Very disappointed with Microsoft Dynamics

[Hin Chin Qui]

Hi,

Just want to share our experience with all in this newsgroup.

We are a medium sized business based in Asia. In 2007 we bought Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Great Plains from a local Microsoft partner. The first kick off meeting was in Q4 2007, and the project was expected to give live in 3 months.

Today, in Q4 2009, after more than 2 years of delay, our project live date is nowhere in sight. The Microsoft partner keeps blaming the software for being very buggy, and when we emailed Microsoft they simply couldn’t care less and did not reply. We feel shortchanged and have almost given up. And considering switching over to Salesforce, SAP or another vendor.

Just wishing to share our very, very bad experience with everyone in this forum.

So much for the “Microsoft Experience”. Anyone else experienced something like that? Sigh.

Regards to all.

[AdamV]

I understand your disappointment with any project that takes so long and
runs horribly behind.

I think three months for process mapping, planning, testing, deployment
and training to go live is a really short timescale. Even more so if you
were intending to migrate existing data across (as I would assume a
medium sized business would do, especially on the accounts side into GP).

It might make sense to break the project down into more manageable
chunks, deliver the basics first and work your way upwards. Building
workflows, reports and integration points all take time. You have to
decide how much of that is vital on day 1, and which parts you might be
able to do without while you get on with day to day business and later
add functionality and richness.

Out of interest is this a hosted solution or on-premise?

Hin Chin Qui wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Just want to share our experience with all in this newsgroup.
>
> We are a medium sized business based in Asia. In 2007 we bought
> Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Great Plains from a local Microsoft partner.
> The first kick off meeting was in Q4 2007, and the project was expected
> to give live in 3 months.
>

> Today, in Q4 2009, after more than _2 years_ of delay, our project live

> date is nowhere in sight. The Microsoft partner keeps blaming the
> software for being very buggy, and when we emailed Microsoft they simply

> couldn�t care less and did not reply. We feel shortchanged and have

> almost given up. And considering switching over to Salesforce, SAP or
> another vendor.
>
> Just wishing to share our very, very bad experience with everyone in
> this forum.
>

> So much for the �Microsoft Experience�. Anyone else experienced

[CS ADNT]

Hello,

 

Your experience is typical of the generation of 'old CRM projects' which were killing themselves by a too heavy planning, long analysis and dev phasing.

I am experimented this in the Telecom/TV Cable operator area 10 years ago.

 

Project was still in study and maketting has changed 3 times its offer, customer relation has move its teams and changed its internal process each 6 months, support has to adapt to new technologies and change, may be was outsourced or offshored. And network teams were building their own and different users databases with their own provisioning system....

Project sponsors get disapproved and change their mind or ... have been fired.

 

MS CRM is not to blame, it has proven this with lot of successful projects.

Many of the early bird CRM like Vantive (now Oracle after Peoplesoft), Siebel, etc. have presented failed project due to this project management error.

This is CRM itself, which by its commercial nature needs a different approach than the frontal one: you must progress by successfull implementation steps of near 6 month (my own experience).

Do not try to have everything running on first step, keep a flexible and progressive approach.

Have a solid project structure and goog sponsorship from the inside.

 

Change management is also something to keep on sight, avoiding by 'chunk changes' no welcome by users.

 

In your case, unfortunatelly my recommandation is to stop all and restart with a short term targets.

For sure the company implementing has not be aware of this,  take your conclusions urgently.

Keep in mind the internal process related with people and the quality of data.

 

 

I would say, technically use anything able to speed your project commercial launch, add-on are amongst this.

This is the reason why we have started a different approach in Addon Nice Technologies.

 

Good luck.

 

 

CS
http://www.addonnice.com  Imagine CRM - CRM @Commerce

 

 

 

"Hin Chin Qui" <chi...@gmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news:C72AF4DD.3035B%chi...@gmail.com...

[Dave]

As others have said, this is not a knock on the "Microsoft
experience"... It's a huge knock on your consulting partner. If you
want to REALLY waste time and money, try a SAP implementation...
Every single one of those goes into the hundreds of thousands, and
take many quarters to implement. And if you want to pay and pay and
pay (increasing amounts per month per user after the initial trial
period to lure you in), by all means try Salesforce...

Some advice for MSCRM implementations:

1) Small phases to gain momentum.
First of all, don't implement both CRM and GP at the same time. I
would typically start with CRM, as that would typically feed the
orders into GP for invoicing. Work the kinks out of the process
within CRM before trying to integrate GP. (The accountants typically
have no problem double-entering sales; in fact, most prefer it). A
typical scenario might be:
-- Phase 1: implement CRM for pilot user group (< 10 onsite and 1 or 2
remote but close by users).
-- Phase 2: Implement CRM for all sales users.
-- Phase 3: Implement GP
-- Phase 4: Integrate CRM and GP.

2) Pilot user groups.
Don't try to go live with all of your users at once. You're NOT going
to spec everything right, I don't care how long you take. As soon as
real users start using it in real time, they will absolutely request
changes. Fortunately, CRM is made for iterative development, and is
ridiculously easy to change. Build a feedback gathering and
enhancement phase into each phase.

3) Limit your conversion passes.
Converting data can take forever, if you do it wrong. Doing it right
means 3 or 4 conversion passes. By conversion pass, I mean taking all
of the data you want to convert, and convert it, then get users to
tell you what's wrong. Each pass, IT should believe that it is
converting everything perfectly (i.e., do some rudimentary validation
after each conversion run). Users will find things wrong each time.
Log them all. IT then goes back and fixes ALL of the problems, and
users test again. Repeat a third time. Then, hold users feet to the
fire, and tell them that if they don't notice a problem, well, then
it's their problem (to fix in the live system).Typically, at this time
there will just be a few things wrong, and the final conversion should
be done. (Again, I would convert all the data, but only for the pilot
user group, if possible).

If you have unstructured data you want to convert (Notes out of
Outlook, attachments, links to SP documents), I've found that it's
best to either hire an army of cheap temps, or use it as a training
exercise for your lower cost users to manually convert that data.

HTH,
Dave

-------------------------------------------
David L. Carr, President
Visionary Software Consulting, Inc.
Cell: 503-351-4207
Email: davidlcarr...@earthlink.net
http://www.vscrm.com

[Hin Chin Qui]

Hi,

Thanks to Adam, Dave and CS for your sharing and feedback.

I guess my company just has to go back to the drawing board with our
vendors.

Is Microsoft able to help in any way, in this instance?

Thanks!

On 20/11/09 12:30 AM, in article
4683925d-e440-4509...@i12g2000prg.googlegroups.com, "Dave"

[Dave Ireland]

Microsft might be able to help you find a more suitable partner that focuses
on your industry. I can't stress enough that you need to use a CRM Partner
(certified) who knows your business as well as the CRM. Partners who
specialize can turn projects out faster because they have developed
configurations that work for your line of business, and already know 80% of
what you do.

There have been many thousand successful MS CRM installations over the past
5 yearsm but you need to do your homework and find the right partner and
check their references.

Good luck, we hope you have better luck with your next project.

Dave Ireland

"Hin Chin Qui" <chi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:C72C7241.306B2%chi...@gmail.com...

[CS ADNT]

Hi,

If in the Vietnam area, we could provide what you search for.
Just send a mail to my company sales (sales@a....com) , requesting for M.
Pham Ngnoc.

Best regards

CS
http://www.addonnice.com Imagine CRM - CRM @Commerce

"Hin Chin Qui" <chi...@gmail.com> a �crit dans le message de
news:C72C7241.306B2%chi...@gmail.com...

[GI Joe]

Hi Hin Chin Qui,

Sorry to know about your project status.

I would recommend you to reach microsoft, and ask them to review your design
and layout. I bet they would be in a better position to asses your system and
suggest a new vendor or so to you, for your project to be completed.

This would also help them in knowing about your vendor who did not do the
implementation properly, so that they might not recommend the vendor for any
other implementation.

Thanks