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Why would moving CRM to the cloud be beneficial for smaller businesses?
How would moving to a cloud-based CRM help the bottom line of a small to mid-sized business?
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4 Answers
Two reasons. First, even the smallest businesses today have multiple locations, and SaaS products ease access and security issues. Access from anywhere, anytime, without having to shoulder the burden of securing access to your own servers is worth money and relieves headaches.
Second, if the alternative is laptop based CRM systems, moving CRM to the cloud means that when a salesperson leaves, all your data stays. Losing a laptop full of sales prospects and customer tracking can be painful. Storing the information elsewhere, like a SaaS CRM package, means you control the data.
If you choose the right web based application, it's going to save you lots of money and time.
As a small business, you don't want to have to deal with hosting, hosting related issues, customization, etc. Small businesses also need something that makes collaboration easy, and gives users the option of working from multiple locations with ease.
WORKetc for example is web based, inexpensive, and provides enough tools for users to manage their entire business under one application. It's a combination of tools from CRM, PM, billing, and support. Users not only manage their entire business in one place, but have bank-level security encryption and can access their entire business from any location.
James has provided a good answer here. Both access and security is improved as a result of SaaS. However, I'd also add that SaaS saves you money in two ways:
1. Cost savings on hardware improvements and electricity - powering servers can cost a lot of money.
2. It frees you up to encourage staff to work from home. This means that you can reduce the pressure on renting office space (and the associated costs).
Most small businesses do not have an IT staff and are not interested in IT (even an IT SMB is focused on clients, not infrastructure). The last thing on your list is upgrading computers, operating systems, and software updates, upgrades, hot fixes; Windows Server, SQL Server, synchronization, IIS, static IPs. So you still have XP laptops? Macs? No problem. Running IE 6, Safari, Firefox, Opera? OK. Want an excuse to get that iPad?
Organize your contacts and decide how you're going to get leads. Work out your sales process. Create your marketing campaigns. Design your website--write the copy and figure out the style, colors, etc. I haven't mentioned anything here about technology; this is business planning. If you can read this discussion, you have all the baseline technology you need.
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