xRM: The Future of CRM

The scope of Customer Relationship Management is expanding into managing a variety of relationships other than direct customers. Organizations are realizing that to be effective at CRM, they have to be effective at xRM or Extended Relationship Management, also known as Any Relationship Management. And Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the engine for delivering xRM.

Following points were discussed:

• What is xRM? 
• Understanding xRM as a Platform 
• Customizable xRM Components 
• Benefits of xRM Framework 
• xRM vs. Custom Development 
• Verticals Solutions from Microsoft Lab 
• A Real Life Case Study where Cygnet Infotech helped a leading Distributor cuts his costs by simplifying order management using the Dynamics CRM/xRM solution. 

Audience 
CIO, CTO, Director of IT and Engineering, CEO, VP-Technology, IT Manager, Project Manager, Tech Lead, CRM Developers, CRM Architects, CRM Consultants, CRM Administrators, CRM Support, Operations Engineer, Legacy application owners who wants to turn their business to CRM, Business owners who want to extent capabilities of CRM or looking to integrate CRM with 3^rd Party Application, Existing Microsoft Dynamics users.

Any development related webinar planned?

Yes, We are planning to have some more development related Webinars in the near future.

Is there any case study gives info on using all modules of CRM ?  Well, precisely speaking I'm developing with CRM but don't know the power of all modules CRM is offering?

CRM includes the following modules:

Sales Module: Provides users with the tools to successfully manage every stage of sales process. Microsoft CRM facilitates task and appointment setting through to lead tracking and analysis.

• Manage contacts and accounts
• Promote leads to opportunities
• Manage sales pipelines

Service Module: Acts as a central repository for all client information and enquiries. Microsoft CRM enables customer service representatives to provide a more consistent service supporting customer retention.

• Use information within the knowledge base to answer frequently asked questions
• Assign cases to individuals or teams

Marketing Module:  Facilitates every aspect of campaign management and mass communications. Microsoft CRM supports everything from the initial planning stages through to measurement of success.

• Generate and send communications
• Manage workflow

When the new version is planned?

Current release of Microsoft CRM is codenamed "Polaris". In near future an updated rollup of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is expected to be released. 

Does xRM Support online releases?

xRM is a Framework and is not limited or specific to support only online or on-premise CRM. It supports and extends any version of CRM.

Is xRM specific to sales only? or service as well?

xRM is a Framework and it supports development of objects of your entities (including entities in sales,service and marketing modules)  based on online or on-premise CRM.  It has a capability to extend objects (entities) and its relationship, workflows, pluging activities, etc.

How friendly is the search functionality? do we have a facility to search different entities at a single place?

CRM has a facility to search different entities at a single place using "Advanced Find" function. The Advanced Find function is a quick and powerful tool to help you find the specific results you are looking for in your CRM Database. Advanced Find feature has been given a much more prominent place in the top ribbon view. The user select One or more associate entities and define Filter criteria to acheive the objective/results