Lon Orenstein's Experience
From Contact Management (using ACT!) to Sales Force Automation to CRM to Customer Engagement
ACT! Certified Consultant and App Developer
1990 to 2005
Lon was the first ACT! Certified Consultant in 1991 starting a 15 year business that laid the foundation of his experience computerizing sales people, customer service people, and small-medium businesses. Laptops were just hitting the market, PC's were coming down in price and being implemented in big numbers, but no one knew how to use them or whether they even wanted to! Local Area Networks were invented to link these PC's together and to access the mainframes businesses had been using. It was a time of rapid innovation that revolutionized all organizations.
- Consulting, Customizing, Training: Lon pioneered a fast changing business model that has grown into the modern Partner organization. He taught business owners what a contact management software program could do, how it could work for their type of business, customized it, then trained their people to use it. The business grew as new consultants were brought on to handle the demand!
- Apps: in 1993, Lon released his first AddOn App for ACT!, ReportManager. This was an easy way to use Crystal Reports with ACT! and ushered in what is now called "business intelligence" (Microsoft PowerBI). Databases were customized to store all kinds of information and ReportManager was used to produce reports unthinkable a few years earlier.
The ACT! database was customized for different vertical markets and new Apps were released for real estate agents, mortgage bankers, Merrill Lynch financial advisors, and others.
As the PC marketplace matured, Sales Force Automation became the name given to teaching sales and customer service people how to use technology to better track prospects, opportunities, and customers. Lon was on the leading edge (bleeding?) of this expansion and became widely known as an innovative and creative business person in the consulting/VAR/ISV/Partner community.
Microsoft Business Contact Manager for Dummies Author
2006 to 2008
Alas, many good things sometimes come to an end. ACT! didn't keep up with the technology, changed ownership a few times, and Lon moved on to Microsoft's Business Contact Manager ("BCM") for Office software. BCM was initially released as part of Office 2003 then upgraded considerably for Office 2007. Lon wrote the For Dummies book and converted the Apps to work with that software.
Apps that were originally developed for ACT! were converted to work with Business Contact Manager such as their robust Marketing Tool, and versions of BCM for real estate, mortgage, and financial advisors.
Disappointingly, Microsoft didn't promote BCM as a replacement for ACT! or other sales force automation software. It was just another module included with Office 2007 and didn't get the attention to become what it could have become in the marketplace. BUT WAIT, here comes CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) in the cloud.
Microsoft CRM Online
2007 to 2016
Lon realized what was happening in "the cloud" and started working Microsoft CRM Online as a beta user in late 2007. Living Business Online became a Gold Partner and led the way in moving businesses' CRM systems to the Microsoft cloud.
- Consulting, Customizing, Training: Lon's team obtained multiple Microsoft Certifications for CRM and Living Business Online implemented CRM Online in over 125 organizations.
- Apps: A new tool, GetLoaded, to move ACT! data into CRM Online was developed.
- Contractor to Microsoft: Living Business Online worked closely with Microsoft to develop a synchronization between CRM Online and Intuit's QuickBooks (both Desktop and Online). This integration became the Dashboards + Sync for QuickBooks and Microsoft CRM App.
- Community: Lon has spoken and given seminars at multiple CRM User Groups and Microsoft conferences.
- Super Cool Award: Microsoft held a CRM Incubation Week contest in 2008 to showcase innovative Apps and Lon's team won the Super Cool award.
Microsoft Dynamics365 Customer Engagement, PowerBI, Power Platform, Microsoft 365
2016 to present
As Microsoft has expanded their cloud offerings, changed names and added functionality, Lon has continued to fine tune his expertise in some of these applications. No one can know them all!
BPOS became Office365 and Office365 is now Microsoft 365.
CRM Online has become Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement.
Lon's expertise in business intelligence using Crystal Reports for ACT! in the 1990's has now expanded into PowerBI. PowerBI is arguably the most powerful tool Microsoft has released in years for organizing and analyzing the huge amounts of data now stored in Azure, Dataverse, and on-premise data sources.
AND, Lon will continue to focus his abilities in understanding how your business can utilize all these tools for better operations.
- Consulting, Customizing, Training: Lon pioneered a fast changing business model that has grown into the modern Partner organization. He taught business owners what a contact management software program could do, how it could work for their type of business, customized it, then trained their people to use it. The business grew as new consultants were brought on to handle the demand!
