The IES Blog
News. Tips. Professional Advice.

A look into the world of Microsoft Dynamics.

Salesforce vs. Dynamics 2020: How the CRM Giants Measure Up Entering the Next Decade

Posted by Alanna Friedberg on Dec 31, 2019 11:00:00 AM

Salesforce vs. DynamicsSalesforce vs. Dynamics: In a review of the top CRM tools, it’s usually these two behemoths that go head-to-head when enterprise organizations consider new sales and marketing software.

Who is Salesforce?

In 1999, Salesforce was founded by a former Oracle executive named Marc Benioff, who still serves as its CEO. The company developed their Salesforce product into a leader in the software as a service (SaaS) space. In 2005, they went public and have been acquiring competitors and other innovative companies like Heroku and Mulesoft to further the offering of their core product.

Salesforce hosts a cloud offering that is collocated in several top-tier data centers around the globe. According to their latest security information, they do not own these centers, instead working with third-party vendors to offer their services.

Who is Microsoft?

Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The company exploded in popularity with the offering of the Windows operating system and the Office software suite. Since then, Microsoft has made several purchases of companies, including LinkedIn and GitHub.

According to their security website, Microsoft currently owns 21 fully redundant data centers in Europe and the U.S.

Salesforce Vs. Dynamics

How will these two powerhouse companies position themselves in the coming years?

It seems likely that Salesforce will continue their very successful business model of aggressive acquisition to stay innovative. Currently, the company revenues are around $4 billion, with a 22% growth pattern in 2019.

The Motley Fool points out that Salesforce has done what few have been able to do well: Successfully acclimate these new products and services into their business portfolio. There are four basic types that segment these services:

  • The Sales Cloud;
  • The Service Cloud;
  • Marketing and Commerce Cloud;
  • Platform and Other (which is the data integration service from their recent acquisition of MuleSoft and Tableau).

Salesforce has aggressively promoted their developer community, and, when coupled with an aggressive acquisition strategy and overall sales, the company looks stable as we enter the next decade.

Microsoft is neck-and-neck with Salesforce in terms of growth and strategy. However, the company only competes with Salesforce in one primary area, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Instead, Microsoft is expanding upon their original idea of creating a set of indispensable office tools by creating an enterprise cloud-driven business ecosystem that is sophisticated enough for the enterprise but user-friendly enough for small business. This ecosystem houses several software products from ERP and CRM to tools for data analysis, as well as innovative hardware like the Surface Pro, gaming consoles, operating systems, web browsers, and even an artificial intelligence platform.

These products and services have propelled Microsoft as the largest revenue producer in the computer science industry. The Verge reports, “These days, Microsoft is all about looking at the big picture — not just where one product needs to go, but how an entire ecosystem of products needs to ship, evolve, and work together over the coming years.”

But how does Microsoft Dynamics CRM compare to Salesforce for usability, reliability, and security?

Top CRM Tools: Salesforce Vs. Dynamics

User-Friendly Interfaces

Let’s start with the user-friendliness of these platforms. Both companies are transitioning their UX to new experiences; Salesforce is moving from Classic to Lightning and Microsoft has the new Sales Hub. Both companies are trying for maximum usability on mobile devices.

The Salesforce hub displays tabs across the top of the screen. Each user can customize these tabs to fit their viewing requirements. There is a global search box for easy records navigation. There’s a variety of settings available on the left of the screen with a dropdown.

Microsoft Dynamics allows you to select the app you’re using with simple icons. You can see your recently viewed records. There’s a Create button to the right of the command bar that lets you easily create a new record. There’s a vertical navigation bar at the top and easy up and down arrows to get where you need to go. There are also variable screen layouts that can be restricted by the type of user.

Login and Password Security

Data breaches are often caused by careless password control. That’s probably why Salesforce chose to default to two-factor authentication for all users. In the Lightning Edition, administrators can restrict access from certain IP addresses. Salesforce also lets admins set password policies such as the complexity and length required.  Salesforce also supports third-party authentication from Active Directory.

Microsoft also supports multi-factor authentication if set up by an administrator. Dynamics can also be synchronized with Active Directory for sophisticated permissions and security.

Workflows and Processes

Some of the benefits of CRM software are the process automation that can occur. Automation takes the busywork out of selling; both platforms have options to accomplish these goals.

Salesforce has Workflow Rules, Process Builder, and Flows, while Microsoft Dynamics has four types of workflow process automation:

  • Actions
  • Business Process Flows
  • Dialogs
  • Workflows

All of these offer visual cues to guide the user through the process of automating communication with leads, quote approvals, marketing, and more.

Reporting and Dashboards

To create a report in Salesforce, you first select the report type, which can be standard or custom. It’s a drag-and-drop process with fields and filters. The reports have connecting charts that provide a visual element to the written document. Reporting can be automated and the report appears in the email of the target audience as formatted text.

Microsoft Dynamics has a Report Wizard that walks the user through the process. You can select several dashboards and integrate the views with Excel, or use templates and automate reports. You can also use PowerBI, which has dozens of template reports. This is a standard part of most Office 365 subscriptions.

Preparing for The Next Decade — Which Software Will You Choose?

The best way to determine whether Salesforce of Microsoft Dynamics is better for your team, consider giving the two platforms a test drive. IES is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner. We believe the Microsoft line has proven to have the most robust infrastructure and tools, the best security, and the best products. Talk to our team and take a test drive of Dynamics to find out more.

New Call-to-action

Topics: CRM