Why Associations Should Choose a CRM
For years – decades even – associations have managed their customers using an Association Management System. Vendors rightly saw a niche audience and built proprietary tools to address the specific needs of a membership organization, which was great. Associations do have specific needs. And with over 20,000 associations in the US alone, there’s a rich market for companies to serve those needs. But technology has come a long way since the first AMS was built. And associations have too. While associations benefit from doing mission-driven work to serve their members, the public, and the common good, they’re also running a business. The common phrase “non-profit is a tax status, not a business model” has become more relevant than ever, with the increasingly common expectation from members to receive the same customer experience they get in their everyday life. Associations want to deliver that and more. That’s where a CRM comes in. Let’s break that down.” Customer – You serve members. And that member is consuming a product or service that you produce. And you want to track things about that customer. Contact information. Demographic information. Relationship – Does your member work for an organization? Does your member belong to committees? Your member doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You want to know how your members relate to you, each other, and the products and services you provide. Management – Whether someone is joining, buying, or registering, you want to manage that experience. You want to keep track of it for fulfillment and reporting and serving that customer. The real benefit is what happens when you put that all together. Customer Relationship Management is greater than the sum of its parts. Because a CRM is built to use more than just what you’ve been told, it’s designed to give you context, to analyze those interactions with your members, predict trends, personalize content, and seamlessly connect to how you talk to your members. A CRM puts the member first – and recognizes that the member’s experience is a journey. One that you hope to nurture for a lifetime. And a CRM is built to be by your side through it all. Altai Systems is also by your side. We bring the CRM to you – without sacrificing those AMS-specific features that make you unique. Altai has the AMS functionality and the CRM functionality – all built within the Microsoft Dynamics Platform. We know CRMs. You should too. Let us show you what our platform can do for you.
RFP Pitfalls to Avoid
The RFP process can be stressful. In great part because you know it’s the start of a big change for your association. You’re likely ready to embark on a system implementation or upgrade and the RFP is the necessary step in that process. But…is it? Some associations need to do an RFP because it’s built into their procurement or is a general counsel-directed policy. Some associations use it to get competitive bids. But some associations use it as an opportunity to do a feature assessment. By having a list of features to send to prospective vendors, you want to make sure your selection meets your needs. But that also means you’re doing part of your discovery before you even know what system you’ll be using. An important consideration is understanding what solution you’re trying to solve. Are you updating your infrastructure or systems that have reached their end of life? Do you have specific needs that are no longer being met? Do you believe your association is being left behind as technology continues to evolve? All of those are valid reasons to change, but risk not telling you – or the prospective vendors – what you’re looking for. Being able to articulate the why as much as anything else should help drive your process. Articulating specific requirements – and a broad vision – is important. Be careful that the RFP doesn’t turn into your detailed requirements gathering. If your RFP is limited to a checklist of features, you may miss out on opportunities you don’t even know to look for. Be open to adjusting your scope when a tool presents itself to meet new needs. And be ready to have a conversation with the prospective vendor about what your future vision could be. Be sure to check back for our blog post on preparing for a change where we cover the 5 areas to consider ahead of an RFP. Another consideration when preparing your RFP is whether you’ll use a consultant in the process. If vendor selection is a regular part of your job and managing the process is something you or your team have the bandwidth to do, maybe a consultant isn’t something that fits your budget or needs. But a consultant adds value beyond managing the process. They can help target your RFP to vendors or software that are a good fit based on understanding the marketplace and learning your needs. Having a partner there to manage your selection process and understand industry leaders can be a valuable extension to your team. Regardless of whether you have a consultant or not, crafting a good RFP question is important. One key is to remember not to limit to yes/no questions. Some questions may be straightforward and only need a yes/no answer, but be sure to include plenty of opportunities to expand on that. For instance, asking if the vendor has security will give everyone the opportunity to say yes. But you want to know how they do it. Or more specific needs such as field-level security, security at the user level or department level, etc. Open-ended questions like “How do you..” or “Explain your process for…” better prepares you for your selection and demo steps. Asking engaging questions can also give you the opportunity to read between the lines. A recent study by Third Coast Consulting shows the type of software implemented has less of an impact on the success of implementation than the people you’re working with. While you’ll get a feel for the vendor during the demo and subsequent conversations prior to signing a contract – and plenty after! – you want to make sure the vendor is someone you want to work with and can deliver what you need. That starts with how the RFP is answered. The three things you want to look at – Software, People, and Process – help make for successful implementation and ongoing relationship with your vendor. Make sure your RFP gives you a feel for all three and you’ll start that relationship out on your best foot forward.
Thinking of Switching your AMS? Preparing For Change
Your current AMS has stopped meeting your needs and you’re ready for a change. Time to write an RFP and implement a new system, right? Sure. That will get you a new system. But will you be more successful than you are now? Are you preparing for what a change can do for you, your members, and your future? Advances in technology will give you more functionality, make integration and configuration easier, and allow for more flexible decision-making. But beyond the technology, let’s walk through 5 things you should consider ahead of the RFP to set yourself up for not just a successful implementation, but a successful future. 1. Change Management Implementing a new system using the same business processes, the same approach to data, or the same skillsets is like buying a boat when you don’t know how to swim and don’t live near a lake. Great in theory, but quite a costly sunk cost that you may never get your return on investment. Take a step back. Think about what you’re doing now and ask why. Was a process that you’re continuing built because of past system limitations vs actual business needs today? Do your business rules make sense in today’s world and are they adaptable to a changing world? The world – and likely your association – has gone through a lot of change in the last year. Change fatigue is real. But this is also an opportunity to illustrate to your board and the C-suite team that your association can handle change. That being open to re-imagining your business as well as your technology will set you up for future success – and future abilities to adapt to a changing world. 2. Data Management Whether you’re integrating with other systems or implementing an all-in-one platform, knowing your data, how it’s used, and how it’s maintained is necessary for not just an effective implementation, but for an effective business. Squeaky wheels get attention. So anecdotal decisions get made. That may never change in an association world. But having faith in your data – and being able to report on that data in digestible ways, such as with PowerBI reports that the world has gotten used to seeing, allows you to make data-driven decisions. 3. HR Management This one may come as a surprise. You’re thinking about an AMS/CRM solution, not a new HR system. What does HR have to do with this? Well, an effective HR team – and by extension, an effective team overall – cares about the skills their team has, career development, and talent pool. Customized or targeted tools will have a more limited pool to pull from when hiring – and minimize marketability. That may be good short-term, but fostering a culture that wants to nurture and encourage staff career development should be a factor in the technology chosen. The ability to work in a low-code/no-code environment, including manage customer journeys with automation, may require different skills than some staff is used to. Leveraging the extensive online learning opportunities now available is a good start in ensuring your team stays ready for what comes next. 4. Member Management Are you providing a personalized “Netflix experience”? Personalization is how we live our lives now. Your recommended queue is likely far different than mine. People expect that. Whether it is a personalized welcome journey in marketing automation or offering up the right discounts and recommendations based on who I am, your tech should support this. 5. Vendor Management Integration allows you to get the features you want – from the vendor you want. You may go with a tool that meets most of your needs with just some supplemental integration or cut across the full spectrum of specialized vendors. More vendors are seeing that associations are an industry worth investing time and money into development. They’re also looking to form partnerships with their customers. Reggie Henry from ASAE likes to talk about how the vendors are partners and an extension of his staff. Look for vendors who want to form that partnership with you. For instance, Altai Systems is confident in our software – and confident in our process. Our process, our ease at integrating within the Microsoft 365 universe, and the ability to look ahead for you are what we’re bringing to the table to make sure you succeed. Are you in the position to pivot when the next curveball comes your way? Are you looking ahead with a plan for continuous improvement? We’ve had to pivot a lot at the start of the pandemic. And there will be new tech and new needs and new obstacles. Is your ecosystem ready for what’s next?
Top 10 Ten Reasons Why Associations are Switching to Altai Systems
Since 2007, Altai Systems has been focused on association management software. Today we believe the historical AMS is too limiting and associations are best served using robust association-specific functionality built within the Microsoft 365 business platform. This means the tools you’ll use to manage your association allow you access to some of the best business tools available AND allow you the flexibility to incorporate technology you’re already using and love, directly into that platform. This provides your association not only what’s important and necessary, but it also goes beyond the traditional AMS to offer greater access to data, better reporting, enhanced member personalization, and access to the best collaboration technology available. With that in mind let’s dive into our TOP 10 REASONS ASSOCIATIONS ARE SWITCHING TO ALTAI SYSTEMS. The Business Platform that Meets Your Needs Today and Tomorrow Microsoft’s cloud is used by > 95% of Fortune 500 companies. Using Microsoft’s platform and infrastructure as our backbone allows us to leverage features ranging from infrastructure to accounting software (ERPs) to office software in addition to the association-specific features Altai has built that you would expect: dues, non-dues, events & meetings, marketing, full credentialing, donations, eCommerce, etc. And with automation, Business Intelligence, and artificial intelligence – the sky’s the limit! What makes the system especially enticing is the ability to tailor the system to meet your unique needs. Not through costly customizations, but through thoughtful configuration. By working with you, we have a process in place that will make your implementation turn-key and through low code/no code, the power of the system is in the hands of the passionate user as your needs evolve. A Member Portal That Fits Any CMS Altai’s Web Portal modules are more than a place for members to access personalized content. They are CMS-agnostic modules that empower two-way data anywhere you have access to your members or stakeholders. With or without a logged-in state, our modules grant responsively designed flexibility where content, commerce, and community come together. It’s the People That Get You There Obviously, we want to sell you the wonders of an association system built within Microsoft Dynamics. But a recent study by Third Coast Consulting shows the type of software implemented has less of an impact on the success of implementation than the people you’re working with. We’re confident in our software – and confident in our process. Our process, our ease at integrating within the Microsoft 365 universe, and our ability to look ahead for you are what we’re bringing to the table to make sure you succeed. Security (Data, Physical, Backups, GDPR, etc.) Stop worrying about the above and let experts do it. Microsoft has thousands of experts working 24/7 to make sure you are not exposed. (Exposed to mistakes, oversights, foreign governments, hackers, etc.) Microsoft spends $1 billion on security each year. They monitor 7 trillion cyber events a day. If you are thinking about backups, GDPR, data integrity, etc., you can now stop. With Microsoft, you can know your data is safe. Microsoft has a team of thousands of developers continually working to make Dynamics 365 and its ecosystem better. This amounts to more development, enhancement, and innovation than all the traditional AMS vendors and platforms combined. Dynamics 365 has a proven track record of protecting its clients’ investment in CRM by delivering innovative new technology and functionality while preserving upgradeability. Since the Altai product is built within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform, our solution upgrades when they upgrade. Depth of Support Want to be an expert in Microsoft Dynamics 365, or just want to find answers when you need them? With easy online access to training documentation, videos, courses, and direct support from Altai, the choice is yours. Microsoft Dynamics 365 also has more than 3 million users of CRM around the world and there are hundreds of self-maintained user communities, blogs, and forums. Business Process Automation Business Process Automation (BPA) sounds complicated, but really it’s all about making your job easier. One of the primary areas of value that Altai brings to your organization is using the various tools within Microsoft Dynamics 365 to streamline your operations, so staff can do more member-facing and revenue-generating tasks. For example, your membership and the credentialing system can be designed for specific job and security roles. Process-driven forms can guide staff through data entry, form-based business rules can drive actions to happen automatically, and workflows can run processes for you either on-demand or automatically. Using this functionality requires no programming and can be used by your organization with little to no additional reliance on Altai. AMS Implementations take too long. A small implementation of a true CRM can take 6 months. . Altai has reduced that to a couple of months using survey automation and the Azure Platform to automate the setup and data conversion. The benefit of this automation is less cost, time, stress, and risk! We converted ANSI’s membership from iMIS to CMR in 45 days. We converted FCA’s entire AMS system and brought them live in 13 weeks. Artificial Intelligence Capabilities Artificial intelligence. AI exists throughout the platform. Whether it is a reminder to call a member back because you have not heard from them in a while or asking the AI engine to tell you why community activity is down or leveraging the AI engine to tell you what leads to focus on, it is all there at your fingertips. Click here for an AI for sales demonstration. Microsoft is the leader in AI for business. The AI team has a separate R&D budget of $5 billion/year. Microsoft recently took the #1 spot on some of the most prominent AI leader boards. In fact, one of those leader boards is hosted by Salesforce. Mobile Accessibility Work from anywhere on almost any mobile device including iPad/iPhone, Android, and other platforms. Because Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM has native mobile functionality, Altai can help you make even custom forms mobile compatible. Altai also enables you to get closer to your members and make commerce easy for your members via mobile devices. We’re long past the days of mobile responsiveness being optional. We ensure your website interactions are too. Better Marketing Tools Associations today face more competition and have even more pressure to show value to their members. Altai, built within Microsoft Dynamics 365, is designed to capture knowledge about a member to better market to and service them. We allow your organization to: Personalize messaging based on both member demographics and interests Understand who your most engaged members are Learn which products are generating the most revenue Know which services are considered the most valuable View
Single Sign On (SSO), Identity Management, and how to not torture your members.
Single sign-on, or SSO, allows your members – and really anyone who has an online account with you – to avoid keeping track of multiple usernames, passwords, permissions, and roles. One login gives them access to all your connected digital components they have rights to access. It also allows you to manage who has access to what. Restricted board content, digital downloads, personalized recommendations. SSO opens the door to the experience your member is often already getting in their daily life. If you are a member, you do not care that the association provides benefits from different platforms and likely don’t notice SSO details until they are absent. You just want to use the tools that make your association membership worthwhile without having to type a new password at each step. If you are an administrator, or IT professional, SSO and how it is implemented matters a great deal. The technical differences between identity, authentication, and SSO are the subjects of many books, but for the sake of this article, let’s just say they are security technologies that allow the real member to work in your systems securely without infecting you or each other. They achieve this by understanding who is at the keyboard and what they can do automatically without asking the user for more information. While there are nuances between identity management, authentication, and SSO, for now, we’ll talk broadly about secure member access to your content and their data. Do I know you? What are you allowed to do? Hey job board this is “Jeff”, he is good to go, Hey Breezio this is “Jeff” he is a board member, Everyone…. “Nancy” just got hacked, kick her out of every system now! Security has come a long way. Things like PII, PCI, and GDPR weren’t on our radar when we first started asking members to log into our websites. Whether asking them to update their mailing address or find the agenda for the board meeting, we had rudimentary safety precautions around our login information – at least by today’s standards. Today, storing usernames and passwords in your AMS puts you – and your member – at risk. I’m sure your General Counsel has thoughts on the liability risks of a password solution that doesn’t live up to today’s standards. During the pandemic, the FBI reported a 300% increase in the number of cybercrimes, from about 1,000 cases to between 3,000 and 4,000 cases each day. Enter Commercial Identity Management. Whether you set your system to timeout after a session or not, knowing that you can confidently rely on the top security in this commercial solution gives you and your leadership peace of mind. It also gives your members not only peace of mind but the ease of use. No more remembering multiple passwords for their community and membership and content. No more struggling through forget your password steps No more disconnected experiences between platforms within your organization We support almost any Identity management system, but we use and recommend Microsoft Azure B2C for three reasons. It is ultra-reliable, Azure Active Directory has an SLA of 99.9%. Service reliability and availability is one of the top considerations for our customers in choosing an Identity and Access Management solution. With Azure AD being the largest enterprise cloud identity service, reliability and security of service is a top priority for Microsoft. It protects you and your members from dangerous hackers It is free till you hit 50000 authentications a month and after that, it’s incredibly affordable AzureB2C understands volume with a trillion security transactions a day. It facilitates identity verification and proofing by collecting user data, then passing it to third-party systems to perform validation, trust scoring, and approval for user account creation. It knows if Grandma’s computer is hacked, and it knows that George the member cannot be in San Francisco and a coffee shop in Lagos at the same hour. AzureB2C allows you to set up your SSO connection to your other systems such as a job board or community site in an hour or so. AzureB2C allows you to control the authentication, including letting your members use Facebook, LinkedIn, or their email to log in. AzureB2C knows if it is the member’s computer at their office or house and logs them in automatically. You decide how loose or tight you want the controls to be and how long you want to trust the member. AzureB2C has all the “Register” and “I forgot” login built-in. You are out of that business and now your staff can focus more on creative pursuits to push your mission forward, rather than the clerical issues of identity management. In this day and age, any Web or AMS project should include commercial identity management. It benefits us, it benefits you, and most importantly, it benefits your members.
How to view top usage of CRM tables to clean up your data in Microsoft Dynamics
As your association’s CRM administrator, one of your top priorities is the management of your data and how it is stored. With the changes from Microsoft on storage, our clients are asking us how to clear out unneeded storage of data and to gain insights on where the largest data exists. By clearing out unneeded data, your system’s storage capacity will be improved and you will avoid overage charges from storing unnecessary data. Below you will find details on how to gain these insights in order to best make decisions for what data you may be able to remove if and as needed. Power Platform Admin Center The simplest and most detailed way your association is able to access insights about your data is to use the Power Platform Admin Center. The Power Platform’s admin center features Analytics of your CRM environment. There you can click on “Dataverse” which shows you by entity. While in the dataverse you can access a wide range of useful details such as entity usage. Dataverse includes a base set of entities that provide structure for data used by business applications. For more information on entities click here. You can also ascertain your organization’s data capacity. This page provides a tenant-level view of where your association is using storage capacity. To view the Summary page, select Resources > Capacity > Summary.
Call For Proposals
Call For Proposals is Altai’s latest functionality that makes soliciting feedback from members easier to gather and qualify. Our CFP module assists an organization in requesting suggestions or feedback from its membership and industry thought leaders. Allowing associations to call on their constituents to propose, an award, a session, a paper, a nomination, an abstract, a grant a request, or any number of requests that will benefit from soliciting information gathering on a large scale. The functionality allows your association to build a survey with their request, receive feedback from the larger population then collate and send information to a smaller subset of judges or reviewers to evaluate and quantify that feedback so they can take action. Now your association can utilize this module to parse results that best serve your membership. For example asking 5,000 members for possible event topics, receiving 500 responses, and sending those out to 100 judges to score and quantify the results in order to implement or take action. Use the power of Altai’s CFP to better crowdsource the best scenarios, speakers, papers, proposals, and more.
Altai Events – Staying Connected Virtually Through Zoom
Microsoft Dynamic Integration with Zoom Executing Zoom Events Within Your AMS Zoom reported their usage skyrocketed from 10 million daily meeting participants to 300 million daily meeting participants early in 2020 and more than likely you were one of them. With the shift to remote work, out of the office, apps such as Zoom, and Microsoft’s Teams, have seen major upticks. At Altai we’ve been big fans of both, relying on them to help our staff communicate since well before the pandemic. With our client’s needs shifting from in-person to remote, we’ve taken the steps to make work even easier for our clients. We’ve always maintained a robust backend event management system that provides the tools to set up, manage, and report on events from a small team or board meetings to massive annual events. Since the pandemic, we’ve worked with our customers to make sure they’ve stayed at the forefront of managing how association events are evolving virtually. One way that we’ve done so has been to integrate Zoom directly into their AMS. Our integration keeps all meetings, webinars, and events in synch with Zoom. The integration also keeps attendance updated and creates leads for non-member attendees. From the web portal plugins that run our customer’s membership portals to the back-end event’s team reporting and workflows. Zoom automatically communicates back and forth with Altai’s AMS and Microsoft Dynamics 365. As a virtual events team, you’ll be able to create your events directly inside your event management platform and it will automatically create the event within Zoom. Conversely, if you create an event within your zoom account, the integration will pull those details back into your AMS. An Event’s Journey with Altai’s Zoom Integration Easily create the meeting or webinar in CRM which automatically creates the Zoom meeting. Publish the event to the web portal Enable membership to register for the event. Invite users to your Zoom meeting or webinar Security, content can be open or closed to nonmembers or only available to specific events. Support for simple webinars or events with sessions Additional Opportunities with Zoom Allow event registration through your member’s portal, creating an event attendee record for established contacts or can create new contacts when needed If a registrant is not a contact in your CRM, a new lead and associated contact record will be created and you’ll be automatically alerted if it’s a duplicate. If a registrant is already a contact, a lead record will be created and associated with the contact already in the system. Once your Zoom event is complete, attendance will be updated in your AMS along with engagement and time attended Attendance records are updated with minutes attended, engagement scores are created and if the webinar allowed non-member attendance, then a CRM lead record is created.
Altai Events: Using Microsoft Teams for Event Management
Microsoft Teams Integration with Dynamics 365 From Concept to Execution to Finance Have you considered that Teams can extend beyond meetings, or webinars to large scale virtual conferencing complete with sponsorships, virtual booths, multiple concurrent sessions, conference-wide or focused broadcasting, as well as multiple moderators and contributors? Microsoft Teams does more than simple chat, collaboration, video conferencing. Microsoft Teams has seen its daily active user count rise from 32 million in March to over 75 million by the end of April 2020. As an app available in the broader Microsoft 365 productivity bundle, Teams is available to all Microsoft 365 customers, it simply needs to be activated to start using it. Lately, Microsoft has been promoting big-name organizations that have been using Teams, which includes the NFL who used Teams to manage the Draft. In March, Microsoft reported that 91 of the 100 largest organizations, a staggering number, all use Teams in the workplace. That’s all to say that here at Altai we are big fans of Teams and use the app daily ourselves. One of the ways we love Teams is its functionality and ability to integrate. Our own team, spearheaded by partner, Mike Frye, has combined the powerful tools found in Teams, with Altai’s AMS built within Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform. Together, we’ve created a powerhouse virtual event management tool for associations. Since associations and its members are already collaborating daily with teams, the end result of our integration is a seamless experience for your organization’s membership. In addition, registering for events, purchasing booths, and providing sponsorships are conducted within your member portal before publishing your conference. How it Works: High-Level Functionality The Altai Event Management systems allow users to manage webinars and events using an easy to use template and cloning application. Using the Event template builder you can click on an event or template and create a webinar or full-blown annual event and have it ready for registration in less than a minute. Altai’s event management platform manages the following: Easily creating the Event in the CRM Publishing the event to the web portal Enabling membership to register for the event. Creating the Event in Teams as a secure member portal Inviting the users to both the Team and the Teams Meeting Building a presenter’s area for session discussions, content, handouts, and collaboration Transcribing and indexing the session meeting once it is finished. “Community” enables the content. Security, content can be open or closed to nonmembers or only available to specific committees. Support for simple webinars or events with sessions, booths, committees, What Event Features are implemented/integrated with Teams? Automatically create an event site with member-specific security. Ability to manage many sessions. Ability to sell and manage vendor “booths” Ability to sell and manage sponsorships. Ability to enable broadcast communications to the sessions, booths, and members. Allow a member in securely and also block/remove them. Allow speakers and moderators to collaborate privately Allow registrants to see video content at a later date. (Coming Oct, but YouTube for now) Allow for the automatic transcription of the meeting. Ability to allow registrants to discuss and collaborate on content or session. The Altai Microsoft solution has all the features required to put on an event. Teams has a fantastic ability to allow those producing an event or a session to collaborate on the best ways to achieve this educational content and deliver it to the right members at the right time. What are the advantages of using Microsoft Teams? Today Microsoft Teams is the number one collaboration platform in the world. It is free with Office 365, and it has all the functionality you need to bring your members closer to your events and programs. Teams is perfect for learning and Teams is also very extendable. You can configure a webinar or event with over 200 apps that allow your members to learn and collaborate better. Here are a few of the features: Ability to invite members without paying a per-user license fee. A community can be built around the content. Extreme reliability and scalability. Today 75 million users log onto Teams daily. Not only does Teams automatically scale, but it is also ultra-secure. The content is captured forever and is available to the membership as an additional benefit and an additional revenue stream Security, you can control each portion of the event, the presentation, and the availability of that meeting to members at a very granular level. A very easy and familiar interface. Very flexible to extend and automate. One can automate any aspect of an event from registration to one-click wallet pay to automatic surveys to task management with only a few clicks.
Platform v Product and Selecting the Last AMS You’ll Ever Need
Your First Step What to do when you’re considering cutting your losses and selecting a new AMS? The first step should be to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your current solution based on the requirements you have today. Has your AMS been able to bridge the gap between previous and current requirements? If not, there’s a decision to be made in terms of your next solution. There are essentially three approaches to association management solutions: 1) Product, 2) Build v Buy, 3) Platform-based solutions. 1) and 2) are very similar; they’re both a set of tools from one company that comes in a single package, let’s call them a suite, which means each application is designed by the same company. The components in the suite are designed to work together but can never provide the interconnectivity to software applications outside their closed environments. Suites start out with good intentions: lower risk, cost, and the time associated with enabling major functions of an association’s technology. And they’ve developed and commercialized to be everything to everyone; a veritable one-stop shop for multiple, complex, and important components. Inevitably, associations realize that the suites they’ve chosen will never evolve to reach a level of adaptivity that can be extended and scaled. Associations are now at a crossroads: they must start the RFP process all over again, or worse, live with an application suite that is increasingly inflexible. How to Break Out of the Vicious RFP Circle and Love Your AMS On the surface, platform-based solutions may appear similar to suites. They both offer a wide range of features out of the box to provide greater access to your biggest asset: your data. But if you drill down just a bit, you’ll see the difference lies in the inherent openness of the platform. The open nature of a platform will give you the ability to add functionality and capabilities you don’t even know you need yet. Platforms broaden your association’s ecosystem by evolving as your business changes. There are so many good reasons to select a platform-based solution, but one of the primary purposes is to lay the foundation of a technology framework that can be easily extended to add new members, new products, new events – the sky’s the limit – without risk or disruption to the business. Think about the e-commerce framework Amazon built to sell books. Over time and without any disruption to their business, they’ve been able to scale and expand their operations to the degree that you can now find everything from soup to nuts on their site. How many times has Amazon been “down”? The Altai Systems’ AMS is built within the Dynamics 365 platform (the Altai Business Platform), so each module, from Membership to Events, to Finance to eCommerce & Credentialing, and everything in between, taps into all of the cutting technology Microsoft spends billions of dollars developing every year. Would you like to know whether someone with 100+ followers tweets about your association? That’s easy! Create a workflow! As your association grows and requirements arise that have been previously unconsidered, the suite that worked for you once is very likely not working now. And what is it costing you to upgrade and update, to support and maintain, to customize? How long are you waiting for an enhancement because you have a requirement the solution can’t meet? If the goal of your association is stability within a diverse and ever-changing technology and competitive landscape, then either an AMS suite or platform will help you achieve that goal. But if the AMS you’re running today isn’t helping you achieve your strategic vision you need the Altai Business Platform. You’ll restore confidence in your data and free up your staff to create new, exciting revenue streams. Imagine if the very solution critical to running your association were within reach! Imagine that your association platform solution was so comprehensive, easy to run, and future-proofed that you’d never have to change again. The Altai Business Platform is the last AMS your association will ever need.
