4 Reasons Why Microsoft’s Becoming Cool Again

4 Reasons Why Microsoft’s Becoming Cool Again

Digital Transformation

4 Reasons Why Microsoft’s Becoming Cool Again

During the 1980s Microsoft dominated the business world. In that era, being loved or hated didn’t matter much because it was all about winning. And Microsoft was a winning machine.

 

But something happened in the 1990s – Microsoft didn’t just continue to win, they also became cool.

I remember it well. I was on a work experience placement. After I had done a week of making tea, the boss of the IT department called me over and whispered ‘Have a look at this.’ It was a beta version of Windows 95 – and it blew my mind.

Windows 95 was a turning point for Microsoft. If you remember its forerunner, 3.1 (C:\>win), Windows 95 was a big jump.

windows 95
And people wanted it.

They queued round the block to get their hands on a copy – take that Apple! Friends stars, Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston did an hour-long instructional video for it

 

 

And the Rolling Stones were paid $8m to use ‘Start Me Up’ for the television ads, which are still pretty good today.

Windows 95 ushered in a golden age of PC usage. People no longer just used computers at work, they bought one to use at home. Microsoft continued to be dominant – but it was hip as well.
As everybody knows, Microsoft lost a bit of their shine in the last decade. They still have kudos as a major world player but other firms snuck up on them and stole their buzz. These days people are no longer queueing round the block for Microsoft products.

 

But change is in the air.

 

You may not have noticed it, but a quiet revolution is happening in Redmond. A revolution that is reverberating round the world. In the whisper of my work placement boss, ‘Come have a look at this’…

 

1. Collaboration has replaced Confrontation

 

Gone is the brashness and talk of world domination. No longer are competitors vilified, but under new CEO Satya Nadella, they’re embraced as partners.

satya

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella being interviewed at Dreamforce, Dynamics CRM’s rival Saleforce.com’s world conference.

 

2. Design has been Elevated in Importance

 

Steve Jobs famously criticised Microsoft for having ‘no taste’

Packaging was cluttered with slogans and symbols. Many people had fun with this, imagining how Microsoft, in contrast to Apple, might have packaged the iPod.

But no more.

Have a look at this screen shot from a current Microsoft webpage.

packaging

3. Their Software is Becoming Slick Again

 

It’s not just an up-to-date look, there’s substance to the packaging. To steal a phrase, Microsoft are making some ‘insanely great’ products again. As we’ve come to expect with our phones and tablets, software should just work – and with these it does. Slick is the new norm and Microsoft are embracing this.

Our CEO at The CRM Team spent a little while playing around with Power Apps and exclaimed ‘I’ve just built an app in 30 minutes that would have used to have taken a developer 3 days!’– and apparently he can’t even code. We’ve already got Flow working to automate some of our repetitive tasks – and it’s damn good.

Have you tried Power BI yet? Data is becoming accessible AND beautiful again. We’re very excited by this and are already helping our clients see the information they need in a format that actually invites you to delve in.

And we’ve already stated how excited we are that Dynamics 365 is on its way!

 

4. They are back on the cutting edge.

 

Microsoft are investing heavily in the Internet of Things, and Machines Learning. And we are very excited about the business implications of this. But they are also doing some really fun stuff as well. When a promo video gets these sorts of comments on YouTube we know things are starting to change:

“Probably the first ad I’ve ever clicked on because I actually wanted to watch it – holy crap”

 “What is this sorcery?”

We hope you agree, but it looks like the Seattle Megalith is getting its cool back.

 

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Creating Highly Engaged (and) Satisfied Clients

Creating Highly Engaged (and) Satisfied Clients

Digital Transformation

Creating Highly Engaged (and) Satisfied Clients

Customer engagement means business growth. It’s that simple.

Recent research by Gallup proves just how much customer engagement matters. Clue: a lot. Engaged customers provide a 23% premium over the average customer when it comes to share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and relationship growth.

Consider this:

  • Engaged consumer electronics shoppers spend 29% more per shopping trip than disengaged customers.
  • Engaged hotel guests spend 46% more per year than disengaged guests.

The Business Case for Better Engagement

Customer service managers know how important engagement is. They also know what it can do for a business.

For its yearly survey, ThinkJar recently asked customer service managers to list their top three initiatives for the next five years. Customer engagement came in second place for the next two years. It got the number one spot for the following three.

Customers’ expectations have changed:

  • Customers’ need for quick, accurate answers has increased. According to Forrester Research, in the past, expectations came from personal experience or from friends and family. No longer. Now, online communities mean everyone contributes. Leading organisations providing exceptional customer service increase customers’ expectations still further.
  • Millennials and Generation Zs are beginning to enter the marketplace. These digital natives expect something different: journeys, not interactions.
Read the full ThinkJar report to explore why customer engagement matters more than ever. Open the full report here and find out:

  • Why, when it comes to customer engagement, it’s the long term and not the short term that matters. Lack of follow-through can be the make-or-break factor.
  • What percentage of customer support contacts come from ‘repeat customers’ – those who didn’t get an answer first time round.
  • What proportion of customers expect a self-service solution on a company’s website.
  • How many customers would rather use a self-service tool than interact with an agent.
  • What proportion of customer queries a good self-service system can generally handle.
  • Why self-service platforms lower organisation costs and improve customer satisfaction.

Get the full ThinkJar report here.

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Navy SEALs. Combat Leadership. And The Ongoing Campaign For Your Customer’s Heart.

Navy SEALs. Combat Leadership. And The Ongoing Campaign For Your Customer’s Heart.

Thought Leadership

Navy SEALs. Combat Leadership. And The Ongoing Campaign For Your Customers Heart.

If you heard Navy SEALs on 947 Breakfast Xpress, 702 Money, or Cliff Central in the past few weeks, you’ll know that Jocko Willink and Leif Babin were in South Africa to talk about leadership.

But when people heard that The CRM Team were bringing two of the scariest Navy SEAL’s imaginable to South Africa, they typically had one question:

 

“What do Navy SEALs have to do with Customer Relationship Management?”

 

It’s simple. No matter what industry you’re in, your teams are fighting daily battles!

Marketing are driving brand awareness and fighting to acquire new leads. Sales are fending off aggressive competition and attempting to achieve their objective; winning new customers. Your delivery teams are dealing with complex logistics to fulfill on customers orders. And, your customer service teams are constantly trying to assist customers. All the while de-escalating to ensure your business retains and grows the customer your teams fought so hard for.

In the end, it’s best to accept that your business is in an ongoing campaign to win your customers hearts!

At The CRM Team, it’s our mission to help companies win those battles and build deep, meaningful relationships with their customers. Typically we do that by implementing solutions on top of state-of-the-art technology from Microsoft. We add to that with our thought leadership events like the Ten-by-10’s and more recently, the Extreme Ownership Event.

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin are decorated Navy SEALs, but more importantly they’re co-authors of the New York Times #1 best selling leadership book, Extreme Ownership – How Navy SEAL’s Lead and Win. Their company Echelon Front deliver leadership coaching for a wide range of companies, including a number of Fortune 100’s!

The book details the characteristics of great leaders and provides a framework for leadership, based on the laws of combat:

  1. Cover and Move
  2. Simple
  3. Prioritise and Execute
  4. Decentralised Command

We were privileged to host them in South Africa, where 400 people from over 70 companies got to learn this framework firsthand.

Sure, drawing parallels between war and business may seem a bit dramatic. But consider this:

 

“On the battlefield lives are at stake. In the business world livelihoods are at stake! Peoples careers, their ability to pay their home loans. And, companies have capital at risk.”

 

Battle is a condensed version of life. A leadership decision made on the battlefield has near instantaneous consequences. In the business world, the realization of consequences is typically more protracted.

So if Jocko and Leif have a leadership framework that’s proven on the battlefield, why wouldn’t we want to learn it and apply this highly effective framework in your business.

 

“There are only two measurements for a leader; effective or ineffective”

 

Systems and frameworks are effective! Goals and targets are ineffective!

The principles that Jocko and Leif share can be applied by people at every level and in every team within your business.

We’ve proven it at The CRM Team and it’s paid huge dividends for us!

When it comes to the work we do for companies like yours, we’ve defined a CRM framework that will help you be successful in the campaign for your customers hearts!

Just like Jocko and Leif’s framework, it’s based on extensive experience… and it’s simple. It’s designed to help you understand the highest priorities in your business and what to execute on first. It’s also designed to help your people manage the process themselves in a decentralised way.

 

If your business is trying to improve the effectiveness of your Marketing, Sales, Delivery and Customer Service teams: Sign up to attend one of the “Ten by 10’s” (Limited to 10 people, giving great value, done by 10am) or talk to us. We’ll share more detail on the CRM framework and the tools that will help you have a rapid and decisive impact on your battlefield.

 

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Why Always Saying “Yes” is Killing Your Business

Why Always Saying “Yes” is Killing Your Business

Thought Leadership

Why Always Saying “Yes” is Killing Your Business

Selling is tough.

You’re faced with the constant pressure of winning deals in a world saturated with competition. So, the idea of disqualifying a lead probably makes you apprehensive.

A lead is a lead, right? Whether it brings in R50k or R300k?

We disagree.

And it’s a lesson we learnt the hard way.

The time we made this mistake

Sales mistake
In our early days, a lead came in that grabbed our interest.

We took it through our qualification process and a red flag was raised. The typical deal size for our business is R750k. But this prospective customer had a budget of just R100k.

Instead of disqualifying the deal based on our own tried and tested qualification process, we decided to take on the new customer. Saying to ourselves, “Surely we can make a plan?” – How many times have you heard a salesperson say those words?

A week into the new project, our biggest customer came to us with an urgent requirement worth five times the budget of this new customer. The problem was, we couldn’t fulfil on this requirement because our consultants’ time was now consumed by the smaller deal.

The realisation: We’d spent all our time and energy on a field mouse. And it meant that we missed the antelope.

What we learnt from this mistake

Learning
Qualify OUT as well as in!

In our last sales article, we emphasised the importance of having a structured sales process and the need for defined gates. And the first gate in any sales process must be Qualification.

Our mistake made us reassess our qualification process (we use B.A.N.T). We asked ourselves some hard questions and looked at what went wrong. What we discovered was: we faltered when it came to qualifying OUT (just like all businesses). And it wasn’t because we didn’t follow B.A.N.T.

On the contrary, the prospective customer ticked all the B.A.N.T boxes. What we didn’t do was look beyond Budget, Access to Power, Need, and Time. We didn’t follow our instincts. We knew this prospective customer wasn’t the best fit but we decided to say “yes”… because it’s hard to disqualify a lead.

BANT
So, now when we’re faced with the hard choice, we remind ourselves of an analogy used by entrepreneur, Tim Ferriss.

In his book, Tools of Titans, he talks about “hunting field mice vs antelope”:

“A lion is fully capable of capturing, killing, and eating a field mouse. But it turns out that the energy required to do so exceeds the caloric content of the mouse itself. So, a lion that spent its day hunting and eating field mice would slowly starve to death. A lion can’t live on field mice. A lion needs antelope. Antelope are big animals. They take more speed and strength to capture and kill, and once killed, they provide a feast for the lion and her pride. … So, ask yourself at the end of the day, ‘Did I spend today chasing mice or hunting antelope?'”

Mouse vs antelope
Your business can’t survive on field mice.

The resources needed to complete a job for a field mouse, are the same needed for an antelope. A field mouse might tick all the B.A.N.T boxes. But it doesn’t mean it’s going to be good for your business. So, you must extend your qualification process, and trust in your instincts as a salesperson.

Next time you need to qualify a lead, stop and ask yourself…

  • Is this engagement worth tying up the resource?
  • Is this project right for our business?
  • Is the prospective business a good fit?
  • How will this deal affect our ability to fulfil on future deals?

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Dynamics 365 – Is there substance to the hype?

Dynamics 365 – Is there substance to the hype?

Dynamics and Power Platform

Dynamics 365 – Is there substance to the hype?

There’s been a lot of buzz around Dynamics 365. At their recent world conference, it was Microsoft’s big announcement. And it marks their latest move towards cloud-only computing. Is it just good marketing? Or is it something substantial? Let’s look at this in detail.

Use of the ‘365’ Brand

Five years ago saw Microsoft launch their cloud version of Office, Office 365. Reportedly, Office 365 is their ‘fasted growing business’ in their history.[1] Given this success, It’s not surprising that Microsoft are applying the ‘365’ to their new, cloud-only, version of their Dynamics suite. But are they just leveraging the 365, or is it a good comparison?

For those not familiar with Dynamics, Dynamics is currently the overarching name that Microsoft use to refer to their various ERP products (AX, Nav, GP, SL etc) but also includes their CRM suite. We heard a rumour that CRM was going to be separated from the Dynamics brand, but it looks like something much bigger is on the cards. If Dynamics 365 is as good a product as Office 365 then we are in for something truly great.

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/21/microsoft_windows_azure_uptake_claim/

A true single source of truth – company-wide.

Dynamics 365 is certainly a bold declaration. Not only are Microsoft promising to bring together ERP and CRM together under a common data model, they are promising this will be the same data model that Office 365 uses. So, your data that currently sits across Office 365 will easily sync with your ERP and CRM systems – if you upgrade to Dynamics 365 of course. This is huge for Microsoft, and should be a big concern for many of its competitors.

In a world where Microsoft CRM and Dynamics AX/NAV/GP… etc competes against some big players, offering a common data sync with Office 365 is something that should get everyone else very nervous. Which company doesn’t use at least one of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook? Not many.

At The CRM Team, we already relish being able to say to companies how easily CRM Online links up with their O365 but sharing a common data model is a whole new level of love. Built on Microsoft’s ever developing Azure network, it means easy access to powerful machine learning, and the exciting new development of the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) – think automated monitoring and servicing of devices or machinery.

The end to software bundling.

Another big change with Dynamics 365 is the ability for companies to pick what applications they want instead of having to buy everything.

Do you remember the era of having to buy whole music albums to get the one song you wanted? It sucked. But then iTunes came along, and people could buy just single songs. It was great. That’s what’s happening with Dynamics 365.

Instead of buying CRM you can just purchase their sales module, or just the marketing one – you can mix and match according to your needs. Have a contact centre? Then purchase that module for your contact centre staff. Have a field service team, or project team, then buy those modules. ERP comes in a module called ‘operations’ and a new module is introduced called financials. Simply buy licenses for the modules you want.

Additionally, Microsoft have also introduced different licenses for different types of staff. Some admin staff may just need to have limited access to data in modules but not need the full functionality of each module – they get a cheaper licences, under what’s called a ‘team view’. They can see the data, and do simple tasks but are restricted to certain functionality. Staff who need the functionality can get an app licence. For example, the marketing team can get a licence for just the marketing app. Staff who need greater access across many apps can get tailored plans. We think our customers will love this new flexible way of licensing.

The Evolution of XRM

Another big announcement is Microsoft’s app store, ‘AppSource’. Built on the success of Google’s Play and Apple’s App Store, AppSource is a place for Microsoft Partners and Developers to offer useful add-ons, simply and quickly. Customers can still commission custom adaptions and add-ons (XRM to the initiated) but now there is an option to see if somebody has already developed what you need. This is a great development for partners and customers alike. AppSource is live now so you can check what’s already available.

Dynamics 365 is a bold, exciting move. Something we believe will not only live up to all the hype – but be even better.

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