Like last quarter the results weren’t all that great but Microsoft Dynamics CRM is again one of the products that’s continuing to see growth.

On the webcast Chris Liddell, Microsoft’s Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer said “In the quarter we continued to see strong demand for our SharePoint, Office Communications Server, and CRM products which all grew more than 20%.”

Microsoft’s Investor Relations page is at http://www.microsoft.com/msft/default.mspx

I came across this PC World article with some performance results and Steve Ballmer quotes. 

Of the few things noted as a bright spot, one of them was Microsoft Dynamics CRM which saw double-digit growth last quarter. http://www.pcworld.com/article/158156/ballmer_provides_grim_outlook_as_economy_resets.html

 ”Among the bright spots for Microsoft in an overall disappointing quarter were double-digit growth in revenue from its Office SharePoint and Communications Server products, as well as its Microsoft CRM (customer relationship management) enterprise software.”

Why would CRM be experiencing such growth during a time when consumers and companies are cutting way back on spending? Probably because companies are having to do more with less. If people and businesses are spending less, companies are faced with doing a better job of finding the few buyers who are spending money. And most companies can’t afford to lose too many existing customers so they need to do a better job of retaining them and finding new revenue opportunities. And many companies must do all of this with fewer employees or without adding any new employees.

I’m starting to see a shift in what companies are planning to use CRM for. In 2006 and 2007 most companies I’d worked with wanted to deploy CRM to manage and analyze customer data better and give the sales team tools to sell more. They also mentioned better productivity and efficiency but data and sales were the top priorities. Around mid-2008 the conversations seemed to shift more toward efficiency.

• How can we minimize redundant and manual processes?
• How can we provide customers with self-service capabilities?
• How can we automate tasks such as new customer “welcome” emails?
• How can we more quickly capture, respond to, and qualify leads?

A thinning of the business herd is already happening. Buyers are more sensitive than ever to price and service. Companies that can see trends and adjust to optimize the customer experience will be in a better position to survive the current conditions and thrive when conditions improve. Companies that continue with dysfunctional processes and poor customer experience will face major hurdles.

More companies now seem to be looking toward CRM as strategic business tool rather than costly tactical software. And this is probably one reason CRM has moved up higher on the priority list for many companies and become a bright spot in this economy.

CIO Magazine interviewed Chris Caren the general manager of product management and marketing for Microsoft’s Dynamics line of ERP and CRM products.

With Dynamics, Microsoft’s ERP and CRM Business Apps Go Head-to-Head with Oracle and SAP

It’s an interesting read. Microsoft is really going after a sore sport with other business applications – user adoption.

“The core approach to our product strategy is to overcome the inflexibility and the ease-of-use issues that have limited adoption of business applications, and for us that means really blurring the lines between what a business application is and what the world of Microsoft Office is.”

Microsoft is tackling a major cause of user adoption problems. Ease-of-use. Essentially, if it’s too difficult to use and makes employees less productive they will be reluctant to use it. So would employees be more comfortable using CRM or ERP as part of something they’re already familiar with such as Microsoft Office? Or having to learn and use a completely unfamiliar separate application?

One of the other major causes of CRM user adoption problems is (lack of) implementation methodology. I’ll cover that topic soon.