Every CRM market study agrees: the market for CRM has increased dramatically over the past several years. It wasn’t long ago that Gartner predicted a CRM market worth over $40 billion by 2021.
That’s a bold claim, and not everyone is a bullish. But even if the reality falls short of the GVR prediction, there’s no denying how lucrative the CRM market is right now. CRM market growth has been steady year – in and year – out, and we don’t seem to have found the ceiling just yet.
All right. We have seen numerous comparison article like this about these two giants in CRM world. But why does it even matter for most businesses to understand the gravity of competition between all these big names in CRM market. CRM is certainly a lot more affordable than it was ten years ago, but it’s still a sizeable investment. You still need to make sure you find a system that will generate a maximum ROI for your business. That’s why.
We have seen many articles stating that even though you have no idea what CRM is, but at least you might have heard the name of Salesforce before. That is logical, because Salesforce may have leg up on Dynamics 365 when it comes to market share, the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation has concluded that Dynamics 365 for Sales is ‘the best bet’ when it comes to CRM but yet still Salesforce holds a 25% of the CRM market share globally.
How did they come to this conclusion? Gartner’s report identify a number of quadrant that distinguish advantages of each software. They are a leading independent research firm, recognised by global brands for a thorough analytical research on respective field of brand study.
Reasons Why Dynamics 365 is Better Than Salesforce
Well, truth is there is no such thing that one can ruled another software. We might have read this all over the internet about their bias comparison by some articles. Usually, their using a generic angle such as price, user experience, flexibility, structures, capabilities, etc. In a way, those variables are true and valid ground point to be used when comparing two alternatives. However, Gartner scientifically done a much deeper meaningful study when comparing global CRM players. Not only they are focusing on above generic variables, but also they are using eminent view from strategic planning assumption.
They are estimating that by 2022, 30% of large enterprises will have moved to a platform- and product – centric approach with standardised ERP capabilities at the platform core. Nonetheless, through 2025, 40% of ERP implementations will underachieve as a result of underinvestment in integration.
Product – centric Cloud ERP
A product – centric cloud ERP suite must provide, as a minimum, operational ERP and financial management functionality. Optionally, partners may offer other administrative ERP capabilities, either directly or through industry vertical packages with partners.
Let’s see the primary definition of product – centric cloud ERP suite as a set of loosely coupled products:
- • Operational ERP – Supply chain and manufacturing – related functionality such as demand management, order management, material requirements planning (MRP), inventory management, supply chain / direct procurement, manufacturing control capabilities, and distribution / logistics.
- • Financial management functionality
- • Purchasing focused on indirect goods, services, and capital equipment.
- • CM – for cost management as well as staffing for operational resources.
- • Specialised, industry – specific modules or applications including, but not limited to, modules such as configure – to – order (CTO) or make – to – order (MTO) and field service management (FSM).
Comparisons Between Dynamics 365 and Salesforce
This article covers product – centric CRM offered in cloud service application deployment. Full list of attributes for definition of ‘Cloud Service’ is in the profiling area below. To meet the criteria, the application software must be delivered and managed remotely based on a single set of common code and data definitions, consumed in such a way that all customers / users use the same basic application offered by the service provider.
Strengths and Cautions
Salesforce
Salesforce.com, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management service and also sells a complementary suite of enterprise applications focused on customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development.
Strengths:
- • Salesforce has the highest – rated vendor across several categories, such as vision for product sales strategy for product – centric enterprises, and geographic strategy. It also scored highly for execution of initial Cloud CRM product delivery, overall viability, and market responsiveness and record.
- • Salesforce has shown success in providing operational cloud CRM applications augmented with advanced technology. It’s order to cash capabilities rate highly compared to other vendors in this Magic Quadrant.
- • Salesforce reference customer scores were among the highest for quality of technical support, integration technology and deployment. It’s customer base in large and global product – centric enterprises in the cloud is higher than most other evaluated vendors.
Cautions:
- • Customers express concern that some supply chain and complex manufacturing features for certain industries are not yet as robust as comparable Microsoft features. Customers must build extensions or integrate third – party apps to fulfil remaining functional gaps
- • Reference customers reported occasional issues with new features and still – maturing functions, particularly in reporting feature and sales / supply chain for complex enterprises.
- • Salesforce can requires heavy customisation to generate value. For smaller or more complex operations, it remains a huge barrier to their ROI.
Microsoft
Established in 1975, Microsoft is a global technology vendor with headquarters in Redmond, Washington, U.S. Microsoft Dynamics 365 contains a comprehensive cloud ERP suite targeted at midsize to large global enterprises. Microsoft built Dynamics 365 on the Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform. It is appropriate for a wide range of industries, but its primary product-centric target sectors are consumer goods, retail and manufacturing (process, lean and discrete). Microsoft sells Dynamics 365 primarily through partners, and direct sales, with direct sales primarily in the enterprise.
Strength:
- • Dynamics 365 receives one of the highest overall customer satisfaction scores from reference customers for the foundational product and Azure platform. The product makes innovative use of analytics with embedded Power BI and real – time, in – memory, multidimensional analytical capabilities. Native integration with Power Apps facilitates citizen app and integration development capabilities.
- • Reference customers cited Microsoft’s own product teams as strong partners whenever the main delivery partner could not deliver on the vision. Many customers reference FastTrack as a useful lever during the implementation phase.
- • Microsoft is cited by customers as focused in value functionality and continuous functional innovation significantly more than technical architecture.
Cautions:
- • Functional gaps still exist when looking at larger and complex enterprise scenarios. It remains complex to enhance or extend.
- • Customers report difficulty keeping up with the pace of change, as Microsoft transitions to a more frequent update strategy for both application and platform changes.
- • Although adoption rate is increasing by average 42%, it puts pressure on Microsoft ecosystem skills and scarce implementation knowledge among partners.
Long – Term Visions
The most important reason to bet on Dynamics 365 vs Salesforce is their long term vision for their products.
Salesforce is an excellent piece of software, but Microsoft offers a powerfully integrated suite of software solutions.
And that suite is constantly growing (as stated earlier in Microsoft Cautions section), Microsoft still involved in high – profile acquisition such as Skype in 2011, Linkedin in 2016, and GitHub in 2018. Those acquisitions alone cost Microsoft $44.1 Billion Dollar worth of investment.
Hence, Microsoft has demonstrated a consistent willingness to invest in improving and expanding Dynamics 365 itself. Gartner also put a note regarding their analytics and dashboard capabilities (as mentioned in Strength section), that Power BI has significantly elevate this particular feature to the top range capability. They used to be very clunky in terms of UI, but now their interface is one of the sleekest on the market aside Salesforce UI.
Leader in Digital Experience
Gartner and Forrester names Salesforce as leader in Digital Experience Platform. Although, DXP platform can be integrated with pretty much any external database, but what really sets Salesforce apart - and where customers see the most value – is in the full power of their single platform. Community Cloud is their digital experience platform; however, because it is powered by the entire Salesforce 360, they are able to bring in the power of their entire platform including Commerce Cloud, Einstein, Marketing Cloud, MuleSoft, Pardot and more.
Community Cloud is the center of Salesforce’s Digital Experience Platform, enabling brands such as Barclays, Lamborghini and more to build beautiful, CRM – powered digital experiences – fast. They always listening to, learning from, and working with customers to evolve their products. They expect the use of AI to continue to increase, better – improving productivity, and relevance.
Deciding Between Dynamics 365 vs Salesforce
Betting against Microsoft vision for Dynamics 365 and Salesforce Digital Experience seems silly, but that doesn’t mean Dynamics 365 is right for your business. Salesforce does boast several legitimate advantages over Dynamics 365, and for organisations that can absorb the extra costs, those advantages can be absolutely worth it.
But for most small and medium – sized businesses, we’ve found that Dynamics 365 offers a much higher return on investment, and it’s more and more bullish on the future of Dynamics 365 platform with frequent updates and innovations.
