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Technology > Marketing Technology

Microsoft Beefs Up CRM Offering

By Allison Bell

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Microsoft Corp. has picked Avaya Inc., Basking Ridge, N.J., to help it beef up the ability of its new Microsoft customer relationship management software to handle the phones.

Avaya, a communications technology company, has agreed to license Microsoft CRM technology and integrate it with the Avaya IP Office system, the firms say.

The companies have predicted that the first version of the Avaya IP Office system with Microsoft CRM capabilities could be available by the end of June.

Insurance call-center technology experts suggest, however, that the real news may be that Microsoft is leaving room for Avaya and Avayas competitors to continue to sell the software that runs the telephones.

Insurers and other companies waited for months to see what features Microsoft would include in Microsoft CRM Version 1.0. When Microsoft introduced the system in January, experts concluded the system lacked many of the features needed to manage sophisticated telephone systems right out of the box.

“Microsoft CRM in and of itself does not have extensive call-center functionality,” Microsoft spokesman Jamey Chown concedes.

Version 1.0 focuses mainly on managing information drawn from the Microsoft Outlook electronic mail system, according to Microsofts own marketing materials and product presentations.

Insurers and insurance brokers who want to add Microsoft CRM to sophisticated call-center systems today probably would have to put a team in charge of connecting the system to new or existing telephone management systems, experts interviewed say.

Even if Microsoft CRM had everything a company needed to manage its telephones, some insurers and agencies say they might wait awhile before adopting it.

“I believe its a step in the right direction, but I believe companies are a little hesitant to implement it,” says Peter Kasabov, president of Connextions.net Inc., Orlando.

Customers worry about the problems that software companies often have with the first versions of complicated new products, Kasabov says.

And Microsoft itself emphasizes it is aiming Version 1.0 of Microsoft CRM mainly at small and midsize businesses, rather than at giant “enterprise space companies.”

“What were doing in the mid-market is trying to design a new system, bringing to market a brand new system designed specifically for these customers,” David Thatcher, manager of Microsofts CRM strategies, said in July during a talk in Silicon Valley, according to a transcript on Microsofts Web site.

Microsoft has built the CRM package around the .NET standard, which is supposed to help customers to mix and match business software products. That means that strong sales of Microsoft CRM could help expand the entire call-center software market, the experts say.

Aspect Communications Corp., San Jose, Calif., for example, is a communications software company that already supports the .NET standard. Microsoft CRM buyers could buy Aspect software to manage the telephones.

The fact that Microsoft is focusing on small and midsize businesses with Microsoft CRM “is good news,” says Karen Hardy, product marketing director at Aspect. “That will really help us identify new markets as well.”

At NaviSys Inc., Edison, N.J., Tom Famularo, senior vice president of product development, sees the Microsoft product release restoring some luster to the term CRM. “CRM is pretty much a bad word to use in the insurance industry right now,” Famularo says. “[Insurers] have spent a lot of money and really dont have a lot to show for it.”

If Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Tenn., were shopping for call-center software, it would have to consider Microsoft CRM, says Hugh Hale, director of technical services at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Tennessee. “Were almost a total Microsoft shop, anyway,” he adds.

Typical insurance call-center technology budgets can range from $3,000 to $5,000 per seat for companies that are updating reasonably current sites. Prices may range from $10,000 to $12,000 per seat for companies that are setting up systems from scratch, according to Kevin Kraft, a financial services consultant at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young L.L.P., New York.

Representatives for most of the companies interviewed for this article refused to talk about product prices.

Even for customers, getting prices is “almost impossible,” Hale says. “Even after you sign a contract.”

Just getting a firm price for the hourly labor rate is difficult, Hale adds.

Microsoft, however, has announced product prices. It has stated that the cost of Microsoft CRM licenses will be $395 per seat for the basic version and $1,295 for the professional version.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, May 19, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved. Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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