Is CRM on demand the best deployment option for small businesses?

Hi Ted,

It looks like you're getting some great advice here. I echo Paul Greenberg's thoughts on you not having to be worried about the general capabilities of SaaS-delivered CRM offerings. They've been around for over 10 years now, and have come a long way from their beginnings.

While many smaller businesses have been drawn to these offerings because of their low up-front costs and quick implementations, many of them have very robust functionality that can more than handle basic CRM needs of SMBs.

Not knowing your specific needs, it's hard to say which solution (and vendor) will serve you best, but many of the SaaS solutions mentioned above can handle the lion share of many small business needs right "out of the box". Also many systems make necessary changes by way of configuring them with easy to use admin tools, as opposed to having to write code to customize things.

Here are a few things you may want to consider as you go through the process of finding the right solution:

Do you need to have the CRM solution integrate with other systems, like your acctg system - or maybe other custom applications? The more integration needs, the more complex the project gets. If you don't have the internal IT expertise to help with this you may need to find a vendor with certified local partners.

If you're in an industry that has a good number of unique business rules and processes, you may need to look for industry-specific solutions (if available), as it could be less expensive than having to customize a general solution

Are the people who will be using the system in a central location, or are they geographically spread out? A SaaS system is much easier to roll out and maintain (because they do all the maintaining) as people just need a browser (or mobile device) to access the system.

Do you have a internal IT expertise or a trusted technology partner at the ready? If you don't have a strong IT presence - and don't really want to have one - this makes SaaS CRM more of a must-have than a nice-to-have. If you want to remain focused on your core-competencies, and IT isn't one of them, than it probably wouldn't fit to have a system you need to maintain onsite, unless you have a really strong IT partner that you trust.

Make sure you feel comfortable with the vendor as well as the vendor's solution. The old saying is you're not buying software, you're buying the vendor. You have to feel comfortable that your support needs will be satisfied by the vendor, because it takes more than software to successfully implement a CRM program. Training material, online community support and help with best practices also should be taken into consideration. This is really important but is overlooked in many cases because companies think writing the check is the hard part when starting a CRM program. Writing the check is the easy part, it's the up front work Paul mentioned in his answer (strategy, process reveiws, needs analysis, etc) that will make or break the initiative.

The last thing I'll mention is to try and include customers, employees and trusted partners in the process. Get a few of your best customers in to represent the base. Any changes you make with CRM will have a direct impact on interactions with customers, so you'll need to have them involved to get their feedback, and to help prepare them for what's coming. The same goes with employees and partners. All stakeholders need to be represented, so that they feel a sense of ownership, and understand how this will improve their lives.

Good luck with your project Ted, and please feel free to lob more questions!

Brent Leary
Focus Expert Advisor

Hi Ted,

A great small business CRM that won't box you in to limited capabilities is Maximizer (www.maximizer.com). The Small Group Edition desktop version has all the functionality you could want and as you grow, Maximizer has full integration capabilities with other programs including pre-built links to QuickBooks and to MS Dynamics GP. Maximizer runs on MS SQL or MS SQL Express. It's quick to learn but the desktop views can be configured like crazy (that's a technical term, of course).
Buy it to own it and you'll save on TCO in a very short time. Maximizer is also available as a hosted solution through Maximizer business partners.

Wow, talk about some great feedback. I have more then enough information to work with now. I really appreciate the time and insight you put into each response everyone. Thanks a lot.

Hi Ted,

Our organization is also of small size, and we faced the same problem as you. After some consideration, we decided to start using WorkForceTrack , because of its affordable price (relative lower) and that it has all the function we need including PM, CRM, HRMS, Accounting with payroll and many other. So, you should have a look at it

I've researched a lot of online CRM services. Trying to find something free with the features I needed. Simplicity and user-friendliness were at the top of my list. I needed up going with Insight.ly because it offered me what I needed, PLUS it offered awesome integration with Google Apps. All for free. I'm very pleased with features I get out of them and for a simple product, it packs a good punch.

Hi Ted!
try with workforcetrack.com . Our company taking help of CRM experts for all type of
back-end process.It's very effective, very cheap and make tasks so easy and
well managed.Helping analyzing the Sales Process,
complete the data information and employee history.

Yes it is a good option. A CRM which is very easy to use and user friendly is act CRM software. For more better information you can check with this link:

http://www.myrealdata.com/act-hosting.html

There are several small busines targeted solutions allowing integration of CRM and Web sites. Meaning that you pulish your services at your website, then generate leads, which then put to your sales pipeline, etc. the compolete solution may cost not more than 200$. Not as expensive as that. you may look at for example at www.isygen.com

Hi Ted,

Your question is a good one, which many small businesses are facing these days. Our company realized this a couple years ago and came up with a solution to this common problem.

Have a look at our online CRM, intelecrm - www.intelestream.net/intelecrm. We developed the application with small and medium sized businesses like yours especially in mind. intelecrm offers a rich feature set that our team built after years of developing open source CRM customizations for major companies. We took our library of customizations (examples include built in Google Maps integration, a sophisticated document search engine, advanced visual reporting, and much more) and deployed our own application on the Amazon cloud. That means it is accessible anywhere in the world and can be easily integrated with your other systems through our API.

From marketing and sales automation, to customer support and reporting, intelecrm covers everything you need in a CRM.

Last but not least, intelecrm has a unique pricing model that bills subscribers for the amount of records and data accessed, rather than the number of users you have. This is where CRM gets expensive very quickly. You obviously want everyone in your company to be on board, using this very important tool, but it is very expensive to do so. With intelecrm's unlimited user pricing, this is not a problem.

My final advice for you is to look at total cost. Applications like Salesforce might be appealing, but the hidden expenses have a tendency to add up quickly.

Good luck!

Stafford
http://www.intelestream.net/intelecrm

Hi Ted - definitely check out http://www.WORKetc.com

It is priced for the small business sector and has all the CRM tools you need, plus is month to month (no 2 year contracts!)

Hi Ted,

I understand your concern. First, I certainly agree with the rest that on demand (hosted) CRM is the best option for small business. Our CRM, http://www.borneosoft.com comes with Free Edition, it is not time limited and comes with 100MB per user. And we give two accounts for Free Edition. Paid Edition comes with 1GB storage per user for $19.90 per month.

Our CRM comes with web based email similar to outlook and it contains Contact, Calendar and Sales Management. We have also recently added Blog for social marketing. These are all in Paid Edition and in Free Edition too.

And we always believe to listening to our users. We often implement what the users ask, that's the way our software improves over time. If you have specific needs we certainly be happy to listen to it, drop us an email at support@borneosoft.com

You can check our CRM features:

Blog (NEW): http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/blogfeatures
Contact: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/contactfeatures
Calendar: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/calendarfeatures
Sales: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/salesfeatures
Product Management: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/productfeatures
Chart/Reporting: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/chartfeatures
Mail, Notes and Document: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/mailfeatures
Auto Creation of Quotation: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/quotationfeatures
Team Management: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/teamfeatures

We also have good documentations that come with each module in our CRM:

Blog: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/usersguideblog/Borneosoft%20Blog
Contact Mgmt: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/usersguidecontact/User%27s%20Guide:%20Contact%...
Calendar Mgmt: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/usersguidecalendar/User%27s%20Guide:%20Calenda...
Sales Mgmt: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/usersguidesales/User%27s%20Guide:%20Sales%20Ma...
Email: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/usersguideemail/User%27s%20Guide:%20Email
Getting Started: http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/gettingstarted/Getting%20Started

Regards,
Luke