SalesCentric Relationship Charts v4.0 demo for Titan is ready for download now!
UK-BASED SalesCentric. a Microsoft ISV partner, is reporting great success in signing channel partners across Europe for its Relationship Charts, which works as an add-on to Microsoft Dynamics. It showed the add-on package at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver in July, and CEO Matthew Crook (right) is now in the process of signing 31 new partners across Europe. The company specialises in building modules to improve the effectiveness of Microsoft Dynamics for companies which have complex sales processes. SalesCentric was originally a consultancy for sales packages and developed a graphical interface to Dynamics CRM to offer a "more meaningful way to analyse relationships" as part of a sales process tool. This is starting to take off: current UK partners include Aspective and ConsultCRM, as well as Atos Origin in Europe. Deals are about to be signed in Scandinavia, Germany and France.
With Dynamics itself growing at some 40% a year, SalesCentric is looking to have its channel match this, both by partner organic growth and by recruiting new players. Matthew Crook reveals that he is in discussions with distributors, but probably this won't come off - "they all want exclusivity, but it's not right - some partners want access to the ISV".
And distributors don't cover eastern Europe. But does he really want to support all those smaller partners?
"The jury is out on that. We have a strong service-oriented culture, probably because of our history as a consultant, whereas some other companies are product focused. So quality of service to partners is important to me. Our long term plan is to produce a global brand called SalesCentric and deliver a number of products through that channel. Microsoft are also talking to us about putting the relationship charts onto Dynamics GP, formerly Great Plains, but we don't have the bandwidth to do that right now."
"It does not carry a high sales cost, and for the channel, it is easy to wrap other services around."
"Again the design goal of the product is that if you need a salesperson to sell it then we've fallen short. It should be easy to configure, not deeply technical." And the channel should be able to create some very rich value-added services around it in vertical markets, he says.
As part of the partner programme, SalesCentric will be releasing later this year a lot of service support templates for partners to define their services. "At this stage, quality of service to partners is very important to get it all off the ground."
And other platforms? "We did look at salesforce.com last year, but although they are successful in the enterprise space, we still have along way to go with Microsoft Dynamics, and there is a lot of growth. At the end of the year we will have exceed our targets for partner recruitment."
And the growth will not all be through new partners: "There is still a lot of maturing in the market - Dynamics market penetration will grow, but there will be consolidation in the channel, local resellers will start up CRM practices, and this will consolidate."
The next product will be a graphical tool to monitor the sales process, looking at how a sales process uses resources, as part of CRM. But at present, SaiesCentric seems to have enough to do with this product, and building its channel.
A success story that builds on success. We've already written loads this year on the booming business that surrounds Microsoft Dynamics. Now here we have a smallish company showing that its understanding of what makes the business tick can make a good set of solutions even better. Do it with pictures - yes. we'd agree with that.
