Crowe LLP

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a software development company. We develop turnkey business process automation solutions, so anything that would automate an everyday business process, whether it is sales related, production related, operations related, or pretty much anything that you really couldn't buy off the shelf, but you need to automate. We deal with small businesses with five to 50 employees. That's usually our sweet spot. We do a lot of work with CRM [customer relationship management] solutions, with Microsoft Access, VB.NET, and Automational. Anything that would help improve a business process.

What is your position?

I am the president and the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Crowe Horwath?

The first project that we did was a data migration from CRM 3.0 to a newer version. I don't remember the version at the time. It's been a couple of years now. We have since expanded the scope of their involvement to include additional types of work. CRMs are very customizable. Sometimes, we need to perform customizations that require an even deeper level of technical skill, and during those times we will use Crowe Horwath. They have access to a great talent pool with extensive knowledge and practical experience with our solutions. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in more detail.

We just tell them our business need and they usually spec it out, then they develop it, test it, and implement it. Usually, I work with a project lead to begin with, and then to cut down on the miscommunication that usually occurs, we deal directly with the developer thereafter. Sometimes, we use them to develop custom reporting tools within the CRM system itself. I don't think we used them for any data connectors, but we had them do data migrations for us in the past.

How did you come to work with Crowe Horwath?

I met the owner [Ryan Plourde] a few years ago. I was at a Microsoft show, I believe in Boston. We just hit it off, I knew he had his act together and he really focused exclusively on one product. There are pros and cons to that, but with Microsoft CRM, it's its own animal, so it really intrigued me that he focused all of his attention on that one product because there are so many moving parts with it. They're just fantastic with it. They get the business problem without a lot of explanation, and they deliver a good product.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was $25,000 to $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We continue to work with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or user feedback from this engagement?

Their turnaround time is very reasonable. They set expectations upfront, and they don't overpromise. They're usually right there with their timeline estimations. I will say they'd rather be a few days late and have a fantastic product than meet the timeline. If they are a few days late, I'm OK with it because we'd rather have it working. I think the quality of the product that they deliver is very high. Because they focus on one product, they usually do it very well the first time around. It's rare that we find glitches or any kind of defects in their work.

How did Crowe Horwath perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very manageable and very responsive. Their turnaround time is usually the same day when we have questions. The project management is painless. There really haven't been any problems.

What distinguishes Crowe Horwath from other providers?

Crowe Horwath tries to understand the business problem. There are a lot of companies out there that will just take your spec and do the work. They want to wrap their arms around the business process and the business problem. They'll usually come up with a different way of looking at it and come up with a better solution than we requested. They try to understand your business so that they're not just coders – they're solution providers.

Is there anything Crowe Horwath could have improved or done differently?

We usually try to deal with vendors that are the filet mignon – not the caviar, not the bologna sandwich. We usually deal with people like them, so they were right there. I don't know if I can give them anything to improve. We're happy with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a company that implements accounting and integration solutions. Specifically, we implement Microsoft products, and NetSuite. We offer custom implementations from A to Z, we manage projects, and we integrate our particular ERP [enterprise resource planning] and CRM [customer relationship management] systems with other frontend or proprietary systems that a client might have.

What is your position and your responsibilities?

I am the director of professional services, so I manage our services team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Crowe Horwath?

We've been using them for different projects throughout the last few years. We've used them for a variety of reasons. One, we didn't have the resources ourselves to handle certain aspects of Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementations. We've also used them for their development team because they have a good bench of Microsoft stack developers to help us with some of our project challenges more on the technical side, as opposed to the straight application implementation.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in more detail.

It's been a lot of websites. They've done integrations and custom development for websites, and then they do have some custom applications that they've developed, that they just sell as third-party applications, add-ons, plug-ins, if you will, and we've used those. They've also helped us with pieces of implementation in terms of web services and mail routing – the types of things that are more technical.

How did you come to work with Crowe Horwath?

A business partner referred them to us, and we reached out to them and a handful of other Microsoft partners.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I honestly don't know off the top of my head. If I had to guess, I would say it would probably be between $25,000 and $30,000 annually.

What is the status of this engagement?

It's an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or user feedback from this engagement?

I really don't have those kinds of metrics off the top of my head. I can tell you that every project that we've engaged in with Crowe Horwath has been a successful project, where our clients have given us very positive feedback. We would not have been able to complete those projects without their expertise at the given time that we engaged them.

It's just been positive feedback. The solutions they provided have worked, clients have had positive feedback in the sense that they were very pleased, the solutions we'd put in place worked the first time around, with minimal bugs or defects. We didn't have to go back to the drawing board 20 times over before we had something remotely functional. They're just very good at what they do.

In terms of finding and resolving bugs, they're incredibly efficient. I can't even remember anything significant in terms of a bug fix that we had to go back to them for. When questions from a client come up, they're incredibly responsive. I deal most of the time with Ryan [Principal at Crowe Horwath], and all I have to do is say, "Ryan, this issue came up." He has someone on it immediately for me. It's a very positive experience.

What distinguishes Crowe Horwath from other providers?

They're just very targeted in what they do. There are a lot of CRM shops that say they do implementations, they do development, they do this, and they do that, but these guys are very focused on the development. They try to stay away from your typical CRM implementation and, instead, focus on their plug-in products that enhance CRM, and their development team that provides services related to the more technical development of applications and integrations with CRM. I think it's their very targeted business focus that enables their success.

The entire process, from beginning to end, was well managed, and Crowe Horwath's communication is fabulous. You just always know where your project stands. If they run into any roadblocks that need to be addressed by the team, they resolve them immediately. It's been perfect. I would definitely recommend them to anyone else.

In hindsight, is there anything Crowe Horwath could have improved or done differently?

There's nothing that I could think of. Not at all.

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief description of your company?

We are a non-profit that consults to other non-profits to help them run stronger operations. We do strategic consulting and leadership development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your main goal or objective going into the project with Crowe Horwath?

We’ve worked with them on a number of projects. But being a professional services organization, an effective CRM system is our lifeblood. There were a number of things that we liked about Dynamics, but we had to do extensive customization to get it to meet our needs. We engaged with them on a half dozen significant projects. One was to completely build an executive recruiter workstation inside of CRM.

What was the original reason for choosing Microsoft Dynamics over, say, Salesforce or Sugar CRM?

The reason for Dynamics was we wanted to run it on our own servers. We’re very particular with our client data, and we weren’t comfortable going with Salesforce and having our data stored in somebody else’s servers. In addition, we’re a Microsoft shop, so our belief is that Dynamics CRM is going to be easier to integrate with other Microsoft products.

How did you originally discover and choose Crowe Horwath to work with?

We called Microsoft, and they referred us.

SOLUTION

Could you tell me more about the typical scope of a project they work with you on?

The first project that we had was rebuilding a commercial software product on top of our CRM platform. It was probably about a three- or four-month project. It was fairly extensive. They had to work with us to scope out what we were actually in for, in order to see whether we could still afford it. They did a complete inventory of the existing solution that we had. They helped us walk through and prioritize the features that we wanted to move. They helped scope the project, and then they built it. They worked in close collaboration with my team to handle everything from the data migration to user testing and rollout and development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How satisfied are you with the work they delivered?

Very satisfied. We have subsequently worked with them on a number of other projects. I’ve known them for years. I have a wonderful relationship with them, and I’m happy to help them grow their business. I’ve given several referrals to them and references. I’m really happy with them, and I know a number of them now personally.

How satisfied are you with Microsoft Dynamics as a platform?

I’ll be honest, on a scale from one to ten, with ten being completely overjoyed, I’d say probably about a seven.

What are the positives, and what’s holding you back from being completely overjoyed about Microsoft Dynamics?

The positives are the customizability, the fact that it has a very similar environment as SharePoint and some other things so I can leverage my internal skill set, and .NET. I think that it’s a remarkable product. I like that it’s a major vendor out there. We go to Convergence every year and see what Microsoft is doing with the product, and I like that very much. I definitely feel that it’s a platform rather than a product, and that’s important if I’m going to build out a business using CRM as platform rather than just trying to do CRM on some guy’s products.

The things that I don’t particularly like are things that are no surprise. Microsoft makes products that serve the Microsoft Windows and Office strategy. As a result, I don’t like having a product that forces me into other platform decisions, because the vendor wants it that way. I much more appreciate something like a Salesforce.com from a business strategy standpoint because they support every platform equally. Had I gone with Salesforce, I would be able to support a broad variety of platforms, mobile, on premise, Mac, and PC with first-class clients, and Microsoft won’t do that.

When working with Crowe Horwath, is there anything that you find to be unique or special about them compared to other consultants or developers that you’ve worked with?

Sure. I consider them a true partner in helping me get my job done. That sounds like sales talk, and it probably will be in some slide somewhere, but I’ve been in the business for 15 years—maybe 17 years—and from the time we met, Crowe Horwath truly impressed us with their professionalism. I felt like I was talking to somebody who cares as much about my business as I did, who understood what I meant, and who I can really trust with a huge amount of responsibility. I just don’t find that that is as common as I would like it to be with many consulting firms.

Is there anything that you would do differently a second time around or think that they could improve upon?

If I could do anything differently, I would engage them with a bigger team on my end, just because I think there’s a lot to learn, and I think that they can work well when we do that. If I asked any consultant to reverse engineer or implement a shipping product, I would do a better job on reducing the amount of features that I actually try to implement. It’s not a failing at all on Crowe Horwath's part. It’s more of just an insight that we gained. When you ask a business what they want, they would tend to say “everything” for fear that they were going to miss something. So, we took that approach, and it made the approach of the project bigger than it needed to be. It was successful, Crowe Horwath did a fine job, and Dynamics CRM was a fine tool to do it. But had I been able to have a bit more insight and scale the project back a little, I think we would have saved some money. Also, we would have avoided some performance problems that later had to be solved, and our implementation time would have been shorter.

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief description of your company?

We take medical devices and make them portable. We acquire the equipment from a couple of vendors, and we put wheels on it. We take them to different hospitals and facilities around the country. We supply the tech along with that, and then the procedures are done at those facilities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your main goal going into the project with Crowe Horwath?

We’ve been around for about 15 years, and a lot of the processes were manual or done in spreadsheets and so on. We’re trying to centralize the data, trying to make it more accessible to the different groups across the company. We’re also trying to get some of the information and more business intelligence more front and center than we’ve been able to do in the past.

What made you decide to go with Microsoft CRM instead of other competing CRMs?

The ability to integrate with other Microsoft products – that’s the number one thing. We decided to go for the Windows environment. We have the Exchange server. We’ve got their Financials package, Vision, and so on. That helped the whole decision-making process, as well as just the pricing and finding the right vendor to help us.

How did you find and choose Crowe Horwath to work with?

I found Crowe Horwath through word of mouth, one of my contacts whom I worked with at a previous company. He knew of Ryan, so he put me in touch with him.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of the project?

The initial scope of the project is focusing just on the sales side of things, as well as processes and procedures. We’ve got some explicit needs, and we require a product that allows us some flexibility as well as the ability to customize. From there, we’re adding on to the product and integrating it more into other areas of the business. We needed that flexibility and the ability of the vendor to supply that for us.

Is the project still ongoing?

Yes, it is. We started this about three years ago, and we put it in for the sales team. We’re making use of the help desk that’s built in for our scheduling department. Now, we’re doing a complete custom scheduling application that integrates with Microsoft CRM for our scheduling department as well. Then we’ll be integrating some Internet features as well as linking up to our financials in the coming year or two.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How has Microsoft Dynamics performed so far? Do you still feel you made the right choice?

It’s been fantastic and absolutely the right choice. I’ll be honest with you, I’m a pretty big fan of Crowe Horwath. Having done this for nearly 20 years, you are exposed to many different flavors of abilities within the space. It’s just fantastic to have such a vendor that understands your needs and works with you as opposed to, what I found in past experiences, those that were against you or didn’t really understand your needs. It’s been a fantastic relationship, and I think that’s helped tremendously in our decision and what we’ve been able to do.

When working with Crowe Horwath, what do you find to be unique about them compared to other IT vendors that you’ve worked with?

Crowe Horwath understands our needs and has the ability to translate that into solutions. We have very specific requirements, and probably some of the most specific requirements I’ve run into over the years in terms of behaviors and the way the system functions. Ryan and the team have been able to figure out how to get that to work in a way that isn’t a detriment to the product that we’re modifying or going after. The team then supplies solutions that are easily moldable down the road as well. It’s been great.

Is there anything that you’d do differently a second time around or think they might be able to improve upon?

Honestly, no. We’ve done a considerable amount of work. I haven’t come across anything that I thought was terrible or thought we needed to do differently. We talk a lot of things out upfront. We hash out all the details and the needs, and then we get to work. It’s a cohesive sort of process. I think we’ve been able to avoid a lot of common pitfalls that occur in a lot of these projects where there are poor communications; that just does not happen here. They’re fantastic. I’ve recommended them to several other people and places already.