It’s been a while since I updated progress on the CRM Accelerators program! There has been a tremendous response to the releases to date and I want to outline our future directions for the program.
At the time of writing this blog post we have had 62623 downloads of accelerator content! This proves that there is a demand for these kinds of releases and we are committed to bringing you more value leading up to and beyond the release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM “V.Next”.
Recent releases:
Sales Performance International (SPI) Solution Selling® accelerator was released 2 weeks ago: http://crm.dynamics.com/solutions/sales-performance-international-accelerator.aspx
This accelerator provides advice and guidance for customers who wish to manage the SPI Solution Selling® methodology through Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The accelerator provides information about the methodology and the solutions available through SPI. There are two primary options for customers; one of them is available at no cost!
Upcoming releases:
Analytics R2 – thanks to all those who have taken the time to point out some issues with the SQL 2005 dashboards in R2. We should have the necessary fixes in place for them within the next two weeks. I will blog as soon as they are available!
Miller Heiman (30-Sep-09) – using the same structure as the SPI accelerator this accelerator provides advice and guidance for Miller Heiman customers who wish to manage the various Miller Heiman methodologies through Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Social Networking (30-Sep-09) – allows an organization to reach new prospects and engage in real-time dialogue across social networks. Using this solution, an organization can push real-time communications from Microsoft Dynamics CRM into social network sites – like Twitter, and harness the native business intelligence of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to analyze sentiment, optimize message reach, and automate sales and customer service activity and process. The Social Networking Accelerator enables organizations to monitor conversations, identify influential people, and participate in the conversation, all within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application. The solution has been created as a multi-network engine in which organizations can combine conversations and insight from numerous social networking sites, but is enabled for Twitter in the initial release. Other networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn will be introduced in future releases.
Portal Integration (30-Sep-09) – connects business information and customer interactions from Microsoft Dynamics CRM to an organization’s web experience. With this added capability, an organization can extend any business processes – such as product registration, to the internet and allow organizations to expand their reach and reduce transaction costs across sales, service and marketing. This accelerator is a foundation piece for delivering portal access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Partner Relationship Management (PRM) (30-Sep-09) – allows businesses to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to distribute sales leads and centrally manage sales opportunities across channel partners. Using the PRM Accelerator, companies can jointly manage sales processes with key businesses partners using a centralized web portal as well as extend this integration to automate additional business processes using custom CRM entities and workflows.
Analytics R3 (31-Oct-09) – This release will focus on some more advanced BI elements such as predictive analytics and PerformancePoint scorecards.
Target Account Selling (TAS) (31-Oct-09) – again, using the same structure as the SPI accelerator this accelerator provides advice and guidance for TAS customers who wish to manage the various TAS solutions through Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Other activities:
October and November will be spent getting more partner and customer feedback around the accelerators. What has provided most value? What needs to be improved? What candidate accelerators would you like to see built?
Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners and customers can look forward to further innovation during the next 12 months! We are committed to this program as a source of continued rapid innovation for our customers and partners. From a roadmap standpoint several of the accelerators will be absorbed into the “V.Next” release and those accelerators that have a proven install-base will be revised to ensure they work with the “V.Next” release.
Kind regards,