Would Recommend Dynamo
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Our challenge was finding a new system to migrate our existing CRM onto. One that would be nuanced yet powerful enough to cater to our firms style and basic needs of operating.
Some problems we were trying to solve were ease of functionality from the user perspective, and the translation of data into clear actionable information to drive business activities, as well as buy-in from team members to actually start using a different platform.
Pros
- Relationing of data seems rather basic of an ask when it comes to CRMs, but in actuality, isn't as easy to visualise out or navigate when moving that much data from one system to another that's completely different.
- Dynamo understands this and simplifies for us how data can be used and presented best, allowing the relational aspect to fall quite naturally to new users like us.
- Self serving interfaces for both general users and admins, provides a sense of ownership and knocks down the need for customisable views and screens that would otherwise require a developer or more technically savvy operator time to create.
- I have to say, it's the implementation team's absolute heart and knowledge, hand holding us through ground 0 on day 1 to where we can now run specific departmental functions on the platform efficiently. Kudos to Joe, Jamie, Anita, Phillip and of course James! Humanistic support is what customers today still need, and the Dynamo team have been our pillar for getting us through each migration phase, and using the platform.
Cons
- The UI is long overdue for a change, but we hear it is already out for new users and we'll get to it soon as well. Looking forward to something less 90s and more 2020s~
- With so much AI enablement going on, one can say it's great but also can be very daunting and end up as a build up of a lot of unintentional user driver technical debt and completely nascent users down the black hold of prompts and vibe coding stuff. I think putting out a library/repository of prompts that apply to common usage scenarios could be a good way to educate customers how best to interact with their Dynamo. Also, great if it tells users how much credits are being used for AI driven work, time saved etc. Not impertinent for a small shop like Cento, but I would image large orgs appreciate indicators like which are required to validate and drive workplace productivity.
- I think the data import studio is still only PC and windows friendly. It would be good to consider non PC users to occasionally feel more empowered as well to handle their own tweaks and updates, that the importing studio plugin be made available for Mac, and also perhaps have a plugin that connects to google drive directly to more ease and to save time. I imagine more companies being on cloud be somewhat normalised these days, if we can save time having to download or upload stuff onto our local as unnecessary that would be fab.
Return on Investment
- I think we have managed to save time on how certain meetings are conducted using Dynamo as our agenda and guide for prioritising talking points.
- Fundraising data is much more organised now and is housed neatly for access and updating.
- To replicate digests on activities around certain entities and topics that we want to retain and keep accessible to team members. This was doable without too much difficulty and downtime.
Usability
Other Software Used
Anthropic Claude, Asana, Notion, Slack, Dropbox
