Choosing the Right CRM Why We Recommend Salesforce

Transcription

1 Choosing the Right CRM Why We Recommend Salesforce A CRM system is a significant long-term investment that your organization should take very seriously. The right CRM can help push your sales figures to new heights. The wrong one can disrupt your sales and marketing team, forcing them to succeed in spite of a dysfunctional system. Your growing organization needs a CRM that can grow with it a CRM that s easy to scale and customize as your business requirements evolve. This white paper explains why we encourage our customers to choose Salesforce.

2 Introduction Still on the fence about which on-demand CRM to choose? We ve been there and we know it s a bit nerve-racking. If you ve already done some research online, then you re probably familiar with names like Salesforce, SugarCRM, NetSuite, and Highrise and you know that heavyweights Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP offer on-demand CRM systems, as well. Although a competitive CRM market is to your advantage, it also makes your decision more difficult. Which on-demand CRM is right for your organization? How might your needs change in the next 5 years? With so many systems out there, how do you even begin to evaluate them all? And what about custom apps? How should they figure into your calculations? Do you really need to think about developer tools? After all, you re just looking for a CRM. (The answer to that last question is yes, but more about developer tools later.) We know there s a lot to consider and the evaluation process can be quite challenging. That s why clients ask our opinion about which on-demand CRM system is the best value. For the last few years, we ve been giving them the same answer: Salesforce. This white paper briefly assesses some popular on-demand CRM systems and then presents simple criteria that you can use to narrow down your list of likely candidates. The paper then goes on to explain why we prefer Force.com, the Salesforce development platform, for delivering custom sales and marketing apps to small and medium-sized enterprises. What s Out There? We assume that you re interested in managing customer relationships, not computer servers, so we re going to talk exclusively about Web-based, ondemand CRM systems that require no additional IT infrastructure and no installation. Although competition is heating up, Salesforce.com continues to be the dominant player in this market. Of course, that really isn t surprising because, as an early entrant and trendsetter, it s had quite a head start on the rest of the pack. The meteoric rise of Salesforce.com is certainly compelling, but we re resultsoriented technology consultants and software developers so we can t afford to let the commercial success of a product influence our estimation of its value or the value of competing systems. However, despite marked improvements in many of the other on-demand CRMs, we ve yet to find evidence that contradicts our initial conclusion: Salesforce is still the system to beat. To help you understand our point of view, we ve prepared thumbnail assessments of some cloud-based CRMs that you might have come across in your research. Here they are: 1

3 Salesforce Salesforce is the on-demand CRM industry leader. It has a user-friendly interface with lots of functionality and the system is easy to scale up or down according to the needs of your organization. Salesforce was made to be customized, with options ranging from basic tuning and third-party apps to custom development on the Force.com platform. Oracle CRM On Demand Organizations that already have an Oracle ERP in the back office might be attracted to this system. Unfortunately, Oracle CRM On Demand lacks a lot of functionality that s standard in other CRMs, a weakness that you might have to address up front with third-party apps and custom development. It s questionable whether the system is a viable solution for medium-sized enterprises or large organizations. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Two of Microsoft s key selling points for this CRM are close integration with Office applications and the ability to leverage an existing MS stack. However, former users of Dynamics CRM Online report poor usability, slow performance, and less functionality than was advertised in demos. System implementation set up, tuning, and scaling can be very challenging for an IT department, requiring expensive resources. The fact that Dynamics was an on-premise solution before Microsoft shoehorned it into the cloud could explain some of these issues. Zoho CRM This is a one-size-fits-all CRM: It can t be customized. Unfortunately, it also has limited functionality compared to other CRMs, which means your organization could eventually grow out of it and have to switch to another system. SugarCRM Sugar s low initial price tag is somewhat misleading because of hidden costs associated with managing and maintaining an open source system. Small organizations that try to save money by choosing SugarCRM often end up paying more because they didn t factor this into their calculations. For example, a version upgrade routine and automatic with other CRMs can be a labour-intensive exercise with Sugar. Although this CRM has a limited feature set, you might be able to customize it to get functionality that s standard in other systems provided you re willing to pay for programming and maintenance. Keep in mind that a version upgrade can break your customizations, leading to downtime and additional programming costs. NetSuite This system is targeted at customers who want a complete on-demand CRM/ERP solution. Users have very few options when it comes to customizing this system and many have complained of ongoing problems 2

4 with performance, reliability, and ease of use. To make matters worse, NetSuite s customer service/support is notorious in the industry and customer turnover has been high. SAP Business ByDesign This is a new version of the original ByDesign CRM/ERP product that launched in 2007 and went nowhere (When SAP released the new version in 2010, they still had only 100 customers. 1 ) Although SAP has enjoyed great success with its on-premise ERP systems, the company has a poor SaaS track record. Highrise and RightNow These are online contact management systems, not full-blown CRMs. They have limited functionality that s suitable for very small businesses with tiny budgets and no need for customization. Narrowing the Field with 5 Simple Questions With so many CRM systems out there, you might want to adopt some go/nogo criteria to narrow down your choices. Here are 5 basic questions that you can ask yourself to screen out unsuitable candidates: 1. What do we need right now and what will we need in 5 years? Don t just buy for today. Sure, simple contact management software is cheap but eventually you ll want to do more. Then you ll have to throw out the old system and replace it with a more sophisticated CRM. A better approach is to start with an open-ended CRM a scalable system and grow with it. 2. What CRM system will be the most secure investment? A CRM is a big, long-term investment, so before choosing a system, you should carefully scrutinize each potential provider. Do they have sufficient resources to maintain the best possible security at their data centres? Is it likely that the CRM provider will be around 10 years from now? When you re confident that your data is secure and your CRM is here to stay, you can focus on growing your business without unnecessary distractions. 3. In the long term, what will be the most cost-effective CRM system? A scalable, user-friendly CRM will be the most cost-effective, having the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). IT departments find TCO especially meaningful because software has hidden costs that can get out of control. With a user-friendly application, you can benefit from higher efficiency, lower training costs, and happier employees who are more willing to buy into the system. Keep in mind that when the sales and marketing team give their 3

5 stamp of approval to a scalable CRM, your organization is less likely to incur onerous switching costs down the road. Even if your current budget limits you to a CRM system with the most basic features, you should still put scalability and ease of use at the top of your requirements list. Then, as your needs change and your budget increases, you can incrementally expand the system with minimal negative impact on your organization. 4. When your organization needs more than standard functionality, what kind of developer tools will be available to you? Be sure to invest in a CRM that comes with powerful developer tools. Without adequate tools, you may not be able to expand the functionality of the CRM system enough to meet your organization s growing list of requirements. If that happens, you ll incur significant switching costs when you outgrow the CRM and replace it with a more potent system that can be customized. 5. Which CRM provider has a genuine commitment to innovation? The word innovation means different things to different people, so perhaps we should restate the question as What have you done for me lately? If a CRM provider hasn t introduced a significant new feature in the last 6 months, look out! Why Force.com? Every organization has unique processes and distinct needs, so it s not reasonable to expect that any CRM system even the best ones out there will provide a 100% solution out-of-the-box. As your organization grows larger, you ll find that the ability to customize your CRM becomes increasingly important. We re software developers so naturally we have strong opinions about proper engineering, sound architecture, and custom apps in general. Before we build custom software, we have to know that we ve chosen the best development platform for the application. That said, when it comes to building applications for small and medium enterprises, we prefer Force.com as a development platform. Here are the reasons: Force.com has extensive developer tools Salesforce.com offers a powerful set of developer tools based on a Java-like language called Apex. Tools like classes, triggers, and Visualforce pages allow software developers to implement useful Salesforce enhancements and build versatile standalone apps. For example, to solve a specific problem, we might simply create a few custom screens in Salesforce a modular and very cost-effective approach to building infrastructure. Force.com developer tools perform equally well 4

6 when we use them to build complex custom applications for clients with more extensive requirements. Keep in mind that many other CRM systems don t have any developer tools at all, which limits their ability to grow with an organization. Force.com has a large and growing developer community Salesforce developers share information in forums, blogs, articles, and videos and at Salesforce.com s annual Dreamforce event, which now includes a full developer conference. AppExchange makes it easier to add new functionality The AppExchange is Salesforce.com s online market for third-party business applications and services. When one of our clients wants to enhance their CRM with a special feature for example, integrated marketing we always check the AppExchange before developing a custom application. If our client needs a particular feature, it s likely that other organizations have also identified the same need. And if a suitable app has already been created elsewhere, there s a good chance we ll find it on the AppExchange. If we do, it often means we can deploy a solution faster and for a lower price. Salesforce.com is dedicated to its development platform Unlike a lot of other CRM companies, Salesforce.com has actually designed its applications to be customized. Why? Because it realizes that one-size-fitsall isn t good enough: Organizations need CRM systems that are configured to their unique specifications. We re able to roll out all sorts of powerful features to our clients because Salesforce.com makes it so easy to seamlessly integrate custom apps into their core systems. Salesforce.com applications are in the cloud With Salesforce, we can develop custom apps much faster because we don t have to set up complicated IT infrastructure that an on-premise system from Microsoft or SAP would require. Salesforce is hugely scalable Salesforce.com has built all of its applications on the Force.com development platform, which means a small business can start with a basic Salesforce CRM package and expand it as needed even if the company grows into a huge multinational corporation. With Salesforce, there s no need to switch systems midstream. Salesforce is cost-effective Since Salesforce customers buy only what they need, they can incrementally expand their CRM as their organizations grow. If they need custom apps, they might be able to purchase them on the AppExchange instead of commissioning new development projects that will only reinvent the wheel. Every time you add new features to your CRM and make it better, you re giving yourself the ability to make your organization even more profitable. 5

7 References 1. Pallatto, John. Confusion Clouds Introduction of SAP Business ByDesign, eweek.com, May 18, 2010, Introduction-of-SAP-Business-ByDesign /, accessed on November 15, Architech Solutions is a Toronto-based technology consulting and software development firm. We design and build powerful, user-centred systems that work. We re agile, disciplined, and passionate about delivering for our clients. Architech Solutions 70 Bond Street Suite 400 Toronto, Ontario M5B 1X3 To book a free on-site Discovery Workshop led by our team of consultants, info@architech.ca or visit us at Phone: (416) Fax: (416) Architech Solutions Consulting Services Inc. All rights reserved. 6