Microsoft "CRM 5.0" - what's planned?

Microsoft Dynamics CRM program manager, Reuben Krippner, has recently announced a Statement of Direction for the next version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

We met with Reuben a couple of weeks ago at Microsoft Worldwide Partner. He and other Microsoft CRM program managers were keeping tight-lipped about what they were planning for the next version of CRM. So we're delighted to see that they are finally able to let us sneak a peek at what they are planning.

The next version of CRM is planned for release late 2009/early 2010, and it's so early in the release planning cycle that Microsoft hasn't even invented a decent codename to the project yet. We've head CRM 5.0 and the Statement of Direction mentions CRM V.Next, but hopefully a snappier codename will emerge soon. (Our bet is that the final product name will be Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2009 - following the recent change in naming convention of AX and NAV releases).

Here's what's planned for CRM 5.0:

1. Better Office integration – particularly Outlook and Office 14
2. Ribbon UI – easy to find features
3. Streamlined UI – less pop-ups and clicks to complete common tasks
4. Improved personalisation – including views
5. SharePoint integration for document management
6. Improved BI – simple data visualisation for everyone
7. Workload management – for users
8. Contact/Account management – hierarchy and relationship visualisation
9. Team-based collaboration – including team selling
10. Call centre and unified communications enhancements
11. Improved knowledge management
12. Extended outbound marketing – including attachments on email templates
13. Recurring activities
14. Data auditing
15. Extended use of Windows Workflow Foundation
16. Reusable and dynamic picklists
17. Streamlined management of multi-tenanted environments
18. Improved virtualisaiton with Server 2008
19. Improved data management and BI with SQL 2008
20. Updated BizTalk adapter

With the exception of email attachments on marketing emails (which we think has the potential to bring all CRM and Exchange platforms to a griding halt), we're very excited about the new features. Please bear in mind though, this is an early statement of intent and features may be dropped, changed or added.

Microsoft announces eight new CRM 4.0 Solution Accelerators

At a Dynamics CRM seminar at WPC on Tuesday, CRM product managers Barry Givens and Reuben Krippner lifted the lid on a range of new CRM solution accelerators for CRM 4.0. And we're excited that Increase CRM has been asked to be the beta test hosting partner for the accelerators.

Here they are

1. Analytics Foundation: includes marketing, sales and service dashboards, user adoption dashboard and a range of scorecards from PerformancePoint
2. Business Productivity: a range of configuration options commonly requested by customers such as auditing, sales processes and common workflow patterns such as incident management
3. Enterprise Search: integration with SharePoint business data catalog to make it easier to search for customer data stored in a CRM database from within your SharePoint portal.
4. Notifications: a range of options for sending notifications and alerts to users via email, Vista gadgets and unified communications
5. Sales Methodologies: built-in support for popular sales methodologies from the TAS Group (Target Account Selling), Sales Performance International (Solution Selling) and Miller Heiman (Strategic Selling)
6. Sales Forecasting: improved features for sales professionals to be able to provide forecasts and for sales managers to get insight into forecast trends and patterns
7. Event Management: extension of campaign management functionality to your website to allow marketing professionals to publish an events calendar online and manage online registrations
8. eService: a customer support portal to allow customers to submit and review cases, search the knowledgebase and more

The great news is that the Solution Accelerators will be released over the next few months and FREE (although there may some fees for the sales methodologies). There's likely to be some configuration or customisation involved to get the accelerators working perfectly in your system, but it's great that Microsoft are working on so many simultaneous improvements to CRM 4.0.

Some news of "CRM 5.0" to come soon...