Executive Summary
- This is the Brightwork Research & Analysis software rating series.
- We rate both the software and estimate the risk of implementing each application.
MUFI Rating & Risk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
MUFI: Maintainability, Usability, Functionality, Implement ability
Vendor: Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Select For Vendor Profile)
Introduction
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is another one of the prominent attempts by Microsoft to grow into the enterprise software space. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has a higher than average buyer satisfaction level. An objective analysis of the applications makes it difficult to see why.
Application Detail
Back in the Siebel days when CRM implementations were crashing and burning with regularity, there were two common key observations that CRM consultants took from these projects. First, salespeople don’t like using CRM systems, and second, because of this first fact, CRM systems must be super user-friendly even to have a hope of being adopted. Unfortunately, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the lowest rated CRM system that we cover regarding usability. Microsoft Dynamics CRM also lags other CRM applications regarding basic CRM functionality. As Microsoft Dynamics CRM is not a competitive solution, companies that merely have a preference for Microsoft products most often will be the target market for the application. One advantage of Microsoft Dynamics CRM is it has, naturally, integrations with Outlook and SharePoint.
But even in what supposed to be the main strength of Microsoft Dynamics CRM turns out to be bug ridden. In fact, overall the software has a preponderance of bugs interfere with getting tasks accomplished. It is exceptionally well demonstrated at this point that salespeople have a low tolerance for systems that take up a lot of their time to use – and this has a serious impact on both implement-ability, as well as that quality of information that can be expected from the application.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM has lived off of its integration to other Microsoft products and the fact its account managers can pitch the product to most Microsoft accounts. However, as usual, Microsoft has a lagging product and is only capable of very incremental improvements as Microsoft is a marketing company that leverages pre-existing investments made by companies in their software to sell more software rather than an innovator. In one of the most rapidly growing categories of enterprise software, where the footprint is constantly expanding, Microsoft Dynamics CRM easily appears to be a convenience or short-signed investment. Of course, this also means dealing with the Microsoft “monster” while accessing an application with limited upside. Buyers would be wise to steer clear of Microsoft Dynamics CRM
MUFI Scores
All scores out of a possible 10.
MUFI Scores
- Ma. = Maintainability
- Us. = Usability
- Fu. = Functionality
- Im. = Implementability
App | Ma. | Us. | Ft. | Im. | Cat. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Average Score for Big ERP | 5.1 | 4.8 | 5.2 | 5.4 | Big ERP |
Average Score for CRM | 6.2 | 6.2 | 5.1 | 5.9 | CRM |
Average Score for Small and Medium ERP | 8.3 | 8 | 6.7 | 8.5 | Small and Medium ERP |
Average Score for Finance | 8.8 | 8.8 | 8 | 8.8 | Finance |
Average Score for Demand Planning | 7.6 | 7.2 | 7 | 7.1 | Demand Planning |
Average Score for Supply Planning | 6.7 | 6.9 | 7 | 6.8 | Supply Planning |
Average Score for Production Planning | 6.8 | 6.9 | 7 | 6.9 | Production Planning |
Average Score for BI Heavy | 5.5 | 5.3 | 6.9 | 5.3 | BI Heavy |
Average Score for PLM | 7 | 7.2 | 6.8 | 7.3 | PLM |
Average Score for BI Light | 7.7 | 8.7 | 9 | 8.3 | BI Light |
Arena Solutions Arena PLM | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | PLM |
AspenTech AspenOne | 4 | 8 | 10 | 7 | Production Planning |
Birst | 8 | 8.5 | 10 | 8 | BI Light |
ERPNext | 10 | 10 | 7.5 | 10 | Small and Medium ERP |
Delfoi Planner | 8 | 6 | 6.5 | 7 | Production Planning |
Demand Works Smoothie SP | 9 | 10 | 7 | 10 | Supply Planning |
Hamilton Grant RM | 10 | 9 | 8.5 | 9 | PLM |
IBM Cognos | 2.7 | 3 | 1.5 | 3 | BI Heavy |
Infor Epiphany | 7 | 8 | 6 | 5 | CRM |
Infor Lawson | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | Big ERP |
Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions | 9 | 9 | 5 | 9 | Finance |
JDA DM | 9 | 7.5 | 8 | 8 | Demand Planning |
Microsoft Dynamics CRM | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | CRM |
NetSuite CRM | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | CRM |
Netsuite OneWorld | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 | Big ERP |
OpenERP | 7 | 8 | 8.5 | 8 | 7 |
Oracle BI | 4 | 4 | 3 | 6 | BI Heavy |
Oracle CRM On Demand | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | CRM |
Oracle Demantra | 5 | 3 | 3.5 | 4.5 | Demand Planning |
Oracle JD Edwards World | 4 | 1 | 3 | 6 | Big ERP |
Oracle RightNow | 6 | 7 | 4 | 5 | CRM |
PlanetTogether Galaxy APS | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Production Planning |
Preactor | 8 | 7 | 3 | 7 | Production Planning |
QlikTech QlikView | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | BI Light |
Rootstock | 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 | Small and Medium ERP |
Sage X3 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 8 | Big ERP |
Salesforce Enterprise | 8 | 8.5 | 9 | 7.5 | CRM |
SAP APO DP | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Demand Planning |
SAP APO PP/DS | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | Production Planning |
SAP APO SNP | 3 | 4 | 8 | 4 | Supply Planning |
SAP BI/BW | 1.5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | BI Heavy |
SAP Business Objects | 3 | 2.5 | 7 | 3 | BI Heavy |
SAP CRM | 4 | 3 | 6 | 4 | CRM |
SAP ECC | 3 | 3 | 6.5 | 3 | Big ERP |
SAP PLM | 1 | 2.5 | 2 | 3 | PLM |
SAP SmartOps | 4 | 4 | 7 | 5.5 | Supply Planning |
SAS BI | 6.5 | 7 | 9 | 6 | BI Heavy |
SAS Demand Driven Forecasting | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7 | Demand Planning |
Tableau (BI) | 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 | BI Light |
Tableau (Forecasting) | 10 | 8 | 5 | 9 | Demand Planning |
Teradata | 8 | 6.3 | 9.7 | 6 | BI Heavy |
ToolsGroup SO99 (Forecasting) | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7 | Demand Planning |
ToolsGroup SO99 (Supply) | 5 | 6 | 10 | 7 | Supply Planning |
Vendor and Application Risk
The number one risk on Microsoft Dynamics CRM projects is the problematic information provided by Microsoft itself on what its software can do. This means that as is normally the case with such overpromising, a component of the project implementation must be allocated to unwinding these promises – a highly inefficient endeavor. Microsoft CRM is often chosen when IT essentially has much of the decision-making authority in a buyer, and the business tends to be shut out of the process. This makes for a very high likelihood of a problematic implementation and buyers that made such a “convenient” decision will pay the price with the most difficult to implement CRM system of any that we cover.
Likelihood of Implementation Success
This accounts for both the application and vendor-specific risk. In our formula, the total implementation risk is application + vendor + buyer risk. The buyer specific risk could increase or decrease this overall likelihood and adjust the values that you see below.
Likelihood of Application Implementation Success and Failure
Search for the application in this table using the search bar in the upper right of the table.
Application | Prob of Implementation Success | Prob of Implementation Failure |
---|---|---|
Actuate | 0.77 | 0.23 |
SAP Smartops | 0.39 | 0.61 |
NetSuite CRM | 0.46 | 0.54 |
Sugar CRM | 0.62 | 0.48 |
Base CRM | 0.91 | 0.09 |
SAP CRM | 0.35 | 0.65 |
Salesforce Enterprise | 0.72 | 0.28 |
QlikTech QlikView | 0.82 | 0.18 |
Tableau (BI) | 0.98 | 0.02 |
SAP Crystal Reports | 0.46 | 0.54 |
Brist | 0.83 | 0.17 |
MicroStrategy | 0.7 | 0.3 |
SAS BI | 0.76 | 0.24 |
Oracle BI | 0.35 | 0.65 |
IBM Cognos | 0.23 | 0.77 |
Infor Epiphany | 0.58 | 0.42 |
Microsoft Dynamics CRM | 0.26 | 0.74 |
Oracle RightNow CRM | 0.41 | 0.59 |
Oracle CRM On Demand | 0.36 | 0.64 |
Teradata | 0.76 | 0.24 |
SAP Business Objects | 0.32 | 0.68 |
SAP BI/BW | 0.25 | 0.75 |
SAP PLM | 0.29 | 0.71 |
Hamilton Grant RM | 0.89 | 0.11 |
Arena Solutions | 0.96 | 0.04 |
Delfoi Planner | 0.7 | 0.3 |
Preactor | 0.64 | 0.36 |
PlanetTogether Galaxy APS | 0.96 | 0.04 |
AspenTech AspenOne | 0.55 | 0.45 |
SAP APO PP/DS | 0.27 | 0.73 |
Demand Works Smoothie SP | 0.93 | 0.07 |
ToolsGroup SO99 (Supply) | 0.82 | 0.18 |
Demand Works Smoothie | 0.96 | 0.04 |
Tableau (Forecasting) | 0.9 | 0.1 |
SAS Demand Driven Forecasting | 0.82 | 0.18 |
ToolsGroup SO99 (Forecasting) | 0.86 | 0.14 |
JDA DM | 0.57 | 0.43 |
Oracle Demantra | 0.33 | 0.67 |
SAP APO DP | 0.28 | 0.72 |
FinancialForce | 0.92 | 0.08 |
Intacct | 0.98 | 0.02 |
Intuit QB Enterprise | 0.8 | 0.2 |
ERPNext | 0.9 | 0.1 |
OpenERP | 0.78 | 0.22 |
Rootstock | 0.91 | 0.09 |
ProcessPro | 0.93 | 0.07 |
Microsoft Dynamics AX | 0.4 | 0.6 |
SAP Business One | 0.49 | 0.51 |
Sage X3 | 0.62 | 0.38 |
Infor Lawson | 0.58 | 0.42 |
Epicor ERP | 0.4 | 0.6 |
Oracle JD Edwards World | 0.31 | 0.69 |
Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne | 0.36 | 0.64 |
SAP ERP ECC/R/3 | 0.32 | 0.68 |
NetSuite OneWorld | 0.65 | 0.35 |
Risk Definition
See this link for more on our categorizations of risk. We also offer a Buyer Specific Risk Estimation as a service for those that want a comprehensive analysis.
Risk Management Approach
Managing the risk of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation is about lowering expectations. A common approach is for the IT department to begin blaming the business users early and often for what are entirely application failures. We don’t recommend following this strategy as it might be good for IT, but it does nothing for the implementation success level. There are always significant user adoption issues with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which means preparing for this, which means it is necessary to provide the highest allocation of consulting effort in the CRM space. This is a factor we have adjusted for in our TCO Calculator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Finished With Your Analysis?
To go back to the Software Selection Package page for the CRM software category. Or go to this link to see other analytical products for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.