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Chapter 12 • Customer Relationship Management 345

Microsoft Dynamics customers. The marketplace enables customers to quickly search, discover,
and apply industry-specific applications and solution extensions from Microsoft and its partners
to help them accelerate and extend their CRM and ERP implementations.
“We are excited to get the new release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The new features will
give us even more power and flexibility to create and easily customize CRM solutions to meet
the unique business needs of our customers and help them be more productive,” said Jason Hunt,
Avanade CRM and xRM evangelist. “We are also looking forward to the introduction of
Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, as it opens up new opportunities that will enable us to expand
our reach and get our CRM solutions out to a broader, global audience.” 13

CRM LIFE CYCLE
As mentioned earlier, a customer relationship management system life cycle involves focus on
people, procedures, company philosophy, and culture, rather than just information technology
(see Figure 12-4). Up-front planning can minimize costly process and technology changes. The
first step is to adequately outline the corporate CRM goals and the practical process changes that
have to occur before focusing on possible technology solutions. It helps to identify a baseline and
to understand how core processes are currently accomplished, the key people who are involved,
and how the information is currently handled. Identify inefficiencies and areas of opportunity.
A CRM program should ultimately be integrated into the company’s philosophy and brand.
Functional requirements must be considered before making a decision on the architecture.
These are extremely important pieces in implementing a CRM system. Functional requirements
are the set of requirements defined by the key stakeholders of the CRM implementation. A func-
tional requirements document should be created and reviewed by all key project stakeholders to
determine if all the essential processing and functionalities are present during the implementation.
Success or failure of the implementation is directly related to a thorough functional requirements

Leadership

Company
People + Procedures + Philosophy + Goals

CRM Technology

Customer
FIGURE 12-4 CRM Life Cycle.

13 Microsoft Demonstrates Next-Generation CRM Release at Worldwide Partner Conference; Upcoming release delivers
“The Power of Productivity” for businesses and introduces the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace for on-demand and on-
premises solutions. (July 12, 2010). Anonymous. PR Newswire. New York.