Salesforce vs. Microsoft Dynamics: Making the Right Choice

According to Gartner’s Market Share Analysis, with a market share of 19.7%, Salesforce Sales Cloud is the leading CRM. With a goal to raise its share in the CRM market, Microsoft has purchased LinkedIn recently and is aiming to strengthen its position. Microsoft has great plans to make its Dynamics CRM the next big thing leveraging LinkedIn data. This acquisition, in Nadella’s words, “is key to [Microsoft’s] bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes.”

Amidst the skepticism that still surrounds this deal, there are businesses planning to invest in a CRM and trying to figure out what will be a better choice. In this post, we have listed the strengths and limitations of both the CRMs. Let us take a look:

Salesforce

What’s better than an automated and streamlined business process? Salesforce offers a free trial so that businesses can try and get a feel of the platform before making the purchase. The company has brought a revolution in the market and has been serving its clients since 1999.

Strengths

Salesforce is designed to link you with your prospects in a meaningful fashion. It helps you manage your business and establish a 1-on-1 connection with customers, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

• Cloud-based Design: With all products running completely in the cloud, Salesforce helps in minimizing a company’s resources on the ground. Moreover, users can work from any location using any device with compatibility on diverse operating systems like Apple OSX, Windows, and Linux.
• Complete CRM Package: With a diverse range of products including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Community Cloud, Analytics Cloud and more, it is a broad CRM package that aims at accelerating productivity and enhancing user experience.
• Salesforce Trailhead: With a free learning tool like Trailhead, everyone can easily learn Salesforce by accessing its modules without paying even a single penny.
• Easy-to-use Solution: With a friendly user interface that is simple to manage for new users, Salesforce is an easy-to-use solution for businesses.
• Salesforce1 Mobile App: With Salesforce1 mobile app, users can manage work through their phone. Besides, they can take action from anywhere and run their business efficiently.

Limitations

However, Salesforce does have its limitations as well

• Expensive CRM: The cost of Salesforce products and monthly maintenance is high especially for small businesses. As Salesforce charges for its package depending upon the number of users and not on a per business basis, it becomes difficult for companies to purchase licenses for every user. For example, a licensed user pays $125 to Salesforce every month. If there are 4 employees in a business that need to access Salesforce, the company will have to pay $500 a month.
• No On-premise Solutions: If you require an on-premise solution, Salesforce is not an option for you as it provides cloud solutions only.

Microsoft Dynamics

Similar to Salesforce, MS Dynamics also automates business processes and enables companies to nurture customer relationships. By providing both, an on-premise and a cloud solution, it enables organizations to sell smarter by providing social insights and business intelligence.

Strengths

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed to support companies in driving organizational efficiency with improved marketing and sales strategies. It helps you personalize your customer experience by engaging your customers in the right place and at the right time.

• Simple User Interface: With a simple user interface that is easy to learn and work with, MS Dynamics is preferred by most new users. With easy navigation, it has a reliable interface that makes it a top-notch CRM.
• Efficient Support: Due to its fast turnaround time, Microsoft support is considered to be the most efficient and well-organized support.
• Hybrid Strategy: With cloud-based and on-premise CRM editions offered as per customers’ needs, Microsoft Dynamics allows you to implement a hybrid combination for ideal performance and security.
• Data Visualization: With the ability to create custom dashboards on any combination of fields, Microsoft Dynamics promotes data visualization by providing personalized insights to users.
• Highly Compatible: Another advantage of using Microsoft Dynamics CRM is that being a Microsoft product, it is directly compatible with other MS Office products like Outlook, Active Directory, Office 365 etc.
• Low Subscription Rates: With a blend of remarkable features offered at low subscription prices as compared to other CRM tools, Dynamics is considered an affordable value proposition.

Limitations

Here are some challenges that you might face while using Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

• High Dependency: With huge dependency on Microsoft products like Outlook, the performance of Dynamics CRM might get affected if you use solutions other than those by Microsoft.
• Sophisticated Offering: In SME’s, the sales process is usually not well defined and slick as required by Dynamics to work well. So businesses need to create predefined set of processes before executing Dynamics.

Summing it up

Both Dynamics and Salesforce, along with their own sets of pros and cons, are scalable platforms that allow you to enhance your relationships with customers. Based on the business systems that you are using and the features that you need, you can choose either CRM keeping your budget in mind.

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