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Should I go with software as a service CRM?
Posted by Henry Dean on Thu, 04/06/2009 - 10:50
Hi,
I work for a medium-sized business (under 100 employees) and the CEO has got a real bee in his bonnet about software as a service. He's very keen for us to start using a hosted CRM solution, although we've traditionally used on-premise.
As we've been using on-premise for a few years are there any problems or challenges I should be aware of when it comes to 'changing streams' at this point? Has anyone gone through this change problem free? Are there any other issues I should take into consideration or bring to the attention of the CEO when it comes to hosted CRM?
Thanks
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Think about integration...
Hi,
We looked at a number of SaaS and on -premise CRM solutions, all of which had their pros and cons from a CRM functionality perspective ... and this made it quite difficult to choose between them.
However, because our IT team had already (and quite recently) installed a pretty powerful Outlook Exchange server onsite, and because integrating email with CRM was a key factor for our Sales & Marketing functions, it made a lot of sense to go with an on-premise install of Microsoft Dynamics - it just completed the picture best for us.
Integration is just something to bear in mind - and it's certainly the case that most SaaS CRM products have lots of fantastic integration features now, it's just a case of working out which points of integration are vital for your business processes.
Good luck with it!
Cheers,
Darren
Thanks
Thanks Darren, that's something I'll keep in mind.
On premises vs hosted
Hi Henry
There's definitely an increasing trend for companies to migrate from on-premises to hosted solutions and many of our clients have done just that (we're a salesforce.com implementation partner to put things in context).
My experience is that the biggest single driver for the switch is increased flexibility - it just takes too long with many on-premises solutions to adapt the configuration and set up to evolving business needs. Frequently changes can only be made with the involvement of the IT department and have to go through a full testing cycle. Things are just that much quicker with hosted systems.
Other key reasons are:
- Upgrades. It can be difficult and expensive to upgrade on-premises solutions. Most hosted solutions offer seamless upgrades.
- Cost. Upgrades can be expensive to buy and implement. Cost of IT making regular system enhancements is also avoided with hosted solutions.
- Scalabilty, particularly for users in other offices. New users just need a browser to get up and running with a hosted solution. There's no software or hardware to implement.
- Usability. The user interface for most hosted solutions borrow concepts from the consumer web and are just easier to use that many of the more traditional on-premises applications.
- Integation. In fact the web services and API provided by most hosted system actually make them easier to integrate with other applications than the on-premises alternatives. This includes MS exchange servers, with which we've integrated salesforce.com on a number of occasions.
Let us know how you get on with the CEO!
Regards
Gary
www.2020management.com