Microsoft Business Contact Manager 2007 For Outlook Is The Newest Version

A Built In Add-in For Outlook

Microsoft Business Contact Manager 2007 for Outlook is the newest version of the old standby Microsoft Contact Manager.  The Business Contact Manager 2007 is a built in addition to Outlook which means no having to find it someplace and add it into Outlook as with past versions.

The Difference from Contact Manager

As opposed to the old Contact Manager, the new Business Contact Manager 2007 with the enhanced features of Office Outlook 2007 you can now do a variety of functions.  Combining customer and financial data is now easier in conjunction with Office Accounting 2008.  Business Contact Manager 2007 now allows you to compile mailing lists, distribute materials, and manage direct marketing campaigns so that you can track the results.

In Office Outlook 2007, Business Contact Manager 2007 allows you to consolidate, manage, delegate and follow up on tasks with projects.  There is a new information dashboard with Business Contact Manager 2007 as well.  Also available now with Business Contact Manager 2007, are new reporting features which allow for filtering and export capabilities to the latest version of Excel.  Working offline while on your laptop or Pocket PC is easy with Business Contact Manager 2007 and allows you to synchronize the data when you get back to the office.

What Business Contact Manager 2007 does with Outlook

Office Outlook 2007, along with Business Contact Manager 2007, helps you to do many different tasks to aid with sales productivity.  You can organize your contact, prospect and customer information in one place.  Business Contact Manager 2007 gives you the ability to manage sales leads and opportunities throughout your sales cycle within Outlook.  Business Contact Manager 2007 allows you to personalize and create direct marketing campaigns in-house with the ability to track your campaign. 

The Benefits Of A Tool Connected To Outlook

When most Customer Relationship Management products have similar features it becomes difficult to distinguish between them and the effectiveness they have with Business Contact Manager 2007 within Outlook.  The main concern arises when you need separate applications and databases to make a CRM product work in conjunction with Business Contact Manager 2007 and Outlook.

Since most people open up Outlook when they first get to work, and then have Outlook being the last program they close for the night, it would make since to have a tool directly connected to Business Contact Manager 2007 and Outlook.  A product such as Avidian’s Prophet Contact Manager works very well in this regard as it is a direct add-in to Outlook and works alongside Business Contact Manager 2007 right in the same pane.  This saves the salesperson the task of having to toggle between different applications and Business Contact Manager 2007 in the first place.

Prophet Vs. Other CRM In Use With Business Contact Manager 2007

When Prophet was developed, the people at Avidian acknowledged one major flaw of most CRM’s which was that they all operate outside of Outlook.  There is even an online hosted version such as Salesforce.com which states that it is better to have a hosted solution rather than use a direct solution in line with Business Contact Manager 2007 and Outlook.

While Business Contact Manager 2007 provides a good tool for single user interface with Outlook, it is clear that other add-ins or options with CRM tools need to be available for multiple users and teams.  The goal here is to increase sales and market value.  With this goal in mind, many options, both online and on-site, are readily available.  Business Contact Manager 2007 can provide a good start, but to effectively use Outlook you need something to use right there along side of the Business Contact Manager 2007.  It is up to you how complex or how many features you wish to get.

What are the benefits to using a tool connected to Outlook (like Avidian’s Prophet) when hosted CRM solutions are available?

What are the benefits of using Prophet over a dedicated CRM software tool (ACT!, GoldMine, Maximizer, etc)?

Truthfully, most CRM products have very similar features. It is difficult to distinguish between CRM tools simply by comparing their lists of features. To be a serious player in the CRM space, vendors must master the basics of managing contacts and opportunities, sharing capabilities and running reports. Prophet and other CRM vendors offer these features and provide the capabilities businesses need.

The real differentiator is how well these solutions fit into the normal work routine or how easily individuals can adopt them. The benefit of using Prophet is that it works the way people work, right inside Outlook. If you maintain your list of contacts in Outlook, do you want to create another contact database in a separate application? If you use the Outlook calendar, do you want to maintain another calendar elsewhere? Employees are already using Outlook to manage more than half their CRM activities, so why not leverage a user interface they are already familiar with. When implementing a new system, employee adoption rates suffer the more they deviate from current practices.

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