We’ve been in the CRM business since 2009 and have implemented Salesforce CRM for many customers. However, as our business grew and we continued to support customers using Salesforce, we realized that the technology wasn’t for everyone. As a result, our team of consultants and technologists searched for an alternative solution to offer our customers.
If you happen to be one of the businesses currently using Salesforce CRM, you likely feel frustrated for the following reasons:
That’s where TrellisPoint can help. As CRM experts, we know your pain. Fortunately, we also know how to fix it. A migration from Salesforce to Microsoft Dynamics 365 doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, as more companies have chosen to migrate, we’ve developed an expertise in handling Salesforce to Dynamics migration projects. If you’re considering making the leap, here are a few things you know.
Leveraging decades of experience with CRM systems, we’ve developed a turn-key solution to seamlessly migrate your data from Salesforce CRM to the latest innovative Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution. We’ve done all the work ahead of time, pre-mapping all out-of-the-box data fields in both systems, so you don’t have to factor vast amounts of time and resources into planning your migration. In most cases, your migration project can be completed within 4-6 weeks!
Budgeting your project is always a prime factor in your cost-benefit analysis when deciding to switch CRM platforms. We have great news on this front! Migrating from Salesforce CRM to Microsoft Dynamics may not be as costly as you think. A good range to budget is approximately $14,000-$19,000 for a full migration and can cost much less depending on the depth of the use cases that require support. As a Microsoft Partner, we’re also able to offer you a free 30 day trial which includes transferring up to 10,000 contacts for you to experience Microsoft Dynamics firsthand.
Ongoing licensing is another factor to consider when budgeting for your CRM migration project. The cost difference between the two platforms is significant. From our experience, most Salesforce customers are paying over $150/per month per user for Salesforce licenses. But, we’ve also heard of some paying nearly $300 per month/user for access to additional security roles and unlimited Sandbox space – not to mention the additional costs to license integrations. Our customers using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, pay a fraction of that, paying on average $95 per month/per user for unlimited integrations, a mobile experience, and 10x the storage.
Knowledgeable partners will be able to navigate their way around both systems. Our experienced team can match most of your data quickly and accurately – but also do it via our proven method that ensures you don’t lose crucial information such as record history, sales opportunities or quotes. Of course, there will be data that you choose not to transfer to your new CRM, but it’s a choice, not an oversight. This is an important point because many customers use the migration process as a tune-up for UI and associated processes.
At TrellisPoint, we approach every migration as a new installation. We work closely with you to identify your current needs, make recommendations for functionality improvements, clean up data, and ultimately design a CRM solution tailored for your business – complete with the right fields, entities and workflows in place to drive the most impact.
It’s clear to see why Microsoft’s CRM offering is a fast-growing threat to Salesforce. Based on performance in the areas of —deployment, customization, integrations, resources and support, and cost, TrellisPoint recommends the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform as the more cost effective, high-performing CRM of choice for businesses. From its deep integrations, with Microsoft solutions ingrained in nearly every facet at the enterprise level, to its lower long-term cost of ownership, it’s simply the best value—sharing the same core capabilities of Salesforce, without the higher price tag behind the brand name.
If you’re ready to make the switch, contact our team of CRM professionals for an initial consultation. If you’re still unsure, we’ll be happy to review the details of your Salesforce installation and the benefits that come along with migrating to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, as well as the 30-day free trial.
In Part 1 we discussed the main components of a CRM migration including Data Model customizations, UI customizations, and the Data Migration itself.
The data migration can be the most difficult part of a CRM platform migration, sometimes by a long shot. This article provides a review of available options to bring your data into Dynamics 365 (D365), and some of the common challenges that can make it harder than expected.
The Import Data Wizard can import data from one or more comma-separated value (.csv), XML Spreadsheet 2003 (.xml), or text files. It allows for creating data maps with some data transformation capabilities. It can also perform lookups into some entities on the fly, duplication checks, and other validations.
These are just some of the main limitations of doing CRM migration with the Import Wizard. This tool is not meant to be a complete migration solution. It’s better to consider it a means to perform the simplest CRM migrations (such as when all that is needed are Accounts and Contacts plus minimal other linked data). It can also be ideal for performing limited imports once a system is in production. An experienced D365 database administrator might get some decent mileage out of this tool for a small platform migration, but the effort required is hard to justify.
There’s a variety of software solutions in the market to help facilitate data migrations into D365. Some are only a minor improvement over the Data Import Wizard, while others help make complex migrations possible through a robust set of features. Perhaps the most widely known tool available is from Scribe Software. They offer both a cloud solution (Scribe Online) and an on-premise solution (Scribe Insight). Here at TrellisPoint, we have used Scribe solutions for many years. We have achieved good outcomes using these tools for our clients, although not without various challenges and limitations. Here are some of Scribe’s pros and cons as experienced by our consulting team:
You may be able to secure the services of a consultant or consulting firm to perform the platform migration for you. As with other IT projects, it can quickly become a very expensive proposition. While there are very capable CRM migration consultants, there are also many unreliable or overpriced consulting firms out there willing to take the job without the proper experience or expertise. On the other hand, the best D365 data migration professionals will save you time, headaches, budget, and the risk of data loss or even the possibility of a failed data migration.
The consulting team here at TrellisPoint has many years of experience performing simple and complex CRM migrations and data integrations. Over the years we have leveraged our experience to develop advanced internal tools that allow us to overcome the worst of the challenges mentioned above. Our process increases accuracy, speed, and reliability while lowering the total cost of migration. Here are the pros and cons of using TrellisPoint to perform a CRM platform migration:
In early-to-mid 2018, TrellisPoint will begin releasing new CRM Migration offerings which will include a free limited data migration. This means your own CRM data, moved to an actual 30-day Dynamics 365 trial instance ready for you to review and study within days. No planning, no meetings, and zero cost!
The trials may be limited to only Account and Contact information for example, and will likely include only existing fields in D365. Nevertheless, this will allow any organization to get a preview of how easy and straightforward a data migration can be when done by TrellisPoint experts, with no commitment required.
If you would like to speak to someone about this offering, please feel free to contact us here, or give us a call at (440) 390-1619.
TrellisPoint is a professional services firm specialized in the implementation, management, and maintenance of CRM systems. We have been assisting our clients with CRM migration and integration for decades, and have performed many successful and cost-effective migrations of different CRM databases into Dynamics 365. Our Strategy and Business Analysts can be extremely helpful to your organization in performing business process mapping, data mapping, and user interface design. Our CRM Migration Specialists will also be invaluable when the time comes to finally migrate the priceless data that your organization depends on. Please do not hesitate to contact us for a free, no commitment consultation.