More ISVs Building on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platform to Offer Specialized XRM Solutions for Vertical Markets
PUBLISHED: February 3, 2010
The trend by ISVs to come up with new XRM product releases based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM continues to expand. Here are two new examples.
FRM Solutions is a new software application developed to meet franchisors’ business needs for franchise sales, marketing and advertising, real estate and store development, franchisee administration, and compliance tracking.
Built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, FRM Solutions is a complete franchise relationship management application that can be customized based on the specific needs of each franchisor, according to Paul Marnell, Managing Partner, FRM Solutions. FRM Solutions was founded by Red Clay Consulting, which has completed 60 to 70 successful CRM deployments over the past 10 years, he said.
“We started to find ourselves developing a small list of clients that were franchises so we decided to develop a vertical-specific solution build in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Sharepoint specifically for franchises,” he said.
The company took this approach for two reasons, he noted.
“Almost 12 months to the day the mantra at Microsoft’s Convergence Conference in New Orleans was XRM and for partners to take vertical approaches to Dynamics CRM and become vertical experts,” he said. “So we took that advice to heart and began developing this solution.”
Additionally, Marnell said because the company is located in Atlanta, Georgia, a major metropolitan area, it wasn’t the only Microsoft partner in town, nor did it have a large marketing budget to target everyone nationally.
“So that made our decision to target a specific vertical market even easier because we have a tight market to sell to and easy access to that market (the franchises),” he said. “And we decided we needed a new brand company to support the XRM solution so we could showcase our industry expertise. We called the company FRM soltuions, which is a pretty clear play on the CRM term.”
R “Ray” Wang, a partner at analyst firm Altimeter Group said although there have been specialized applications like partner relationship management products from large vendors like Oracle and Salesforce, these microvertical applications like the one from FRM Solutions are applications that vendors have been custom building in the past.
“There is an extension of looking at relationship management. You can stick anything in front of the X, so vendor, supplier, stakeholder, even employees. These are all areas that are natural extensions for the types of technology that are being provided,” Wang said. “What Microsoft is doing is realizing that because of its business model and because its partners do a lot of the selling and outreach to the customers and they build and develop on top of that, they’re starting to see [these vertical solutions] popping up. Wealth management, legal matters and citizen management are [vertical markets] popping up under this broader category of XRM. So definitely these are things that are going to emerge as people take advantage of the relationship aspects of these tools.”
A second recent introduction comes from Canadian firm, Pareto Systems, which is a vendor that’s teaming up with Microsoft to create a client relationship management system for the wealth management sector, set to be rolled out in March.
Duncan MacPherson, Pareto’s Co-CEO, said by integrating its platform within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM it will be able to offer financial advisors an all-encompassing, functional, stable and secure dashboard.
“We looked at it this way, if Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the Camry why don’t we use that as the chassis, add in all of our functionality and turn the Camry into a Lexus,” he said. “And that’s what we’re in the process of doing.
Julie Yack, leader of the XRM Virtual User Group and COO of Colorado Technology Consultants Inc. said the trend of ISVs building on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform to offer specialized XRM solutions for vertical markets is one that will continue.
“That’s what I’m seeing because the time to market from concept to implementation with XRM is so much faster because so much of the foundation is already in place for you,” she said. “So you just have to take the components that you need, customize them to what you need and you’re good to go. It’s really fast. And when people are crunched for money as they seem to be these days, time to market is a huge, huge benefit.”
Yack added, “I know a couple instances that my firm is working on of broad-reaching XRM-type applications where they’ll be selling the subscription service, which will include CRM plus the XRM component.”
Article from http://msdynamicsworld.com