Microsoft Enterprise Customer Guide 2011

8/6/2019 Microsoft Enterprise Customer Guide 2011

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IS YOUR BUSINESS PEOPLE-READY? People Drive Business Outcomes 2

Software Is the Foundation for the People-Ready Business 2

THE ROLE OF SOFTWARE IS EXPANDING Industry Trends

Our Approach: Software plus Services 5

ROLE-BASED PRODUCTIVITY: REALIZING BUSINESS VALUE Business Solutions 1

Our Commitment to Industry 28

DYNAMIC IT: TRANSFORMING IT INTO A STRATEGIC ASSET Core Infrastructure Optimization 42

Business Productivity Infrastructure Optimization 46Application Platform Optimization 50

WHY MICROSOFT? Executive Resources 6

008

MICROSOFT

IN THEENTERPRISEA worldwide guide for enterprise customersto Microsoft priorities and our vision for the people-ready business


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QUICK REFERENCEUse this quick reference to easily nd information on key topics:

Pages

PRODUCTSWindows Server XX, XXWindows Vista XX2007 Microsoft Of ce System XX, XX, XX, XXOf ce SharePoint Server XX, XX, XXExchange Server XXXXForefront XX, XX

SOLUTIONSBusiness Solutions XX, XX, XXXX, XXInfrastructure Optimization XX, XX, XX, XXIndustry Solutions XX, XXXX

Microsoft Partners XX, XX, XX, XX

Microsoft Services XX, XX

Microsoft Licensing and the Enterprise Agreement XX


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QUICK REFERENCE Use this quick reference to easily nd information on key topics:

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ROLESCustomer service 8-13, 17, 25Finance 8-14, 19, 22IT professionals and developers 36-53Marketing 8-13, 16, 19Operations 8-15, 20, 22-23Sales 8-13, 16-17, 20, 25Sourcing 8-13, 25-26

MICROSOFT SOFTWARE

Exchange Server 7, 17-18, 23-24, 26-27, 48-49Forefront 23-24, 43-45Microsoft Dynamics 12, 15, 17-18, 23-24, 26-27Microsoft Of ce 13, 15, 17-18, 21, 23-24, 26-27,

43-45, 48-49, 52-53, 58Of ce Communications Server 17-18, 26-27, 48-49Of ce PerformancePoint Server 21, 23-24, 48-49, 52-53Of ce SharePoint Server 15, 17-18, 21, 23-24, 48-49,

52-53SQL Server 15, 21, 23-24, 48-49, 52-53System Center 23-24, 43-45Visual Studio 52-53Windows Mobile 15, 17-18, 26-27Windows Server 42-45, 57Windows Vista 23-24, 26-27, 43-45

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BUSINESS SOLUTIONSBusiness performance management 19-21Customer relationship management (CRM) 16-18Enterprise resource planning (ERP) 14-15Governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) 22-24Mobility 25-27

INDUSTRIESEducation 28, 33-34Financial services 28-29

Government 28, 32-33Health 28, 31-32Hospitality 28, 30-31Manufacturing 28-30Media & entertainment 28, 35Professional services 28, 31Retail 28, 30Telecommunications 28, 34-35

ADDITIONAL TOPICSInteroperability 57-58Microsoft Enterprise Agreement 59Microsoft Partners 57Microsoft Services 55-56


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Welcome to the 2008 guide to Microsoftin the enterprise

This guide is intended for technology, business, and public sector leaders who are interested inlearning about Microsofts business vision and our enterprise priorities.

At Microsoft, we are passionate about technology and its potential to transform your organization.Our belief is that companies excel when they empower their people to drive the business forward bygiving them the right tools, information, and opportunities. Fundamentally, software is instrumentalto the people-ready business, and our software enables you to harness information, turn data intoinsight, transform ideas into action, and turn change into opportunity.

Over the last 30 years, Microsoft has grown to offer products in more than 50 languages and toemploy more than 80,000 people worldwide. At the heart of our company are values and attributesthat directly in uence the software that we deliver to our customers. We are committed tounderstanding how software is used and then using this knowledge to build software that is familiarand easy for your people to use. Our deep relationships with our customers and partners enable usto offer software that is widely used and supported. We have a fundamental belief in interoperabilityand are committed to ensuring that our software is easy to integrate and connect with what youalready have. And we take a deep and long-term approach to our research and development,helping us to deliver software that is continually innovating and changing to meet your needs, nowand into the future.

We created this guide to help make our approach in the enterprise more transparent and to provideyou with a holistic view of our enterprise priorities. We encourage you to use this guide to help drivediscussions around your own business challenges with your Microsoft account manager and yourtechnology partners. Your business is important to us and we appreciate your investing the time tolearn more about how we can further our relationship together.

Sincerely,

Simon WittsCorporate Vice PresidentEnterprise & Partner Group


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IS YOUR BUSINESS PEOPLE-READY?

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After a decade of re-engineering, redesigning, and automatingbusiness processes, where do we look next for continuingimprovements to deliver pro table business outcomes? To everybusinesss most critical resourcethe people who work there. AtMicrosoft, we believe passionately that people are at the heart of every business and every business success, and our mission is tohelp people realize their full potential.

PEOPLE DRIVE BUSINESS OUTCOMESTodays business environment is characterized by globalcompetition, the breakdown of boundaries between organizations

and their business partners and suppliers, increasing customerexpectations for value and service, and ever more complexregulatory requirements. At the same time, people must copewith information overload and nd ways to ef ciently extractand use informationwhether to connect customer feedbackto product design, identify opportunities to up-sell services toclients, or know at any given moment just how well the businessis performing. As a result, it is becoming more and more dif cultto maintain a competitive advantage and grow a business innew and pro table areas. While the challenges facing businessessteadily grow and change, the way that people choose to workis changing just as quicklywe are becoming more mobileand more connected, with constant access through e-mail, theInternet, and instant messaging.

People bring the vision and creativity to drive innovative newopportunities for their businesses. Our research shows us thatequipping people with the capabilities, tools, information, andsolutions that they need to make the biggest contribution thatthey can, as quickly as they can, is proving to be the primarydriver of success in this globally competitive, rapidly changingbusiness environment. As the nature of the workplace evolves,the challenge facing our customers is to deliver the tools andenvironment that will truly empower people to have an impact.To attract the top emerging talent, businesses will increasinglyneed to support the digital lifestyle of the current generation,who expect to bring their technology experience as consumersinto the enterprise.

SOFTWARE IS THE FOUNDATION FORTHE PEOPLE-READY BUSINESSAt Microsoft, we know that technology alone does not hold thekey to business success. We believe that by closely aligning yourbusiness and IT objectives, you can help ensure that the softwaresolutions your organization deploys empower your people toachieve pro table business outcomes. The right software solutionscan meet the unique needs of your peoplewhether their rolesinvolve customer service, sourcing, marketing, sales, operations,or nancewhile delivering the fundamental capabilities requiredfor success in the modern enterprise. Through our research we

have found that people need the tools to be more mobile and towork together more effectively. They need to be able to bettermanage the content and information that they are inundatedwith every day. And they need to be able to derive insight frominformation from across the organization. At the same time, asIT becomes ever more important to deliver these capabilities,organizations need to be able to reduce the associated costsand risks. The right technology meets these needs and enablesyour people to reach customers more effectively, harness criticalbusiness insight, and work together more productively acrosstime, national, and geographical boundaries.

To learn more about our people-ready business vision, please visithttp://www.microsoft.com/peopleready.


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Customers are at the heart of every business. People who excel atdeveloping relationships with customers are those that provide thehighest level of service to achieve maximum profitability. Consumershave access to more information, more suppliers, and more purchasing

channels than ever before, and personal service can be a point of distinction that will keep bringing customers back.

Technology can play a significant role in helping your people respondquickly and personally to customer requests, whether it is for productinformation, a transaction history, or changes to a pending order. Withthe tools to access the right information quickly andeasily, your employees can focus on what is mostimportantthe customer. Technology can help yourpeople be more effective at acquiring and keepingnew customers, up-selling and cross-selling newgoods and services to your existing customers,and building customer loyalty.

Generating ideas requires people to dream, challenge, reflect, andenhance. When people have access to the right information, aresupported by the right processes, and are connected to the rightpeople, they can turn their ideas into innovative processes, products,

and services. In a global business, this takes place not only inconference rooms at headquarters but also in shared, virtualworkspaces that bring all these aspects of collaboration together.

Technology can play a significant role in helping your people captureand protect intellectual property, streamline business processes and

workflows, and seamlessly share ideas and projects withstrategic business partners up and down the value chain.

Innovative companies use technology to create newvalue in existing product lines and services, develop

new ideas and concepts, and determine how tocommercialize those ideas and products andprofitably ship them to customers.

People are the key to controlling costs. People usetheir knowledge and creativity to improve operations.Behind every process improvement, every simplifiedform, every transfer of knowledge from one person toanother, and every act that uses information as a substitute forinventory is a person who imagined a better, more efficient way to dothings and acted to turn that idea into reality.

With the right technology to support them, your people canhelp your company streamline operations and minimize cost,focus on business processes to improve time to delivery, anduse their connections with business partners to deliver value toyour customers.

In the global marketplace, success depends onpartners, suppliers, distributors, and the relationships

of individuals across myriad organizations to bring aproduct or service to market. The increasingly global scale of

business often means that those who succeed look to partners whocan perform services that are beyond the expertise of the company.

Technology can help your people break down the barriers that arenaturally created by partnerships with other businesses. Technologycan help bridge the gap between your organization and those of yourpartners, suppliers, and distributors, enabling your people to maintainloyalty and trust by sharing a common view of information acrosscompanies and continents.

People Drive Business Outcomes

Develop Customer Relationships Drive Innovation

Improve Operations Build Partner Connections

When your business is people-ready, your people have the tools to help them achieve these four critical business outcomes, regardless of yourbusinesss industry, size, and location.


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increasingly enabling IT organizations to free up resources andapply their technical expertise to value-producing initiativesthat can improve their core business processes and deliver truecompetitive advantage.

Service-Oriented Architecture

IT departments are managing increasingly complex IT portfoliosand yet as business needs change, they must still ensure thattechnologies remain aligned with business goals. Critical businesssystems such as customer relationship management (CRM) andenterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions typically operate inisolation from other critical business systemsdespite the fact thatbusiness processes often span multiple applications. To obtain anend-to-end view of a complex business process, organizations needto integrate information and process silos. In the past, this has beenaccomplished through either time-consuming manual interventionsor hard-coded solutions that are dif cult to maintain.

Service orientation is an approach to organizing distributedIT resources into an integrated solution that breaks downinformation silos and maximizes business agility. Serviceorientation modularizes IT resources, creating looselycoupled business processes that integrate information acrossbusiness systems. Critical to a well-designed service-orientedarchitecture (SOA) is producing business process solutions thatare relatively free from the constraints of the underlying IT

infrastructure, enabling the improved agility that businessesseek. A recent IDC study found that the most commonreason for enterprise adoption of SOA was to aid in internalintegration efforts, while external integration was most oftencited by software and service rms. 4

The SOA approach ultimately enables the delivery of a newgeneration of applications (sometimes called compositeapplications). These applications provide end users with moreaccurate and comprehensive information and insight intoprocesses, as well as the exibility to access this information inthe most suitable form and presentation factor, whether throughthe Web, a rich client, or a mobile device. Dynamic applicationsenable businesses to improve and automate manual tasks, to

gain a consistent view of customers and partner relations, andto orchestrate business processes that comply with internalmandates and external regulations. The net result is thatbusinesses are able to achieve the agility necessary for superiormarketplace performance.

Many enterprises are building services today and are shiftingfrom a tightly coupled, in exible application infrastructure to aloosely coupled SOA approach. We believe that this approach will

4 Sandra Rogers, Deepening Tracks on the SOA Journey, IDC, Doc #206730, May 2007

become ever more essential to maintaining competitiveness andagility as online services become prevalent in the coming years.

Next-Generation Web Experiences

The term Web 2.0 has been commonly used to describe onlineexperiences that extend beyond the capabilities expected in

rst-generation Web sites. Interactive capabilities such as socialnetworking, wikis, and blogs have become commonplaceand are increasingly being used within a business context. Ascompanies explore how to best capture consumer interest,strengthen customer relationships, and build partner and supplierconnections, corporate Web sites are evolving to deliver a next-generation Web experience and rich interactive applications thatextend outside the browser to take advantage of local storage,local peripherals, and desktop application integration.

Delivering an exceptional user experience is about morethan great-looking Web sites. It is about creating engaging,sophisticated experiences that capture a customers imagination.It is about connecting with a larger community of partnersand suppliers and working together to capture new markets.Recognizing that the Web is constantly changing, systems,applications, and staff need to anticipate those changes,remaining exible while keeping up with growth. This is drivingbusinesses to reevaluate the technology and infrastructureplatform that can best enable them to attract, engage, and

excite people online.

OUR APPROACH: SOFTWAREPLUS SERVICESThe SaaS approach was initially thought by some to signal thebeginning of a new era in which Internet-based services wouldreplace the traditional client-based software that is installedonto PCs and other devices and then updated or upgradedwhen a new version becomes available. Today, some enterprisetechnology vendors see the interest in services as a return tocentralized computing with minimal software on the desktop.Others see great opportunity for increased user empowermentbut are not yet addressing enterprise requirements such as policyand compliance. However, we believe that by combining elementsof Internet services with client or server software, IT departmentscan deliver solutions that provide new capabilities and deliver newlevels of utility, convenience, and exibility.

Our software plus services approach offers an ideal balancebetween the advantages of the connection between people,devices, and information that the Internet provides and the richinteractivity and high performance that can be achieved only


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by software that sits on a device with a powerful processor. Inmany cases, traditional software will provide the foundationfor enhancing the computing experienceadvances in voice

communications, the incorporation of speech into computinginterfaces, and improved handwriting and reading capabilities willall transform the way we interact with computers. While there areclear bene ts to a services model for software delivery, we believethat the next generation of software will blend these bene ts withthe best aspects of traditional client and server software.

This balanced approach enables us to deliver an optimized userexperience that is consistent, powerful, and seamless acrossthe desktop, Web, and other deviceswhile also offering thescalability, reliability, and security that our enterprise customersexpect. Our software plus services approach also helps ensurethat people can access the applications and information that theyneed even when they are not connected to the Internet.

Combining Reach and Richness

The software plus services approach enables developers and ITprofessionals to more easily develop and support applicationsthat provide the kind of experiences that their users are lookingfor. Until now, developers who focused on a speci c typeof application have often struggled to adapt their solutionsto different requirements and devices. For example, Webdevelopers have traditionally found it complex and challengingto provide richer, more interactive experiences. And developers of applications based on the Microsoft Windows operating systemhave found it equally challenging to maintain the richness of theexperiences that they are accustomed to delivering while takingadvantage of the broader reach available through the Internetor the accessibility provided by devices. With software plusservices and the capabilities provided by the Microsoft platform,developers can quickly incorporate the degree of reach and therichness of experience that is most appropriate for the experiencethat they seek to deliver.

At Microsoft, we are updating our existing tools and buildingentirely new tools that will help your developers create solutionsthat meld the bene ts of broad reach and rich experiences and

provide the exibility of server- and services-based software.One example is the Microsoft Silverlight cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in. Created to work with all leading browsers, itenables developers to incorporate into any Web application thekind of stunning graphics, media, text, animation, interactivity,and overlays that traditional Windows-based applications offer.

Microsoft can also help you to create next-generation Webexperiences for customers, partners, and suppliers. Through ourcomprehensive application platform, we offer a broad range of software and services to help you optimize your Web investmentsand infrastructure and enable your developers to make the mostof their existing skills. With more than 450 million daily visitorsto MSN.com, 315 million active Microsoft Hotmail Web-based

e-mail accounts, and 280 million active MSN Messengeraccounts, our Web properties and Microsoft adCenter can alsohelp you nd new audiences and reach more customers.

Offering Choice

The software plus services approach provides signi cantly greaterlevels of exibility and choice, enabling organizations to accessthe powerful capabilities of enterprise software through IT-managed on-site servers, as online services, or as a balance of both, depending on their speci c business needs. Over t ime, weexpect that three deployment models will become mainstreamand that our customers will use a combination of theseapproaches to meet their unique business requirements:

h On-premise servers Running their IT infrastructure onservers within their own data center when control andcustomization are the paramount consideration

Off-premise hosted services from partnersh Accessing ITcapabilities through service providers that host applicationsand solutions and offer specialized management and expertise

h Online services from Microsoft Accessing broad-basedOnline or Live service offerings hosted in Microsoft datacenters, which offer the benefits of low cost that come withMicrosofts huge scale

Microsoft plans to deliver a wide variety of new solutions undertwo key families of service offerings:

Live services from Microsoft are designed primarily forhindividuals, business end users, and virtual workgroups.Live offerings span entertainment, communication, andproductivity. These services emphasize ease of use, simplicityof access, and flexibility; they are ideally suited for situationswhere people either do not have access to professionaltechnical expertise or do not require high levels of systemmanagement.

Software+

Services

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DEPLOYMENT CHOICE

ON-PREMISE/IT MANAGEDPARTNER HOSTED ONLINE SERVICESONLINE SERVICES FROM MICROSOFT

SERVICES FORMESSAGING, SECURITY,AND MANAGEMENT

CHOICE OFUSER EXPERIENCE

Online services are for organizations with more advancedhIT needs where power and flexibility are critical. Onlineservices from Microsoft give businesses the ability to control

access to data, manage users, apply business and compliancepolicy, and meet high availability standards while providingperformance, scalability, enhanced security, managementfeatures, and service-level capabilities to support mission-critical applications and systems.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 offers perhaps the mostcomplete example of our software plus services vision today.Exchange Server 2007 can be deployed and managed by IT, isavailable online as a hosted service offering from a number of Microsoft partners, or is available through the Exchange Onlineservice offering from Microsoft (for organizations requiring5,000 or more licenses). We also offer additional ExchangeHosted Services to meet your e-mail security, continuity, and

compliance needs.

We also provide a range of choice on the client. The MicrosoftOf ce Outlook messaging and collaboration client providespeople with a full-featured and rich interface that is well

integrated with other Microsoft Of ce desktop productivityapplications. Of ce Outlook Web Access provides a consistentuser experience over the Web and Of ce Outlook Mobileextends Of ce Outlook to mobile devices. And Of ce OutlookVoice Access provides seamless access to e-mail and calendarinformation from a telephone. These differentiated offeringsenable you to deliver the right messaging and collaboration clientcapabilities to the right users.

Continuing Our Innovation

Software plus services is already having a dramatic impact onthe way that individuals communicate, create, and share contentand experiences. It is also changing the way that organizations

think about creating, deploying, and managing the informationsystems that are essential to their day-to-day operations. But inmany ways, this is still the very beginning of the software plusservices era. In the coming months and years, a new generationof innovations that harness the power of client or server softwareand the exibility of Internet-based services will deliver newcapabilities that will continue to transform peoples lives at homeand at work. Microsoft will play a vital role in this next evolutionof computing by delivering a comprehensive services platformalong with the infrastructure and support that will enable ourpartners to develop, deliver, and host a broader range of services-based offerings for enterprise customers.


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ROLE-BASED PRODUCTIVITY:REALIZING BUSINESS VALUE

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The changing role of software is opening up new opportunitiesfor businesses to drive improved productivity. This section looksat how our business productivity and application software canhelp you realize more business value from your software throughrole-based productivity, as well as how with our partners we tailorproductivity solutions to meet speci c industry needs.

THE NEXT LEVEL OF PRODUCTIVITYThe in uence of technology in business has been profound.We have seen signi cant gains in business ef ciency by usingtechnology to accelerate and optimize enterprise work ows.Across all areas of business, software has been used to automateprocessesparticularly in areas such as accounting, sales, andproduction.

In the last decade, signi cant progress has also been made indeveloping tools that help people work more ef ciently andproductively. Personal productivity tools have delivered considerablebene ts to individuals everyday work. For example, these tools havehelped people to better manage their e-mail, schedules, and tasks;improved their ability to work while out of the of ce; and helpedthem better protect sensitive corporate information. At an individuallevel, this has enabled people to improve their responsiveness,minimize rework, and reduce cycle times.

We have also seen signi cant improvements in team productivity.

Software has simpli ed team collaboration and acceleratedinformation sharing, helping teams deliver better results. Asinformation has proliferated, this software has made it easier forpeople to nd and share information, whether they are in the nextcubicle or outside the of ce. And teams have also bene ted fromtools to help preserve organizational security by helping controlaccess to and the use of sensitive data.

The bene ts of process automation coupled with improvedproductivity at a personal and team level have dramaticallychanged the way that people work. With the automation of routine, standardized processes and powerful tools to helptackle all of the non-routine elements of peoples work, is thereopportunity for more improvement? At Microsoft, we believe

that there is. Although personal and team productivity tools havehad a profound effect on business, typically they are disjointedfrom the business process automation software that businessesalso depend on, which can prove to be a major hurdle to superiorcustomer service, ef cient business operations, and innovativeproduct development.

We see a powerful opportunity to bridge these two worlds of softwarepersonal/team productivity and business processautomationand bring them together in a way that is tailored toan individuals role, providing another level of productivity thatwe call role-based productivity. For example, by enabling yoursalespeople to access relevant customer information from withintheir e-mail application, you can help them save time and effortby not forcing them to use a specialized line-of-business (LOB)application. Role-based productivity provides a foundation for thepeople-ready business, connecting people with tools designedto help them augment business processes based on their role,whether for employees through an intranet, extended out to thesupply chain through an extranet, or even for customers throughthe Internet.

TAkING A ROLE-BASED APPROACHOur customers are increasingly looking to a role-based approachto empower their people, moving away from traditional one-size- ts-all systems to drive increased productivity and acompetitive advantage for their businesses. In fact, according toa recent Forrester survey of 260 IT decision makers in the UnitedStates and the United Kingdom, 84 percent consider dynamicdelivery of content and collaboration tools based on role eithera somewhat important or an extremely important priority forinformation workplaces. 5 Through role-based software designand delivery that merges business systems with personal andteam productivity tools, organizations can unlock their data andenable seamless, ef cient technology interactions that no longerrequire people to manually connect information and data fromdisparate systems.

At Microsoft, we are committed to enabling role-basedproductivity, and we know that in order to build software that istailored to the work done by speci c people and companies, weneed to have an in-depth understanding of todays businesses

5 Erica Driver, Informat ion Workplaces Must Deliver Context To Both Workers and Customers, Forrester Research, Inc., July 2007


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and their employees. We invest signi cantly in understanding ourcustomers and designing and building software that meets theirneeds. Through two years of hands-on research into the speci croles that people perform within companies of various sizes andtypes, we have identi ed the business capabilities that we believeare central to enabling people to drive business outcomes. Thesecapabilities include being able to nd the information that theyneed, when they need it; being able to work together and withpartners, suppliers, and customers effectively regardless of wherethey are located; and having the tools to gain real insight intothe business. We have used these capabilities to de ne our focusin delivering business productivity and application softwarethat empowers people with tools that t seamlessly into theireveryday work.

Our priorities directly support our customers top businesspriorities. Reporting on the results of the annual Gartner surveyof 1,400 CIOs, Mark McDonald, Group Vice President, Gartner,Inc., notes that business priorities for 2007 include the need toimprove processes, improve workforce performance, and attractnew customers. 6

At Microsoft, we believe that the key to achieving thesebusiness priorities is putting people at the center, empoweredby technology that enables them to drive business processproductivity, work more effectively while mobile, and build betterconnections with their customers. We also focus on helping our

customers improve their compliance and get better insight intotheir businesss performance, which can directly contribute toa businesss competitiveness and growth, two additional topbusiness priorities.

CIO Survey:Top Business and Technology Priorities in 2007

The key to our approach is helping you enable people throughoutyour organization, regardless of role, to contribute to the businessand achieve your business priorities. We do this by deliveringfoundational tools that make it easier for people to work together,to share and manage content, to nd the information that theyneed to be responsive to customer needs, to streamline processesso that they can be as ef cient as possible, and to gain real insightinto the business.

Top 10 Technology PrioritiesTop 10 Business Priorities

1. Business process improvement2. Control enterprise-wide

operating costs3. Attract, retain, and grow

customer relationships4. Improve the effectiveness

of the enterprise workforce5. Revenue growth6. Improve competitiveness7. Use intelligence in products

and services8. Deploy new business

capabilities to meetstrategic goals

9. Enter new markets, newproducts, or new services

10. Faster innovation

1. Business intelligenceapplications

2. Enterprise applications (ERP,CRM, and others)

3. Legacy applicationmodernization

4. Networking, voice, anddata communications

5. Servers and storagetechnologies (virtualization)

6. Security technologies7. Service-oriented architectures8. Technical infrastructure

management9. Document management

10. Collaboration technologies

Source: Gartner EXP Survey of More than 1,400 CIOs Shows CIOs Must Create Leverage t o Remain RelevantBusiness, Gartner, Inc., February 2007

6 Gartner EXP Survey of More than 1,400 CIOs Shows CIOs Must Create Leverage to Remain Relevant to the Business, Gartner, Inc., February 2007(http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=501189 )

MAKING ROLE-BASED PRODUCTIVITY REAL

De ning business imperatives for the key rolesin your organization is essential to identifyingthe people, processes, and technologysolutions that can enable the highest level of

productivity from people in each role. Ourresearch shows that taking a phased approachto designing and delivering technologysolutions is often the most effective way toenable role-based productivity throughout theorganization. This enables the design to evolvefrom a fundamental solution addressing keyrequirements, to a comprehensive solutionthat encompasses all requirements, and

ultimately to a leading solution that re nes,integrates, and streamlines the solution tomaximize value and achieve competitivedifferentiation for your business.

We are actively developing role-speci c

solutions guidance for many common roles,such as marketing, sales, nance, customerservice, operations, and sourcing. When pairedwith your business imperatives, this guidancecan help form the basis for an evolutionarysolutions approach encompassing softwarefrom Microsoft and our partners.

L E A D I N G

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B u s i n e s s I m p e r a t i v e B u s i n e s

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Example of Role-Based Productivity:Optimizing Sales Force Productivity

An effective sales force plays a vital role in the success of anybusiness. Unfortunately, the hurdles facing sales teams to makethe most of every opportunity and develop pro table customerrelationships can be signi cant. Sales teams are less productiveand responsive when they cannot access the information thatthey needincluding proposal templates, current productinformation, past proposals related to a current opportunity,product experts, and insight on customer needs, history, andpreferencesat any time, from any location. This also affectshow easily and quickly they can evaluate sales opportunities.Collaboration challenges can make it dif cult to work effectivelywith internal and external sales team members, as well as acrossdistributed sales teams without traveling. And sales executivesoften struggle to gain visibility into sales activities across

distributed sales teams and to ensure customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) system usage compliance.

Our customers tell us that their sales teams need tools that makeit easy for them to work together, regardless of where they arelocated; that provide them with convenient, ready access toinformation and expertise, when they need it ; and that enablebetter insight into their sales performance. Six key businessimperatives that we believe are fundamental to maximizing salesforce productivity and revenue include:

Increase time available for sellingh Make it easier for yoursales representatives to find critical information, regardless of their location, and manage the increasing burden of e-mail,tasks, and meeting requests so that they can focus their timeon your most valuable customers.

Create high-impact sales proposalsh Automate theproposal review and approval process and enable your salesprofessionals to easily find current information, connect with

experts across organizations and geographies, and workon customer information offline to help drive sales winsby producing more accurate, timely, and compelling salesproposals.

Enable distributed team sellingh Help your distributed salesteams collaborate more easily, gain visibility into sales activitiesbeing conducted by the extended team in customer accounts,and share information and communicate more simply andsecurely to more effectively drive the sales pipeline.

Increase sales force productivityh Support your salesrepresentatives with team portals and unified communicationscapabilities to help them share information, collaborate, andrespond to customer communications more effectively.

Reduce training and travel costsh Provide more onlineoptions for distributed team meetings and training eventsand simplify access to business applications and informationcompany-wide to help drive down the cost of sales.

Enhance the value of CRM applicationsh Make it easier forsales professionals to use your CRM system through a simplerinterface and by enabling mobile access, helping improveCRM system adoption and subsequently the completeness(and therefore value) of the data that it contains.

The diagram on the following page provides a high-leveloverview of how addressing these business imperatives throughfundamental, comprehensive, and leading solution phases canempower your sales force and help optimize sales productivity.De ning solutions by business imperative using these threesolution phases can also help you identify the underlyingtechnology required to implement them.


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FUNDAMENTAL COMPREHENSIVE LEADING

I N C R E A S E T I M E A V A I L A B L E

F O R S E L L I N G

Enable sharing of customer/market and product/ fservice information across selling teams, accessibleof ine, through collaborative workspaces

Improve responsiveness of sales to communicationsffrom clients with access to e-mail and calendars frommobile devices

Improve responsiveness to sales with highly securefinstant messaging (IM)

Streamline sales team and sales support processesfwith work ow automation using a collaborativeworkspace infrastructure

Simplify access to data in enterprise applicationsfby sales teams, partners, and customers with basiccomposite applications and extranet capabilities usinga collaborative workspace infrastructure

Enable better customer insight and focus on high-fvalue customers and opportunities with self-servicereporting and analysis of transaction data fromdata mart(s)

Improve ef ciency in and frequency of use of CRMfand other enterprise applications with sophisticatedcomposite, personalized front-end applications usinga workspace infrastructure

Streamline access to transactions, customer,fopportunity, and product data with enterprise searchof data mart(s)

Enable seamless collaboration with selectedfcustomers/partners in collaborative workspacesfederated across customer/partner infrastructure

C R E A T E H I G H - I

M P A C T S A L E S

P R O P O S A L S

Improve quality and reduce cycle times for thefgeneration of sales proposals with collaborativeworkspaces that contain customer/marketinformation, product/service information, proposaltemplates, and collaborative authoring capabilities

Improve quality and reduce cycle times for thefgeneration of sales proposals with enterprise searchfor product/service information and relevant pastproposals that may be used as a starting point

Improve responsiveness to customers and generatefmore accurate proposals with direct access to currentproduct/service data

Discover and make the most of opportunities tofpursue niche markets with self-service reporting andanalysis of transaction data from a data mart

Improve collaboration with partners and customersfto generate accurate, compelling proposals,through highly secure external collaboration with an

information-protection infrastructure

Streamline access to product/service informationfthrough enterprise search

Improve discovery of niche markets with data miningftools connected to data marts

Improve focused execution in niche markets withfautomated tools for budgeting, planning, andforecasting programs

Enhance sales ability to use past proposals and ndfrelevant experts to support sales opportunities withenterprise searchStreamline proposal generation with auto-populationfof XML proposal templates

E N A B L E D I S T R I B U T E D T E A M

S E L L I N G

Enable better collaboration and coordination of fsales activities across distributed sales teams withcollaborative workspaces for customer/marketinformation and sales activity tracking

Improve sales team focus on performance withftimely and consistent delivery of (manual) salesperformance reports

Enable better communication across distributed salesfteams with highly secure IM and Web conferencing

Improve collaboration across sales teams and partnersfto share information and coordinate sales activitiesthrough ad hoc external collaborative workspacesand/or an extranet for partners/customers using aworkspace infrastructure

More precisely and accurately track sales activitiesfacross distributed sales teams through data martreports and analysis tools

Help protect sensitive data shared with partners andfclients through highly secure external collaborationtools and an information-protection infrastructure

Drive a consistent focus on speci c performancefacross sales teams with automated teamperformance scorecards

Enable seamless collaboration with selected partnersfand/or customers with collaborative workspacesfederated across customer/partner infrastructure

Provide consistent, streamlined access to transaction,fcustomer, opportunity, and product informationacross the sales team through enterprise search of CRM and transaction data

Drive consistency in structured account module/ fmarket planning, execution, and tracking throughautomated tools for budgeting, planning, andforecasting

I N C R E A S E S A L E S F O R C E

P R O D U C T I V I T Y

Enable better coordination of sales activitiesfand customer/market communications throughcollaborative workspaces

Improve responsiveness of sales to communicationsffrom clients with access to e-mail and calendars frommobile devices

Improve responsiveness to client communicationsfthrough a uni ed inbox for e-mail, fax, voicemail, etc.

Increase team focus on performance with self-servicefreporting and analysis of sales performance data

Better prioritize and manage work across opportunitiesfthrough role-based collaborative workspaces

Streamline sales processes with work ow automationfthat uses collaborative workspaces

Simplify access to data in enterprise applicationsfby sales teams, partners, and customers with basiccomposite applications and extranet capabilities usinga collaborative workspace infrastructure

Improve ef ciency in and frequency of use of CRMfand other enterprise applications with sophisticatedcomposite, personalized front-end applications usingworkspace infrastructure

Drive a persistent focus on critical areas of individualfperformance with personalized performancescorecards

R E D U C E T R A I N I N G

A N D T R A V E L C O S T S

Facilitate collaboration with collaborative workspacesf

Improve responsiveness and help reduce travelfcosts with virtual meetings (for example, customer,internal, and training) through IM and Webconferences

Improve access to and effectiveness of virtualfmeetings and training with searchable recordings of Web conference meetings and training

Simplify access to and use of data in enterprisefapplications with familiar tools for composite andreporting/analysis applications

Minimize the training required for use of CRM andfother enterprise applications through composite,personalized applications and/or desktopproductivity interfaces to CRM and enterpriseapplications

Enhance the accessibility of and communicationfamong distributed team members with presence-enabled enterprise applications

E N H A N C E T H E V A L U E

O F C R M A P P L I C A T I O N S Facilitate anywhere and of ine access to CRM reportsf

Supplement CRM collaboration with collaborativefworkspaces that have document, collaboration, andwork management tools

Streamline and drive sales processes structuredfaround CRM information with work ow automationand basic composite applications that supplementCRM systems

Improve insight into customer/market transactionsfwith sales performance and historical transactiondata integrated with CRM in data marts for reportingand analysis

Enable enterprise search of data in CRM applicationsf

Improve ef ciency in and frequency of use of CRMfand other enterprise applications with sophisticatedcomposite, personalized front-end applications usinga workspace infrastructure

Effectively apply customer/market insight containedfin CRM and other systems

Enable seamless customer collaboration aroundfselected CRM information by giving customers highlysecure extranet access to collaborative workspaces


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BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

Over the last decade, the way business is conducted has changedsigni cantly. Boundaries between of ces and organizations,between cultures and geographies are dissolving. Good service

means being available to your customers, partners, and suppliers24 hours a day, seven days a week, and great service means thatthey have multiple options for reaching you. Businesses are underincreasing scrutiny and need to be more transparent in theiroperations, ensuring accountability, security, and privacy withinand across organizations. To respond to the pressures of thisglobal marketplace, our customers are looking for new strategiesto improve ef ciency and productivity across their businesses.Their people need tools that simplify how they work together.They need to be able to better secure and manage content. Andthey need to be able to nd and make sense of an explosion of information to get better insight into the business.

When we speak with business leaders at our most successful

enterprise customers, one thing is clear: they are focused ondriving their business forward, and they are looking for theright technology to support them in doing this. The prioritiesfor these business leaders varyincreasing the effectivenessof their marketing, more accurately tracking sales forecasts,improving customer satisfaction through better customer service,delivering products and services more ef ciently, or ensuringthat budgets align with business strategy. However, regardless of their immediate priorities, many are realizing that their currentbusiness application investments are not fully delivering on theirpromised potential. While these applications have excelled atautomating business processes, they only represent a portion of the actual work that the people in these organizations do. As aresult, their people work in two distinct systemsthe two worlds

of business process automation and personal/team productivitysoftware that we discussed earlierwhich inevitably has a directimpact on their productivity.

At Microsoft, we believe that business systems need to put peopleat the center to help them gain insight, collaborate to makedecisions, and take actions that will help the business succeed. OurMicrosoft Dynamics line of business applications provides a goodexample of how we are working to deliver role-based productivity.We develop business applications using ve key tenets:

Familiar, tailored user experienceh By blending traditionalbusiness applications with personal/team productivity toolssuch as Microsoft Office, we deliver a user experience that isimmediately familiar to your people, helping increase their

productivity and reduce training costs for your organization.Service-oriented architecture (SOA)h Our SOA approachcreates greater flexibility in our business applications anddelivers three key benefits: greater agility to help yourorganization more easily adapt to the rapidly changingbusiness world, the ability to more easily unlock investments inexisting systems, and a broader choice of deployment optionsincluding outsourcing and hosting models.

Rapid development compositionh Composite applicationsare solutions that tie together functionality from severaldifferent sources, using industry-standard Web services tospan the boundaries of structured and unstructured datawhile tying together formal processes with ad hoc workflow.We design our business applications to enable softwaredevelopers to easily and quickly compose new solutions frommultiple partswhich can help increase your businesss agilitythrough solutions that map to your immediate, real-worldrequirements.

Integrated collaborationh Building on technology suchas Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, our businessapplications deliver powerful collaboration tools, enabling atransparent organization that provides employees, partners,and suppliers with access to data at all times in a security-enhanced and appropriate manner.

Immediately insightfulh Good decision making setsgreat people and organizations apart. With tools such asMicrosoft SQL Server Reporting Services, your users can beautomatically presented with information that gives thembusiness insight relevant to their role, which helps them makeimmediate business decisions with clarity and confidence.

Ultimately, to improve productivity and increase theircompetitiveness, our customers are looking to streamlinehow their people do business. To help you enable role-basedproductivity, we focus on ve key areas with our partners usingour business applications and business productivity platformtechnology:

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)h Drive business success

by helping increase individual productivity across yourorganization with familiar, easy-to-use, accessible financial andsupply chain management solutions. Financial managementfocus areas include budgeting and reporting, compliance,and corporate reporting and divestiture. Supply chainmanagement focus areas include automating order processing,improving forecasting accuracy, and streamlining performancemanagement.

Customer relationship management (CRM)h Help improvethe effectiveness of your marketing, sales, and service staff todevelop more profitable customer relationships by enablingthem to connect better with colleagues, partners, andcustomers.

Business performance managementh

Empower peoplethroughout your enterprise to measure and optimizeoperational performance with the processes and tools to gaininsighthelping them to plan more effectively, align withstrategic initiatives, and make better business decisions.


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ENHANCING PRODUCTIVITY WITHOFFICE BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

Finance, sales, marketing, customer service,or operationsregardless of role, for manypeople in enterprise organizations, MicrosoftOf ce applications are relied on for day-to-day tasks including corresponding bye-mail, preparing presentations, creatingreports and proposals, collaborating onprojects, and completing data analysis. Afundamental component of our role-basedproductivity approach is an emerging type of application that takes full advantage of thebusiness capabilities and bene ts built intothe Microsoft Of ce system. Using the Of ceBusiness Platform (the clients, servers, services,

and tools that comprise the 2007 MicrosoftOf ce system), Of ce Business Applications(OBAs) help businesses unlock the valueof their l ine-of-business (LOB) systems byseamlessly integrating them with the familiarMicrosoft Of ce programs. By linking back-of ce systems to front-end Microsoft Of ceapplications, OBAs help make the LOB systemsmore accessible and connect formal businessprocesses with the informal work that peopleactually perform, whether collaborating withother people by phone or e-mail, accessinginformation from multiple sources in the formof documents and spreadsheets, or switchingbetween online and of ine modes formeetings and business trips. By mirroring theactual ad hoc work practices that your peopleemploy in their daily work and creating auni ed business platform, an OBA can helpyour people overcome the inef ciency of duplicated work and the poor decisions thatcan result from making assumptions whenthey do not have the relevant data at hand.

OBAs offer value to people in roles acrossenterprise organizationsessentially, to

any role that would nd value in simpli edaccess to LOB systems. Consider the followingtwo examples of how an OBA can simplifyprocesses to help your teams work moreproductively:

Budget monitoringh Managers oftenfind it difficult to gain insight into theirbudget information. They frequently trackbudgets using separate spreadsheets and,lacking access to enterprise systems, eitherwork with out-of-date printed reportsor wait for the finance department toprovide information from their enterpriseresource planning (ERP) system. This lackof timely budget information can result

in poor spending decisions and budgetvariances. An OBA could help yourorganization overcome these challengesby giving managers the means to track,analyze, and act on budgeting data fromwithin Microsoft Office. For example, anOBA could enable you to schedule regularreports or submit ad hoc report requestsand then access the reports offline, drillinto the analytic and source data withinthem, and distribute them to otherindividuals. Furthermore, an OBA couldenable you to set and receive proactivealerts to time-critical information withinOffice Outlook, such as a notification that

spending is nearing a budget limit.Sales managementh Every salesorganization faces a similar set of challengeshow to shorten the salescycle and minimize the overall cost persale. A sales force can be hampered by alack of insight into sales performance, andsales professionals often are looking for

tools to improve visibility into customeraccount activity. An OBA could provide

online and offline access to your existingcustomer relationship management (CRM)application functionality from within OfficeOutlook, often the preferred tool formanaging sales contacts. By integratingwith existing CRM systems and deliveringcontextual sales information, an OBA couldprovide your sales professionals with betterinsight into their accounts, leading to moreeffective sales engagements and moreaccurate sales forecasts.

A key example of a powerful OBA that isnow available for organizations using SAPis the Duet for Microsoft Of ce and SAPapplication, a joint SAP and Microsoft offeringthat turns Microsoft Of ce into the userinterface for SAP, making it convenient andeasy for information workers to use. For moreinformation on Duet, please visit http://www.of ce.microsoft.com/duet .

To nd more information on OBAs generally,please visit http://www.microsoft.com/of ce/ oba . Microsoft partners also deliver a widerange of OBAs. To nd a solution that ts yourbusinesss needs, please visit https://www.obacentral.com .

Governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC)h Reduce the complexity of your compliance solutions andimprove control of financial, regulatory, and operational

processes through familiar and easy-to-use applications thathelp you protect, secure, and manage your corporate contentand assets while also complying with regulations.

Mobilityh Better support your mobile workforce and enableyour people to more effectively communicate, collaborate, andwork while on the go by extending the tools that they rely on

every day beyond the boundaries of the office.

In the sections that follow, we provide a detailed look at why webelieve these areas are so important and the opportunity that theyrepresent to empower your people to drive better productivity.


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ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING

Facing globalization, increasing competition, and customerdemands for better service, faster deliver y, and more innovativeproducts, the modern organization has no room for inef ciency.For a company to be competitive, its processes must be optimizedto enable the business to be more agile, responsive, and cohesive.However, our customers frequently tell us that they struggle toovercome costly and inef cient distribution methods, lengthytime to market for new services, and a lack of operationalef ciency. They have dif culty balancing customer demandswith cost pressures and must contend with erce and emergingcompetition and complex regulatory compliance requirements.

These challenges are further ampli ed by a dependence on thetwo very distinct worlds of software: business process automationsoftware (which automates processes in areas such as accountingand production) and personal productivity software (includinge-mail, word-processing, and spreadsheet software, as wellas Internet browsers). Furthermore, too often investments in

enterprise resource planning (ERP) systemsincluding nancialmanagement and supply chain management (SCM)fail todeliver because they are overly complex and require specializedtraining. Moreover, in many organizations ERP systems arelicensed for only a small percentage of employees to use.

Merging these two worlds of software can simplify yourpeoples access to ERP systems and empower them to combatinef ciencies, improve visibility, and drive processes that willhelp the business succeed. Whether your people are ensuringthat budgets are aligned with business strategy or seekingoperational excellence by integrating end-to-end processes, youcan provide them with role-based tools that work like and withtheir everyday applications. This can help lower transaction costs,

reduce economic friction, deliver more transparent and real-timeinformation to decision makers, and enhance responsiveness andpersonalization for new levels of customer service and self-service.

BUSINESS SCENARIOSThe following scenarios highlight how you can integrate business

process capabilities across your organization and help increaseuser productivity by implementing a business managementsolution that works like and with Microsoft Of ce.

Finance

A major challenge that nance executives tell us they have tocontend with is too much nancial information in too manyplaces, making it dif cult to access the right information at theright time and in the right format to be useful in budgetingand reporting. In addition, complex corporate governancerequirements are made more challenging by aggressive report ingtimelines and changing and con icting nancial regulations. Andbusiness growthboth internally and through acquisitions

leads to the need to account for new areas of the organization.For maximum ef ciency and insight, accounting and nanceprofessionals need a full view of nancial data with the tools tocreate, edit, and update budgets quickly, easily, and accurately;solid documentation and work ow processes to supportproof towards auditability; and critical up-to-the-minute scalinformation to give them a clear understanding of how nancialconsolidation takes place across a new organization, division, ordepartment. Integrating your business management solutionswith the familiar applications that your accounting and nancialteams use every day can provide real-time, shared, accurate

nancial information across the company, making budgetingeasier, supporting corporate governance compliance, andproviding quick access to the always-changing numbers.

Operations

In a world of tight margins, increasing customer expectations,and global competition, organizations cannot afford to havean inef cient supply chain. A top priority for many enterpriseorganizations is to improve how their organization sharesinformation with suppliers and partners to help ensure the timelyand cost-effective delivery of products. When people have accessto each step in the order and delivery cycle, they can help ensureaccurate, on-time product delivery. Furthermore, when operationsmanagers have access to key metrics including customer order,supplier, and product data, as well as shipping reports, theyare empowered to identify waste and drive it out of the supplychainwhether it is in inventory sitting on a shelf, incomplete orinaccurate deliveries, lost opportunities to share information withsuppliers, lack of effective demand-planning tools and systems,or time spent on activities that can be automated with the righttechnology solutions. An integrated SCM solution can help yourpeople streamline order entry, distribution, demand forecasting,and supplier collaboration processes. It can also enable them toproactively and pro tably link pricing, promotions, and other sales


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incentives and make more informed decisions as a result of moreaccurate data and a better understanding of customer demands.Ultimately, it will help them gain a better understanding of whatcustomers want and need, helping improve product development,delivery times, and customer satisfaction.

SUPPORTING MICROSOFTTECHNOLOGIESAt Microsoft, our vision is to help your organization build aninfrastructure that can be adapted to deliver information andsupport processes in ways that most closely mirror your peoplesworking styles and needshelping all of your people contributeto the overall success of the organization. We invest signi cantlyin understanding our customers, which helps us to deliver on thisvision: each year we conduct usability and research studies as well

as site visits with our customers in their own environments. Thisresearch has helped us bring two powerful information systemstogether more intuitively and more completely than ever before:

STREAMLINING FORECAST-TO-CASHPROCESSES IN MANUFACTURING

Shinko Electric Industries deployed MicrosoftDynamics AX to consolidate and streamlineforecast, quote, sales, and order processes(with Microsoft Gold Certi ed PartnerFullscope). Key bene ts include:

An accelerated return on investmenth(saving almost 390 hours per month byreceiving automated transactions)

Improved business processesh

Support for future growthh

Improved management and serviceh

ESTABLISHING WORLD-CLASS BUSINESSPRACTICES IN HEALTH

The General Authority for Health Services(GAHS) Emirate of Abu Dhabi deployedMicrosoft Dynamics GP to help integrate andmanage nancials, purchasing, billing, humanresources, and payroll. Key bene ts include:

Consolidated purchasingh

Coordinated billinghStreamlined payroll and human resourcehmanagement

Improved access to informationh

Scalability to meet growing needsh

CUTTING ADMINISTRATION TIMEIN RETAIL

Petro-Canada deployed a solution based onMicrosoft Dynamics AX combined with BizTalkServer and a Web-based user interface toupdate its aging legacy inventory and nancialsystems (with Microsoft Gold Certi ed PartnerIdeaca Knowledge Services). Key bene tsinclude:

Real-time efficiencyh

A faster reporting processh

Easier system-wide upgradesh

An accelerated training processh

Find more information on these and other examples of Microsoft and Microsoft partner business solutions athttp://www.microsoft.com/casestudies .

business process automation software and personal productivitysoftware. Microsoft Dynamics nancial management and SCMsoftware and Microsoft Of ce have been designed to worktogether in new ways, helping you increase the penetration of business data throughout your organization and thereby helpingimprove employee productivity and overall business ef ciency.

Microsoft software for integrated ERP solutions includes:

Microsoft Dynamicsh

Microsoft Office Enterpriseh

Microsoft Office SharePoint Serverh

Microsoft Windows Mobile softwareh

SQL Serverh

Microsoft BizTalk Serverh

To nd more information on driving real-world businessprocesses, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/business/ peopleready/process .
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudieshttp://www.microsoft.com/casestudieshttp://www.microsoft.com/casestudies


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CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPMANAGEMENT

While organizations have long known that customer experiencesin uence customer loyalty, it is becoming increasingly clear justhow important those experiences are. According to a recentsurvey conducted by CustomerThink Corporation, high-qualityinteractions with people and systems and superior product[s] orservice[s] are the two most important drivers of customer loyalty. 7

At 78 percent and 77 percent of survey responses, respectively, eachranks signi cantly higher than lowest price or cost of ownership(31 percent) as a factor driving customer loyalty. Given the highcost of attracting new customers, it is no surprise that improving

customer service and retention is a priority for executives.8

Although customer centricity is a priority in the modern enterprise,it can be surprisingly dif cult to achieve. The existing customerrelationship management (CRM) solutions in many organizationsdo not provide the technical capabilities needed to truly connectwith customers. Too often, CRM projects are focused on one-size-

ts-all applications. And the CRM business processes are hardto adopt across the enterprise and do not allow people to workthe way their jobs and customers require. Many of our customersare re-evaluating and improving their approach to interactingwith their customers. The result is that customer experience andexpectations are driving their plans for CRM investments as part of a wider communications and collaboration technology solution.

Collaborationinternally, across the extended enterprise, and withcustomerscan give your people tools and information to helpthem improve communications, increase their personal impact, andwork more securely across organizational boundaries. Combinedwith broadly integrated analytics that help improve customerunderstanding and deepen the customer relationship, these toolscan enable your people to enrich each customers experience,helping to generate increased loyalty and demand. They can also

enable your company to better manage costs and improve yourproducts and services.

BUSINESS SCENARIOSIntegrated CRM solutions that support collaboration at speci cpoints in the customer value chain can help customer-facingprofessionals to work better together, nd the information thatthey need, and create value for customers by connecting withpartners. The following scenarios highlight a few areas that webelieve are particularly important.

Mar eting

Marketing executives are often faced with two simultaneousproblems: shrinking market share and a lack of effectivemarketing tools to help generate new business. Without theability to gain a single view of the customer or adequatelysupport marketing and sales collaboration on launches,marketing execution can be disconnected from sales activities.Furthermore, without the right tools, nding and analyzingcustomer data to identify and focus on high-value opportunitiesis complex. Teams can struggle to coordinate marketing plansand campaign activities with key partners and eld sales teams.Our customers are looking for a solution to help their marketingteams drive new business opportunities. They want a singlesystem to simplify sales prospecting and cultivation, accelerateproduct launches, and improve campaign execution. At the sametime, they want the system to make it easier to share marketintelligence, create consistent messaging across the enterprise,and capture and manage structured and unstructured customerdata within a single system for a complete view of prospectsand customers. They also want a solution that can help themmanage marketing costs by enabling them to improve customertargeting, streamline content development, and increase eldand partner effectiveness.

Sales

The top priorities for many sales leaders are overcoming lostrevenue and addressing both the shrinking sales win rates andthe rising cost of sales. Too often, a lack of timely sales andcustomer data complicates decision making about where to investresources. With inadequate access to customer information andwithout the tools to collaborate across distances, it is dif cult forsales teams to share competitive intelligence, develop winningproposals, and react quickly to sales opportunities. An underusedCRM system also results in inadequate visibility into customerinformation, further hampering sales. An integrated, easy-to-useCRM and collaboration solution can help your sales staff improvetheir success rates. It can accelerate the sales pipeline with morequali ed sales leads; track important associations across partners,customers, and pending sales opportunities; enable distributed

7 Bob Thompson, Customer Experience Management: Accelerating Business Performance, CustomerThink Corporation, June 20068 Seizing the BI Opportunity, BusinessWeek Research Services, May 2006


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team selling; make it easier to create high-impact sales proposals;and free up more time to focus on selling. An integrated solutioncan also automate and improve the accuracy of sales forecasting

through dashboard views of key sales metrics and snapshotviews of critical business indicators. Such automation of routinetasks helps reduce the cost of sales, increase your sales forcesproductivity, and reduce training and travel costs.

Customer Service

Customer service managers need to address an increasing churnof high-value customers and lost sales opportunities. Withouteasy access to customer information and the tools to collaboratewith other teams, customer service representatives can struggleto deliver responsive, effective service. Service representativesalso can nd it dif cult to connect with customers when theydo not have the tools to communicate with them in real time.

Solutions that deliver a single view of each customer coupled withintegrated, easy-to-use collaboration tools can help service staff to deliver more responsive service, improve knowledge sharing,and provide proactive customer support. Integrated solutions helpbusinesses retain customers, enable a higher level of customerservice, give customers a single point of contact regardless of thecommunication channel, and help reduce costs through ef cientscheduling and dispatching. These solutions help further containservice costs by improving contact center productivity, reducingissue resolution time, and enabling service delivery through theWeb and mobile services. When customer-facing teams are ableto identify, collaborate on, and resolve critical customer issues,your organization is in a better position to increase customerretention, satisfaction, and loyalty.

SUPPORTING MICROSOFTTECHNOLOGIESMicrosoft Dynamics CRM business software is a complete CRMsolution that includes the tools and technologies requiredto help marketing, sales, services, and other customer-facingemployees to be effective in todays business world. With real-time access to up-to-date sales information and customer data,your people will be able to shorten turnaround timeshelpingimprove customer satisfactionand close more deals, fasterand more easily. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides your peoplewith access to comprehensive customer information through asingle, familiar interface that is a natural extension of MicrosoftOf ce and Of ce Outlook. Based on the scalable and security-enhanced .NET platform, Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be usedto connect decentralized business units and departments to awider, centralized CRM system, enabling the sharing of customerinformation organization-wide. Microsoft Dynamics CRM givesyou the power of choice in how you license, deploy, and useCRM. Customers can choose to deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRMon premise or have it hosted by a partner or Microsoft, and its

exibility makes it easy to migrate data as your business evolves.You can also choose online or of ine usage.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is also designed to integrate withMicrosoft collaboration technologies delivered through theMicrosoft Of ce system. Collaboration features in the Of ceEnterprise 2007 suite provide a comprehensive toolset to helpyour people work together more effectively. The integration of Exchange Server 2007 with the 2007 Microsoft Of ce systemenhances this collaboration toolset, making calendaring simpler

STREAMLINING SALES PROPOSALGENERATION IN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

CGI Insurance Business Services implementeda document work ow solution using Of ceSharePoint Server and Microsoft Of ceProfessional Plus to streamline an alreadysuccessful proposal-generation process. Keybene ts include:

Reduced cost of proposal developmenth

Reduced annual cost of complying withhthe CGI corporate-mandated framework

Improved proposal qualityh

An increased win rateh

BOOSTING CUSTOMER CARE INTELECOMMUNICATIONS

BT Germany implemented an integratedcall center solution using the Customer CareFramework to provide a single view of thecustomer and streamline communications.Key bene ts include:

Fast, cost-effective developmenth

Enhanced customer careh

Time savings of 80 percenth

Increased productivity for call center agentsh

A new focus on non-standard problemhresolution

SUPPORTING A NEW LINE OF BUSINESSIN RETAIL

Best Buy for Business implemented MicrosoftDynamics CRM to better support its outsidesales force and help customers improve theirbusiness insight. Key bene ts include:

An expanded solutions and serviceshportfolio

Support for a complex sales cycleh

The establishment of a foundation forhgrowth

Find more information on these and other examples of Microsoft and Microsoft partner CRM and collaboration solutions athttp://www.microsoft.com/casestudies .


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BUSINESS PERFORMANCEMANAGEMENT

Business decision makers know that how quickly they manageand act on information and how well they measure and improveresults can determine their businesss ongoing competitive andmarket position. This is fueling a need for business intelligenceand performance management processes that give everyone inthe organizationfrom the executive team on downvisibility,empowerment, and accountability. Business intelligence is a keycomponent of a performance management solution and one thatis of critical interest for our enterprise customers: according toMark McDonald, Group Vice President, Gartner, Inc., in our 2007survey of more than 1,400 CIOs, business intelligence applicationswere their top technology priority. 9

However, many companies nd that although they are collectingmore information than ever before in their enterprise resourceplanning (ERP) and other line-of-business systems, decisionmakers at all levels have dif culty nding, using, and acting onthis information. Specialized skills are required to access thedata, and reports often re ect information that is hours, if notdays, old. In addition, reports often need to be consolidated andreformatted before they can be used easily by decision makers,and they may lack the detail or context to provide the necessaryinsight.

An effective performance management solution can be framed asa consistent, closed-loop process (from budgeting and planningto consolidation, analysis, and reporting) that delivers the insightto achieve three fundamental goals: drive effective planning,ensure alignment across the organization, and enable moreeffective decision making at all levels. A solution that has beendesigned based on these principles can help your organizationlink business processes into a coherent system that supports

the overall company strategy, including delivering consistent,timely, and aligned metrics to improve strategic decision making,boost revenue, drive pro table growth, and improve operational

ef ciencies throughout the value chain.

BUSINESS SCENARIOSThe following are typical scenarios in which a holisticperformance management solution can help enterprises realizeimmediate bene ts.

Finance

Finance executives frequently tell us that they are frustrated byslow laborious processes, an overwhelming amount of data thatobscures important information, and poor visibility into theircurrent nancial position and the causes of nancial results.Their budgeting processeswhich are typically separatedfrom performance management and forecastingcan be timeconsuming, costly, and labor intensive. It can take analysts a longtime to create reports, and they often need to get input from ITto do so. In addition, with multiple sources for nancial data, theyhave dif culty getting a uni ed view and as a result often do nottrust the data that they must rely on. Your organization can helpovercome these challenges by enabling highly secure, automatedprocesses for budget development, implementing auditabilityand control for all business process data, and replacing staticannual budgeting processes with rolling forecasts. A businessperformance management solution that incorporates theseelements can help your nance executives reduce the time andcost of corporate budgeting and planning processes, improvetheir visibility into nancial information to better understandpresent business conditions, and more accurately identify andforecast market trends and business opportunities.

Mar eting

In many enterprise organizations, marketing teams struggle to getvisibility into customer preferences and buying patterns and oftenlack insight into drivers of customer behavior. They do not have themeans to access and analyze customer information to get a goodunderstanding of market segments, regions, and demographics.Furthermore, because they cannot measure the results of customerservice programs and other initiatives, they are not able to identifykey pro tability factors for most of their products, services, orcustomers. Marketing teams need quick access to customer data,easily generated role-speci c campaign and product performancereports, and scorecards with drill-down navigation to enable betteranalysis and insight. A performance management solution thatdelivers these features with user-friendly tools and applications canhelp improve your organizations return on marketing investments.And with a more complete, more holistic view of your customers,your marketing teams can gain a deeper understanding of customer needs and market opportunities.

9 Gartner EXP Survey of More than 1,400 CIOs Shows CIOs Must Create Leverage to Remain Relevant to the Business, Gartner, Inc., February 2007(http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=501189 )


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IMPROVING MANAGEMENT REPORTINGIN FINANCIAL SERVICES

Fortis Group built a performance managementsystem to streamline performancemanagement and reporting across thegroup, compare data across business linesand departments more effectively, and makebetter, faster management decisions (withMicrosoft Gold Certi ed Partners Accentureand Avanade). Key bene ts include:

Reduced risk of data input errorsh

Flexibility to respond quickly to markethtrends

Presentation of integrated managementhdata across the groupA familiar user interfaceh

Enhanced business decision makingh

IMPROVING PLANNING ANDFORECASTING IN MANUFACTURING

Skanska USA Building built a performancemanagement solution to enhance datausability and improve both the timelinessand the accuracy of forecasting, planning,and budgeting using Microsoft Of cePerformancePoint Server businessintelligence software. Key bene ts include:

Quick, easy access to accurate,hconsistent data

The ability to create a wide variety of hreports that enable flexible, in-depthanalysis

The ability to better plan, budget, andhforecast for the future as well as monitor,analyze, and report on current activities

DRIVING BETTER MANAGEMENTDECISION MAKING IN HOSPITALITY

Muckleshoot Indian Casino deployed areporting solution based on Of ce SharePointServer to provide managers with structured,timely, and high-quality data. They alsodeployed the Windows Vista operatingsystem to provide a scalable and robustinfrastructure for the casino as it grows (withMicrosoft Gold Certi ed Partner Resolute). Keybene ts include:

Increased quality and efficiency of hreporting processes

Faster availability of reports enablingh

quicker response to issuesImproved effectiveness of managementhreports

Streamlined desktop deployment andhreduced maintenance costs

Sales

Common challenges for sales executives include managing,

measuring, and analyzing performance, from the pipeline tooverall revenue achievement. For many of our customers, theirsales managers cannot see or measure business drivers and donot have a convenient way to segment and analyze sales resultsand quotas. They get con icting performance data from differentsources, leading to dif culty making informed decisions. Theycannot easily identify the best cross-sell or up-sell opportunitieswith their customers. Furthermore, they nd it dif cult tocommunicate changes in sales strategies or key performancemeasures across sales teams. A holistic business performancemanagement solution can give your sales managers up-to-the-minute access to sales results, easy-to-use tools for data analysis,and the ability to share insights and decisions ef ciently withwidely dispersed teams. And by expanding the reach of analytics

throughout your sales teams, you can support informed, timelydecision making and improved understanding of drivers forbusiness results and customer behavior.

Operations

Operations executives often tell us that they lack the tools to

effectively monitor and optimize business activities and costs.When operational dataincluding historical, current, analytical,and process informationis spread across the organization, it isdif cult to get a single complete view. Managers struggle to keepinventory buffers at an ideal level. They cannot see the effects of operational decisions on the bottom line. They are challengedto ensure that project and resource investments align with thebusinesss strategic objectives. They nd it dif cult to monitor andanalyze operational performance against objectives and cannotadequately predict the effect of speci c decisions or actions. Aholistic performance management solution can help address thesechallenges. Operations executives can gain full insight into thebusiness with a solution that embeds analysis steps directly intobusiness processes, provides scorecards with data-driven alerts

and reports with drill-down capabilities, and centrally managesbusiness insight and content management capabilities. Withintegrated tools that provide easy access to real-time informationfrom across your organization, your operations managers will beempowered to understand root causes and take decisive action,make fact-based decisions, and ensure that project prioritizationand resource allocation are in alignment with corporate strategy.

Find more information on these and other examples of Microsoft and Microsoft partner business performancesolutions at http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies .


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SUPPORTING MICROSOFTTECHNOLOGIESMicrosofts vision for business performance management solutionsis to deliver insight to decision makers at all levelsthroughimmediate access to up-to-date corporate data and with theanalytical tools that they need to plan their business, acceleratestrategy implementation, and get immediate feedback on thebusinesss performance. Microsoft business intelligence capabilitiescan help people throughout your organization gain insight intothe business, improve operations, and reduce costs using familiar,easy-to-use tools that work the way they do. The unique valueof Microsoft business intelligence and business performancemanagement solutions is the full integration of enterprise datamanagement with the easy usability of the Microsoft Of ce system.Microsoft technologies can also integrate with and extend existingbusiness intelligence investments to make them more accessibleto users at all levels. By bringing these powerful solutions directlyinto familiar desktop applications, everyone in your organization isempowered with accessible business intelligence and performancemanagement capabilitieshelping to build a smarter, more agile,and more competitive business.

Of ce PerformancePoint Server 2007 provides comprehensivebusiness performance management capabilities, including

scorecarding, analytics, planning, budgeting, forecasting,consolidation, and nancial reporting, to help improveoperational and nancial performance across all aspects of your

business. Microsoft Of ce Excel 2007 spreadsheet softwarecan support analytical tasks in every department across yourorganization, including providing enhanced visualizationand analysis tools that help quantify and compare trends.Furthermore, Of ce Excel Services (running on Of ce SharePointServer 2007) can help improve your organizations operationalreporting with real-time, interactive Of ce Excel spreadsheetsaccessed from a Web browser, providing a single, central, up-to-date version for your employees while helping to protectany proprietary information, such as nancial models, that isembedded in documents.

Microsoft software for business performance management includes:

Office Professional Plush

Office SharePoint Serverh

SQL Serverh

Documents

Microsoft Enterprise Customer Guide 2011