Derek Warburton

May 2011

Derek Warburton; TenDigits Vice President, Sales. He is responsible for developing and executing the corporate sales strategy, including growing and managing the sales teams in support of corporate growth plans.

How many years have you been a Dynamics VAR / ISV?
TenDigits has been Dynamics CRM ISV for 7 years. During that time, we’ve been 100% focused on delivering robust mobility solutions for Dynamics CRM. It’s all we do. Many customers and partners have said that we were ahead of the curve as the market demand for Dynamics CRM (and by extension, mobility for CRM) 6 or 7 years ago was not that great. Our R&D and customer experience from those early days, has served us very well though, as our products a now very mature and comprehensive. It’s great that we got in this game early, as it’s allowed us to stay far ahead of the new entrants into the space.

Why should an end user purchase Microsoft Dynamics CRM?
With respect to Dynamics CRM, Microsoft has done a great job with recent versions and especially CRM 2011 to provide a world class CRM offering that is highly adaptable and configurable compared to others, relatively cost effective to implement and maintain, all for a fraction of the cost of similar caliber CRM systems. If that’s not enough, the integration with Outlook is far superior to that of other CRM’s.

What has been your biggest success within Microsoft Dynamics?
The best successes are when we win in tandem with a Dynamics VAR and/or Microsoft. A great example of this is from a little over a year ago. Microsoft and a Dynamics CRM VAR were competing against SalesForce for a 6000 seat CRM deal. Mobility was a key requirement and SalesForce brought in their CEO who told the customer the reason to go with is offering was that the mobility solution for Dynamics CRM was weak. Microsoft and the VAR called TenDigits for help. Within a few days, we illustrated to the senior executives at the customer that the TenDigits Mobile CRM solution was in fact far superior to the SalesForce mobility solution, and a much better fit for their business requirements. This became a key turning point in the sales cycle, causing SalesForce to be quickly ruled out as a potential vendor choice, and leading to a collective a win for Microsoft, the VAR and TenDigits.

What is the biggest competitive advantage you have added to a client?

With HealthSouth http://www.healthsouth.com/ , a multi-billion $ US based healthcare company, their use of Dynamics CRM combined with the TenDigits Mobility solution, has allowed them to re-engineer a critical business process. In the US, healthcare is private (not run by the government), and healthcare companies compete for customers (patients). They had a need to improve the process by which their 1000 Patient Liaisons (effectively sales staff) accessed and updated patient information, to ensure they get referred to the appropriate rehabilitation healthcare facility and doctors. The business process was quite manual, and was costing the company significant money, while at the same time negatively impacting the effectiveness of and efficiency of the referral process, and thereby impacting patient satisfaction, and ultimately revenue. By deploying CRM with TenDigits solution, 1000 Patient Liaisons utilize CRM anywhere, anytime via their smartphones. In doing so, they have greatly improved the ability for real-time patient data access and updating, and reduced the amount of time spent on these activities by tens of thousands of hours per year. They also greatly improved the referral process to ensure the patients are directed to the appropriate resources with greater timeliness and accuracy, improving the quality of healthcare for thousands of patients, and improving patient satisfaction, to support business growth.

How can a client best maximize the value of Microsoft Dynamics CRM?
The Dynamics CRM product is great, but that doesn’t mean a customer will be successful with it. Before deploying, or even buying a Dynamics CRM solution, clients should first consider their business objectives and what they hope to accomplish. In most cases, clients will be much more successful and realize the benefits of CRM if they engage the services of either a VAR that specializes in this field, or a consultant that can help them determine how CRM should be configured and used to best meet their business objectives. One of the keys to success is the product implementation, which includes planning, configuration, training, and tuning CRM with appropriate adjustments over time to reflect changes in the business or processes. I’ve seen too often where a client tries to deploy CRM themselves, or are insistent on using CRM “out of the box” without configuring it to fit with their business objectives or processes. These implementations where customers try to save money on services are not nearly as successful as those that are properly planned and that leverage the skills and experience of Dynamics CRM experts, and ultimately cost the customer much more.

What is the best thing Microsoft has brought to the community?
Microsoft has fostered a tremendous partner ecosystem. This includes high quality ISV’s that provide thousands of best-of-breed complementary products to help clients get the most from their Dynamics investment and better meet their business objectives. Microsoft stays focused on providing the core platform, but doesn’t pretend to be an expert in everything. The ISV’s spend a tremendous amount of money and time researching and developing in their respective fields, bringing to market tremendous products in a highly competitive environment.
The ecosystem also includes thousands of VAR’s that know how to plan for, and implement, Dynamics products effectively to better ensure business success. In many cases, the VAR’s specialize in a specific vertical market, and possess deep expertise in how to adapt the Dynamics product for particular industries.

Whether it is ISV’s or VAR’s, Microsoft’s model of recognizing partners skill, experience and past success, through their certification programs (i.e for ISV’s, “Certified for Microsoft Dynamics” aka CfMD), enables clients to better determine which partners are the most viable for their needs, thus reducing risk and costs.

What are the biggest challenges facing Microsoft Dynamics in the CRM market today?
Microsoft has made great progress with this offering over the past few years, and CRM 2011 creates an exceptional opportunity, with its robust capabilities and attractive pricing, to capture market share previously owned by SalesForce and others.
Microsoft has been able to leverage its customer contacts in IT that work with Microsoft for so many products in the stack. CRM though is often an initiative or decision that spawns from a company’s sales leadership, as opposed to IT.

For many years, SalesForce has sold and marketed to the sales leadership and often perceived as the de facto standard for CRM in by this role. Many Sales VP’s have not even heard of Dynamics CRM, but they all know of SalesForce. If Microsoft can make inroads with the mindshare of the market’s sales leaders, they can create an opportunity to educate them with a compelling value proposition to drive additional business at an accelerated rate.

What is missing from the Microsoft Dynamics Community?
I think for lots of Dynamics users, they don’t know where to go to connect with other customers for learning and networking purposes. I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and now on the Board of Advisors for, CRMUG (Dynamics CRM User Group) www.crmug.com (see also their related entities: GPUG, AXUG, NAVUG). They have a tremendous amount of online resources, seminars, and special interest groups, to help customers maximize their value of their Dynamics investment. Their annual on-site Summit (November 2011 in Las Vegas) is an excellent means to connect and learn with hundreds of Dynamics CRM users. Additionally, they’re helping arrange local on-site User Group meetings in larger centres. The first local CRMUG UK meeting was held on April 1, 2011, and the next is taking shape for June.

Which add-on offers clients the best competitive advantage?

There’s lots of great add-ons.

For Social CRM, I really like InsideView. It’s an “all-in-one” sales intelligence application that delivers insight about millions of companies and people, with real-time news alerts, so salespeople can engage the right prospects at the right time with the right message. They have a free version which is a great way to get started.

I like the suite of pragmatic add-ons provided by PowerObjects, that they call PowerPack. One of these is PowerPhoto, that provides the ability to easily incorporate photographs on your CRM forms. Of course, our TenDigits MobileAccess also allows you to leverage photos within CRM forms on your mobile device. Why should CRM only be text based, when a picture says 1000 words?
I also like their PowerSurvey add-on that allows for the creation and management of surveys right from within Dynamics CRM.

For Marketing Automation, I’m partial to Core Motives. There are lots of products in this space, but this is the best one that I’ve seen. Ties in very nicely with CRM for a comprehensive management and tracking of marketing related activities.

What do you want to see happen with Microsoft Dynamics in the future?
I think they’ve made the right moves and have a great strategy. As long as they continue to execute on their strategy, and invest significantly in timely R&D, I think the product line will remain great, and that it will serve customers and partners very well.