REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 20, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) today announced that Burns & McDonnell, a full-service engineering, architecture, construction, environmental and consulting services firm, has chosen Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 over Salesforce.com and Oracle Fusion CRM for a 1,600-seat CRM deployment. The ease of use of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 was the company’s deciding factor in choosing it over competitive CRM solutions. Burns & McDonnell expects implementation of the solution, which is slated to begin this spring, will help increase employee productivity and improve client sales and service.
“Our company has doubled in size in the past five years, and we needed a new CRM solution to support our growth,” said Kris Paper, director of information technology for Burns & McDonnell. “The ease of use, flexibility and ability to integrate the client experience across all our global practices that Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides will help us meet our business requirements and maximize our client relationships as we continue to grow.”
User adoption was a critical consideration in the company’s CRM solution selection process. “The Microsoft Dynamics CRM user interface was the reason we chose it over the Salesforce.com and Oracle CRM solutions,” Paper said. “The fact that it looks like Microsoft Outlook and you can use it within Outlook was a really big deal to us. It will allow us to achieve rapid user adoption with minimal training, and better adoption of CRM will lead to a better sales experience for our clients.”
“The feedback from our employees who were on the evaluation team has been phenomenal,” Paper added. “They see the value and really feel we’ve looked out for their best interests. In fact, many of our salespeople want to begin reaping the benefits as soon as possible and have asked to be early adopters — that never happens.”
One of the reasons employees are so motivated to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM is because they will be able to easily see an integrated, 360-degree view of a customer across Burns & McDonnell’s 11 global practices. This will help them better take advantage of sales opportunities.
“Microsoft Dynamics CRM fits with our IT strategy of unlocking the value of data,” Paper said. “It will be much easier for teams in different locations and global practices to access, use and share information so everyone can see all the activities related to a client’s experience.”
By providing CRM functionality as a natural extension of Burns & McDonnell’s Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 messaging and collaboration framework, employees will be able to work more efficiently and collaborate more effectively. Business development managers and project managers will be able to oversee key events, project pursuits and customer interactions from a single application using a familiar interface.
“Microsoft Dynamics CRM will help us facilitate our culture of employee ownership,” Paper said. “Our goal is to get everyone to enter information about their opportunities all the time so we can provide the best possible client experience. The ease of use of Microsoft Dynamics CRM should help us get closer to achieving that utopia state.”
More information about customers that have chosen Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be found at http://www.DontGetForced.com. More information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be found at http://crm.dynamics.com. Those who want to follow and engage with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM community can do so at @MSDynamicsCRM, using #MSDYNCRM.
About Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP solutions empower your people to be more productive and your systems to last longer and scale as your business grows, while enabling you to derive the insights necessary to respond quickly in an ever-changing world of business.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.