Microsoft Drives Customer Success With Microsoft Dynamics CRM

REDMOND, Wash., March 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced that Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift Europe BV (MCFE), a leading forklift manufacturer based in the Netherlands, received the Gartner CRM Excellence Award in the category of Efficiency for its customer relationship management (CRM) project. Through this awards program, Gartner Inc. and 1to1 Media recognize companies that are doing an exceptional job at bringing together vision, strategy, customer experience, organizational collaboration, process, IT and metrics to create value for the customer and the enterprise.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

MCFE, a company that manufactures, sells and distributes forklifts and related spare parts, was able to streamline order entry and processing, IT support requests, and dealer communications. This resulted in the company reducing the time for it to customize business applications from 35 to 10 days, saving development costs by 60 percent and improving order processing from five minutes to 90 seconds.

"Businesses need to deliver essential line-of-business applications more quickly and at a lower cost," said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "We are honored that MCFE is recognized by Gartner and 1to1 Media for its project. This implementation is just one example of how our customers are unlocking new value from their existing Microsoft investments and delivering business solutions that are easy to design, easy to manage, and, for their users, easy to use."

In addition to MCFE, a broad range of companies around the world are using xRM, the flexible application development framework of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, to accelerate the development and deployment of high-impact business applications — whether on the premises or in the cloud via Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Customer successes include the following:

• The Arbor Day Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit organization, has designed 15 relationship management applications to organize charitable events, grant management and outreach for fundraising efforts. The foundation estimates that it reduced application development time by 300 percent, enabling more efficient and responsive interaction with partners and sponsors.
• CAPTRUST Financial Advisors, a U.S.-based financial services organization, has used xRM to design more than 20 business applications, including an online fiduciary management tool for its retirement plan sponsors. The company was also able to build a portal for financial advisors twice as fast than with any another development strategy.
• Comag Marketing Group, a U.S.-based marketing firm, has consolidated more than 40 disparate relationship management applications and is planning to consolidate another 80 applications. By standardizing on Microsoft technology, it has drastically reduced the cost of administering all these applications.
• Ensto Ltd., a manufacturer in Finland, has designed several applications, including a supplier relationship management and quality relationship management solution. With xRM, Ensto is able to save $138,000 (U.S.) with each solution it implements.
• Melbourne Business School in Melbourne, Australia, has designed several relationship management applications to manage prospective students, alumni, donors, guest lecturers and other constituents. The school is able to process applications 50 percent faster, for 50 percent less cost.
• The New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development (MED) has developed several relationship management solutions, including a Consumer Affairs Reporting Tool, an Energy Safety Intelligence application and a Grants Information Management System. With the Microsoft Dynamics CRM business management solution already in use, it became clear that it offered a framework that could be extended cost-effectively to develop and deliver other new custom applications at an accelerated pace across other parts of the business.
• The North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety developed alcohol and lottery permit review applications that increased agent productivity by 80 percent and reduced the new application process time from five days to one.
• The Product Release and Security Services (PRSS) team at Microsoft designed product release relationship management solutions that increased product release compliance to 98 percent and accelerated product time to market across the company by up to 94 percent.
• Travel Dynamics International, a leading luxury cruise operator in North America, designed a reservation and booking relationship management system. It has experienced a 400 percent increase in productivity and projects an annual gain in sales volume of 10 percent.
• ValMark Securities Inc., a U.S. financial services firm, developed several custom solutions across several departments, including a policy relationship management solution known internally as the ValMark Back Office Support System (VBOSS). VBOSS has contributed to an 89 percent improvement in customer satisfaction and increased staff productivity.

"We set a time frame of 30 days from start to finish for building and rolling out an xRM application. We comfortably hit that target," said Mike Ashley, IT director, Arbor Day Foundation. "We estimate that it would have taken three months or more to extend our old system in the same way."

"Each client comes to us with a unique set of business problems and challenges to solve," said Mark Barrett, managing partner at Ascentium Corp. "With xRM, we're able to create specialized applications in as little as a day as opposed to months. We're able to help our clients achieve their business goals quickly and increase our value as a partner to their business."

Examples of how customers are benefiting from using Microsoft Dynamics CRM in new ways demonstrate Microsoft's promise of the Dynamic Business, a vision for helping companies realize their full potential through the strategic use of flexible business applications that remain relevant as their business needs evolve.

More information about how customers are saving time and money while driving successful relationships with Microsoft Dynamics CRM through xRM usage can be found at http://crm.dynamics.com.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.