Client Profiles saw an opportunity to develop legal practice management software that was easier to use than established solutions from Lexis-Nexis and Thomson Reuters. The company built a solution that takes advantage of the integration between Microsoft Dynamics® CRM and Microsoft® Office Outlook® to automate common tasks, such as retrieving new contacts for archival in a shared marketing database. To meet project goals, including rapid time-to-market, Client Profiles capitalized on the flexibility of xRM, the business application framework that underpins Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Developers accessed prebuilt workflow components and reporting services available through xRM to quickly infuse CRM4Legal with features that benefit multiple roles within any law firm. With xRM, Client Profiles dramatically reduced development time and achieved an estimated cost savings of U.S.$2 million.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate wanted to expand the ways in which customers start down the home-buying path. Building on its belief in using technological innovations to their fullest, the company decided to pursue a solution using the Microsoft® Surface® touch-computing platform. Early in the solution’s research-and-development stage, the company’s digital media partner, FD Kinesis, attended an Architecture Design Session at a Microsoft Technology Center. There, FD Kinesis validated its ideas and gained access to resources that would help the firm complete the project in time for Coldwell Banker to unveil it at its annual conference. Although not yet available for purchase by the company’s franchisees, the solution has attracted considerable attention from agents and homebuyers alike, revitalizing the home-buying process and providing a competitive edge for Coldwell Banker and its agents.

Many municipal and regional governments lack the resources needed to build and maintain e-government portals. To help these organizations, Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Spenta Consulting built the Citizen Service Platform (CSP) core framework, now available as open-source software, by using the xRM business application framework. Spenta Consulting also created the full-featured CSP Citizen Portal Extended Edition solution, which takes advantage of xRM to meet unique public sector requirements like citizen case management, accessibility compliance, and secure e-forms. By taking advantage of xRM resources, Spenta Consulting was able to save 50 percent of the development effort required for relationship management aspects of the project.

Peak 15 Systems sells operational software to help tour operators reduce labor costs and increase profitability. When Peak 15 sought a development platform on which to build a software-as-a-service version (SaaS) of its offering, it evaluated solutions from Microsoft and Salesforce.com based on scalability, flexibility, and customer relationship management capabilities. Peak 15 chose the xRM business application framework that underlies Microsoft Dynamics® CRM because of its superior technical flexibility and solutions-focused business model. The company was able to build more functionality into its SaaS solution faster by using xRM resources. Now, Peak 15 customers have an excellent hosted solution that can easily be customized to fit their unique integration and business process requirements.

CSSI specializes in creating software to help companies with an insurance business model streamline and automate core business processes. The company sought to infuse its existing VUE Compensation Management application with relational capabilities. After researching several packaged customer relationship management solutions and evaluating the cost of building the solution in-house, CSSI opted to take advantage of xRM, the application development platform that underpins Microsoft Dynamics® CRM. Capitalizing on the built-in components and native extensibility offered through the xRM platform, CSSI built its VUE IncentivePoint solution in four months—70 percent faster than originally projected.

TDC is the largest telecommuncations company In Denmark. The company plays a leadership role in utilizing the latest technologies to deliver telecommunication services. TDC needed to decrease inbound sales staff overhead, reduce call handling times, and enable more cross- and up-selling opportunities. TDC implemented the Microsoft Customer Care Framework, and was able to reduce sales overhead, handle customer calls more efficiently, and enable more opportunities for cross- and up-selling of services.

The leading credit bureau of Brazil, SERASA Experian has 3,000 employees and provides credit validation services to businesses and consumers. In a business that relies completely on IT, the company made the strategic decision to take advantage of Microsoft Services Premier Support to move to proactive IT operations and gain control over its environment. Since taking advantage of this managed support offering from Microsoft, SERASA Experian has followed a path of infrastructure optimization, moving from Basic to Rationalized and reallocating 90 percent of its support hours—of which 90 percent once went to solving issues—to proactive services and new IT initiatives. In addition, the company has achieved 99.99 percent availability for a range of mission-critical systems and continues to plan strategically alongside Microsoft to roll out new technology to its business.

Travel Dynamics International (TDI) provides luxury cruises based around cultural and educational themes. For 10 years, the company relied on a custom-built reservation and booking system. However, this system lacked built-in tools for sales, marketing, and customer service. Employees used a variety of nonintegrated applications to perform daily tasks, restricting TDI’s ability to automate processes to improve efficiency. After spending an average of U.S.$50,000 a year to maintain its aging system, the company opted to implement a customer relationship management system. TDI chose Microsoft Dynamics® CRM based on its ease of use and the flexibility offered through xRM, the application development framework that underpins the solution. Now, TDI has seen a four-fold increase in workforce productivity, improved its customer service, and projects year-over-year sales growth of 10 percent.

Texas Instruments needed to improve the performance of a key order-taking solution used by engineering customers. The company attended a Proof-of-Concept workshop at a Microsoft® Technology Center (MTC) to explore and resolve coding bottlenecks, helping the solution go from supporting 20 concurrent users to supporting 450. The company also gained technical insight and avoided spending U.S.$75,000 on extra hardware because of its MTC experience.

Total Computer Group develops software for the law enforcement industry and wanted to ensure the scalability of its Total Enforcement solution so that it could confidently approach larger municipalities. The company attended a Proof of Concept workshop at a Microsoft® Technology Center, which helped it increase the solution’s scalability, improve its developers’ productivity, and change its overall approach to software development.