| | SEPTEMBER 20188CIOReviewBy Andrew Ho, CIO, Global Strategy GroupThis story may be somewhat apocryphal, but I feel that I first heard of Microsoft Dynamics well over a decade ago at a tech conference. I was listening to a panel discussion debating the pros and cons of different Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, when someone asked about Dynamics. Almost immediately, there were chuckles from audience members. The panelists were more politic with their answers, but the overwhelming message was clear--people did not consider Microsoft Dynamics to be a major contender in the CRM marketplace. The opinion was that Dynamics was just Microsoft's token entry into the CRM space and that, really, only the most die-hard Microsoft shops would ever use it. The conversation then focused on the comparisons amongst Oracle (which had purchased Siebel Systems at the time), SAP, and Salesforce. Over my career, I would work in each of these systems: Siebel (pre-Oracle purchase) from 2002 ­ 2004, SAP from 2006 ­ 2009, and Salesforce from 2010 ­ 2017. During most of this period, I never heard anything to change my negative perception of Microsoft Dynamics.I tell this story to explain my long-held prejudices against Dynamics and set the context for my 180-degree opinion change in 2017. In the beginning of that year, I saw first-hand Microsoft's latest iteration of its CRM, Dynamics 365 (D365), in action, and was blown away by how genuinely functional it was. Considering that for much of my career Dynamics was the punchline, this was a genuine revelation. Here was a system that legitimately met all the CRM requirements that I had, plus have additional advantages that I was not even aware of until I finally gave the system an objective evaluation.In 2017, I found myself evaluating new CRM/Project Service Automation (PSA) systems for Global Strategy Group (GSG). GSG had been using Salesforce as its CRM/PSA since 2008 CHOOSING MICROSOFT DYNAMICS 365
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