- Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation
July 22, 2009 Gartner Research, Inc.
With shrinking sales resources and market opportunities, investing in technology to automate critical sales processes may be the only alternative to still meet sales targets. The economy has affected vendors in different ways; some vendors on our 2008 SFA Magic Quadrant continued to see double-digit growth, while others dropped out of the market completely.
- Magic Quadrant for Midmarket and Tier 2-Oriented ERP for Product-Centric Companies
April 4, 2009 by Christian Hestermann, Robert P. Anderson, Chris Pang– Gartner, Inc.
Microsoft Dynamics AX positioned as a leader in Midmarket and Tier 2-Oriented ERP Magic Quadrant. Despite mergers and acquisitions, there are many ERP offerings for midmarket companies and firms deploying Tier 2 ERP systems. This Magic Quadrant evaluates products that have a global presence and are specifically tailored for product-centric midmarket companies with roughly 100 to 1,000 employees.
- Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Service Contact Centers
Gartner, Inc., April 3, 2009
As a result of the economic slowdown, business leaders are focusing on the central role of customer service to simultaneously lower costs and build customer loyalty. Because the contact center is a key touchpoint for customers at the same time that it includes the Web site, some rethinking and reengineering are required. The combination of three factors—business slowdown, the need to include Web site interactions, and the need to lower customer service costs—is shaping business leaders' decisions. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of this Magic Quadrant.
- Event Report: Reflections On Microsoft’s Convergence 2009
By R "Ray" Wang, March 21, 2009
Over 7,000 customers, partners, Microsoft staff, and paparazzi made the pilgrimage to New Orleans to hear the latest and greatest from the Microsoft Dynamics team. The great band, surface computing demo, and festivities in New Orleans wiped out most of the gloom and doom of the economic recession and negativity towards continued reckless U.S. government spending. Attendees were upbeat, optimistic, and energetic. One explanation for this sense of “can-do” attitude among attendees can be based on how Microsoft has successfully transformed itself into a value and innovation alternative to the large ERP vendors moving into the small-medium enterprise/business (SME/SMB) space.
- Microsoft Dynamics Evolves Role-Based and Vertical Approaches (PDF 85 KB)
IDC, December 2008
In the midst of financial crisis and a gloomy economic outlook, Microsoft gathered 4,000 customers, partners, and employees from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in Copenhagen to talk about business applications and its vision of the "Dynamic Business." Dynamics businesses are leveraging three key resources for competitive advantage: people, processes, and ecosystems. The big announcement at the conference was the launch of Dynamics NAV 2009 with "RoleTailored" user interface with 21 preconfigured roles.
- The Forrester Wave: Customer Service Software Solutions, Q4 2008 (PDF 1 MB)
Forrester Research, Inc., October 21, 2008
Microsoft Dynamics CRM shines by offering its infrastructure to enterprise organizations. Microsoft strategy for growth is to offer buyers a choice of both on-premise and software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment, a flexible user interface, a choice of payment options, and a strong partner community. Buyer interest in Microsoft Dynamics CRM is high in the SMB market and is growing in the enterprise segment.
- A New ERP For The 21st Century (PDF 302 KB)
Forrester Research, Inc., October 3, 2008
Enterprise applications vendors successfully address user operations objectives in the pursuit of efficiency improvement. But company executives and senior managers are focused on business transformation, which is not supported by today’s operations-oriented enterprise applications. This unmet need will give rise to a new class of vendor or an established vendor that can learn new tricks—that is, that can structure solutions that support executive action-taking and not just information-sharing.
