Relationship Insights. Available on any device, the new Relationship Insights “assistant” tracks all of.

Microsoft Dynamics vs Salesforce: What is the difference?

Keep up to date with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Dynamics 365 Licensing Update. Effective October 2019, Dynamics 365 will be moving from multi-application, one-size-fits-all Customer Engagement (CE), Unified Operations (UO), and Dynamics.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 covers both- the traditional ERP and CRM functions. Some of the key components of Dynamics 365 include — D365 Finance, Supply-Chain, Sales, Service, Field Service, PSA.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM has key features that allow sales and/or marketing to use the template feature to send and track mass emails. Create high-quality personalized emails with graphics and professionally created layouts. Then track what happened to those emails with the campaign management console feature.

In the world of CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce are veritable superpowers.

The former is backed by one of the top 5 most valuable companies globally, and the latter owns a 1,070-foot office tower that helps define the skyline of San Francisco. Both vendors offer 'legacy' software products that have been built up over many years; the first version of Microsoft Dynamics was released back in 2001, while Salesforce got its start in 1999.

Today, Salesforce holds a commanding 19%+ share of the CRM market. Microsoft Dynamic 365 has a smaller market share, but definitely not insignificant—it's between 3-4%, putting the company in fifth place among all CRM vendors overall.

Both CRM systems offer a comprehensive suite of work tools. Both have paid add-ons and flexible pricing plans so that users can customize the platform's functionality for their distinct business needs.

On the surface, they might look fairly similar.

With that in mind, how can you determine which of the two platforms is better suited for you? Read on to find out the differences between Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce, as well as the pros and cons of each in this crm software comparison.

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a comprehensive business suite of tools, built to handle pretty much every work process imaginable. It's based on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing ecosystem (note: an on-premise solution is also available if you so choose).

The platform contains 11 core modules, or 'apps,' including five of the CRM-type: sales, customer service, field service, project service automation, and marketing. The remaining six modules fall under the category of enterprise resource planning (ERP), talent (for HR), finance and operation, retail, mixed reality, business central (for SMBs), and artificial Intelligence (for sales, customer service, and market insight). For those in the market for a complete business package, here is likely some helpful overlap between the two types of modules.

All these modules integrate with virtually all the other products in the Microsoft ecosystem, furthering collaborative possibilities (for example, integration with OneNote and OneDrive allow you to share and work together on documents). Dynamics 365 products all provide general data production regulation (GDPR) compliance with top-tier security and data governance.

Features of Microsoft Dynamics 365

Use of applications

Microsoft Dynamics 365's massive number of features are divided into modules. Within each, you’ll find several add-on ‘apps’ you can purchase individually to beef up functionality further in specific areas. The vendor offers discounts when you buy a certain mix-and-match combination of products.

Relevant search queries

Relevance Search syncs your data with Azure cloud's search index. Keyword search is then fed into the Azure Search index, improving your ability to surface the most important search results. It's toggled off by default, and once toggled on you can mindfully select only the non-sensitive data that you want to leave your system (Note: depending on the amount of data, sync can take up to an hour).

Optimized mobile platform

The developers behind Microsoft Dynamics 365 have put a lot of attention into building a mobile version defined by great user experience and ease of use. One time-saving feature is 'favorites,' which helps you get quick access to recently used records, dashboards, and project overviews. In addition to a mobile app for phones, the vendor also has an app specifically optimized for tablets.

Tool integration

The platform integrates with the full range of Microsoft products, including (but not limited to) Outlook and Office 365, Flow, and Power BI. Since Microsoft Dynamics uses a common data model, third-party integrations are pretty painless. You can download a huge range on Microsoft AppSource or use PowerApps or Microsoft Flow to develop in-house custom solutions with low code requirements.

Learning resources

There's plenty of ways to learn the platform via Microsoft Learning. The vendor's instructional materials include videos, as well as eLearning and in-person courses leading to role-based certifications. You can also download older Microsoft Dynamics 365 eLearning courses for self-study on the Dynamics Learning Portal.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 pricing

Sales Professional plan is $50 per user/per month for a first-time user and $20 per user/per month if the user already has Dynamics 365 product(s), billed annually
Sales Enterprise plan is $95 per user/per month for a first-time user and $20 per user/per month if the user already has Dynamics 365 product(s), billed annually
Microsoft Relationship Sales (includes Sales Enterprise and LinkedIn Sales Navigator) is $130 per user/per month, billed annually (requires a 10 user minimum)
Customer Service Professional plan is $50 per user/per month for a first-time user and $20 per user/per month if the user already has Dynamics 365 product(s)
Customer Service Enterprise plan is $95 per user/per month for a first-time user and $20 per user/per month if the user already has Dynamics 365 product(s), billed annually

A 30-day free trial is available. Microsoft Dynamics 365 also includes a wide range of other paid add-on apps to mix-and-match for your business needs.

Pros & cons of Microsoft Dynamics 365

Pros of Microsoft Dynamics 365

Cost flexible

Microsoft Dynamics 365 has a flexible pricing structure that encourages initial adoption and incremental expansion of your usage. You pay a flat fee for your first module/app purchase, and then get a discount on subsequent apps. There is also the possibility of adding (and subtracting) additional apps as your business requirements change over time.

Seamless integration

Having the ability to instantly connect the platform to more-or-less every other tool in the Microsoft universe is super useful. You can find an incredible range of app integrations on AppSource (1,000+ at last count) or build a low-code custom solution with PowerApps.

Secure to use

Role-based, record-based, and field-level security options allow you to effectively control data access across your organization. Set permissions for collaborative projects so that only those who need access to data to do their job will have it. Data encryption comes standard, and administrators can self-manage database encryption keys with Azure Key Vault.

Business intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) features help you simplify adoption of AI features with seamless interfaces, guidance, and integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 modules. BI helps unify work processes, gain insights into customer relationships, and drill down through data to get usable information you can act on. It helps with everything from sales, marketing, and customer service to finance and fraud protection.

360-degree customer service

Unified tech infrastructure can address the entirety of the customer journey across time and across channels, making for a holistically improved customer experience. Microsoft Dynamics CRM empowers your team to deliver customer service and support with knowledge-driven case management, including dynamic guidance from data and report dashboards.

Cons of Microsoft Dynamics 365

Additional cost for data storage

Cloud storage costs may not seem like a big consideration at first, but they can add up. Every license comes with 10GB of cloud storage space, and you get 5GB extra when you reach 20 Enterprise-level users, but it's pretty easy to exceed these limits. When you do, you'll find there's a significant additional storage cost of $9.95 per 1GB per month

Microsoft Dynamics Crm Key Features