scientific publishing activities. Today, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides the platform that underlies virtually all of SPIE’s processes and services.
Adopting Microsoft CRM as a platform for custom development has improved SPIE’s agility and flexibility, allowing the organization to quickly deploy new applications as new opportunities arise. CRM-based applications have increased staff efficiency—allowing a team of only eight people to manage communications and publication workflow for 20,000 research papers every year—and enable the organization to generate additional revenue by leveraging its publishing and event management services to support other, similar professional societies.
“We’ve built out some great tools and systems, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the heart of that capability.” Scott Ritchey, Director of Information Technology, SPIE.
Read the full story at http://msft.it/SPIE_CS