Microsoft's Business Contact Manager 2.0 - CRM on a Shoestring
RTA Information Technology, Tempe, Arizona
Everybody needs CRM. If you have a business and don't have a way to manage contacts and correspondence, you are handicapping yourself.
What's CRM?
Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) is software to manage your business contacts, leads, mailings, proposals, and billings. Microsoft's new CRM 3.0 is a leading example, and can be quickly installed on your Windows Small Business Server 2003 (Premium Edition). But CRM 3.0 may be a bit pricey for many small businesses. If your livelihood is sales, then you SHOULD take a hard look at CRM 3.0. But if you can't justify the cost right now, you should look for SOME kind of CRM software.
Enter Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager Update (BCM Version 2)
BCM 1.0, which came out two years ago, was a major disappointment to me. I installed it and immediately removed it. It wasn't designed to work with Outlook Exchange Profiles (although there was a patch for SBS 2003 users). And you couldn't share your contacts with anybody else. That was a major problem for most people.
But BCM Version 2.0 is different. You can share your contact data among five users. You can even put the data on your SBS 2003 Server, in an MSDE database, to make for easy sharing and backups. And BCM integrates nicely with MS's Small Business Accounting (SBA) 2006, which can't even be done with full-blown CRM 3.0 without add-in connection software. You can enter a billing in Outlook 2003 and have it pop out of SBA 2006 as an Invoice.
Did I mention Free?
Yes, BCM 2.0 is a free update to Outlook 2003 if you own MS Office Small Business Edition 2003 or MS Office Professional Edition 2003. You can get more information and download it here:
http://tinyurl.com/jzft9
Want more details?
Here's the lowdown on Business Contact Manager from Microsoft:
http://tinyurl.com/jnve3
What do I think of BCM?
Everybody needs CRM. If you have a business and don't have a way to manage contacts and correspondence, you are handicapping yourself.
What's CRM?
Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) is software to manage your business contacts, leads, mailings, proposals, and billings. Microsoft's new CRM 3.0 is a leading example, and can be quickly installed on your Windows Small Business Server 2003 (Premium Edition). But CRM 3.0 may be a bit pricey for many small businesses. If your livelihood is sales, then you SHOULD take a hard look at CRM 3.0. But if you can't justify the cost right now, you should look for SOME kind of CRM software.
Enter Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager Update (BCM Version 2)
BCM 1.0, which came out two years ago, was a major disappointment to me. I installed it and immediately removed it. It wasn't designed to work with Outlook Exchange Profiles (although there was a patch for SBS 2003 users). And you couldn't share your contacts with anybody else. That was a major problem for most people.
But BCM Version 2.0 is different. You can share your contact data among five users. You can even put the data on your SBS 2003 Server, in an MSDE database, to make for easy sharing and backups. And BCM integrates nicely with MS's Small Business Accounting (SBA) 2006, which can't even be done with full-blown CRM 3.0 without add-in connection software. You can enter a billing in Outlook 2003 and have it pop out of SBA 2006 as an Invoice.
Did I mention Free?
Yes, BCM 2.0 is a free update to Outlook 2003 if you own MS Office Small Business Edition 2003 or MS Office Professional Edition 2003. You can get more information and download it here:
http://tinyurl.com/jzft9
Want more details?
Here's the lowdown on Business Contact Manager from Microsoft:
http://tinyurl.com/jnve3
What do I think of BCM?
I can't tell you. Yet.
I've just reinstalled it. I'm going to see how well it works for me, and how well it works with SBA 2006. I'd report back here soon.
In the meantime, you might want to join a new Yahoo Group that's been formed to discuss BCM: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/msbcm
posted by Myron Johnson | 11:40 PM
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