For small companies, how important is open-source in making a CRM decision?

Open-source is certainly an important piece of the CRM puzzle - for any size company. In a small company it is critical that the CRM choice fits the business model, the people and of course, the budget. Open-source products allow greater flexibility for far less cost than do proprietary or hosted solutions. But it is important to recognize that there can be hidden costs in supporting an open source product so before going down that road it is a good idea to know you have the technical skills in-house to support and manage the product or that you research your vendors capabilities just as you research the product.

Its not the open of Open Source that is important to small business, its the free aspect of it. What is more important is to choose the CRM system that fits all your needs including features and cost. Open Source or at least the community versions are free, but you will need to use community support plus a developer to truly support it. Some open source companies offer support at a cost. Products like SugarCRM provide a valuable way to start to get involved with CRM in your business. However, they lack the full features of some of the better commercial software. So choose what is right for your organization now and for the near term future.

It so happens that I recently posted a short article about the types of CRM software on my software information site: http://www.SoftwareIntelligencer.com that might help you a bit.

The distinction between open source and free is an important one. Open source by itself is an advantage if you want (and can) take advantage of open source (e.g. modifying code, integrating with other tools, etc.). Many small firms do not have the technical resources to do this.

Free or low-cost solutions are definitely attractive to any small businesses. Sometimes there are entry-level commercial products that are either no- or low-cost, so open source is not a prerequisite.

Since SugarCRM was mentioned a couple of times, I'll chime in from a user perspective. We switched to Sugar two years ago, because of its lower cost (although we license the paid Enterprise edition) and because we wanted to integrate more tightly with other systems (and we have the technical talent to accomplish this). However, we're just now getting around to some of these projects.

While we like the product and will keep using it, I will say that getting support is sometimes hit-or-miss. Again, we have the resources to figure the tech details out, but a smaller, non-technical firm might struggle.

Hi Trevor and All,

In my view, it is quite simple. Open Source CRM makes ANY company (no matter size or type) a more flexible, more efficient and more profitable organization.

We work with SugarCRM, the leading Open Source solution and have seen it time and time again that customers adopting Sugar, either if it is their new CRM or switching from a proprietary vendor (could be MS CRM, Superoffice, Oracle/Siebel, Salesforce.com etc) benefit hugely in saved costs and increased flexibility.

Customers love having a CRM system that is adjusted exactly to their needs, people and processes - instead of having to make their organization change because "that is just what the software is".

I don't buy the "internal technical expertise" argument. Simply because CRM is not mainly an IT-related function but a business oriented strategic implementation. It is a way of thinking and a culture.

For propriatary CRM-software, unless the internal IT-staff has used the CRM system previously and simply make a clone of what they did at their previous employeer, they still wouldnt be more qualified to create appropriate processes than, say the sales manager of the company.

Regarding "Hosted - subscribtion based" - well SugarCRM gives a company the option of having it on-site (meaning own servers) as ASP/hosted, as SaaS (Software as a Service) and "in the cloud". So no real IT-expertise really required. It is not a question of Open Source or not.

In all cases, we have seen companies having great internal IT-resources but still hiring external CRM consultants to help with the implementation of CRM. In other words, just because one knows MS Office, MS SQL server, Exchange Server and Windows Server does not mean one masters MS Dynamics CRM. Being good with Oracle databases does not mean one is good with Siebel or SAP.

Customer Relationship Management is very little about IT, but about the correct processes

...and most of all it is about people.

If you are looking for CRM and are in Scandinavia - please do not hesitate to contact.

Regards
Vesko, Redpill Linpro
SugarCRM Gold Partner Nordics

Open source CRM is available from CiviCRM stand-alone or integrated with Drupal, Joomla! etc. http://civicrm.org/

Like many have already said, Open Source does not mean free and getting support depends on the maturity and community that is available around the product.

For smaller companies, that do not want to outlay a large amount of money in hardware and licensing fees, a subscription/hosted CRM is probably the best way to go. Although with any CRM system, you are going to need to train employees on how to use it and make sure that they actually use it. You most likely will also need to have some customization done to the system to align with how you run your company.

In full disclosure, I work for a Microsoft Partner and we sell Dynamics CRM. That being said, you can use Dynamics CRM Online: http://crm.dynamics.com/ and you can also integrate it into your site using a product called Web2CRM: http://web2crm.crminnovation.com/?cc=ceoteams that way you can have contact forms or any form you can think of to capture lead data.

Microsoft dynamics CRM also integrates into Outlook so the learning curve for users is minimal.

If you have any questions we would be glad to help.

Keith Fawcett
www.ceoteams.com
770-333-0315