CRM Software - Your Entry Point - Which Initial Strategy Is Right For You?
CRM software is an important business strategy, whether it is a large company with thousands of customers or a favorite small business but with an equally important customer base. In general, your strategy is to keep customer information in one place allowing you to have everything about that customer at your fingertips. This means maintaining links between sales, marketing, customers, and even financial information. However, the goal is to increase opportunities and sales and increase employee productivity.
The type of system you choose depends on your current and future needs. Will you build and configure your own CRM software solution based on your specific product, or will you use a web-based CRM software solution to meet your needs today with the goal of growth? Anyway, a CRM system is a function of budget and requirement.
The economies of scale exist because configuring a CRM system can cost the same for 20 or 100 users. If the roles are the same, then the ad hoc system can theoretically get the same amount of consulting time, so the ROI will be more users.
If you need to integrate into your own system, a decision point for the internally configured system will be created. For example, do you need to integrate into an accounting system, an ERP distribution system, or a warehouse? This solution also requires expert consulting support and is not an ordinary feature of standard "turnkey" stock systems.
Web-based software-as-a-service CRM software provides significantly lower CRM entry costs than internally configured systems. For many small businesses, paying a monthly fee based on the number of users provides a more cost-effective starting price. If your needs are met based on traditional applications such as contact management, marketing and lead management, or traditional applications of CRM software such as managing activities such as calendars and phones, then a web-based approach is likely to be appropriate.
However, web-based CRM software is inflexible and multi-tenancy, which may limit how you customize your CRM. This means that many people use the systems, so some of these systems must be standard. Therefore, you cannot make the necessary changes to your situation. If the marketing, sales, and customer service teams need a standard CRM system, web-based CRM may be a good option.
Therefore, the decision point is whether it needs to be integrated into other business systems.
A typical CRM strategy is to start with a web-based CRM. Small and growing businesses may initially deploy CRM in their host environment with the goal of migrating to on-premises when financially appropriate. The initial cost of ownership does not justify having an internal system, and budget constraints may prevent you from owning the system. Today, such an option exists. For example, Microsoft Dynamic CRM can be deployed in a web-based CRM software environment, but you can later redeploy the configuration and data to your on-premises solution. It is very flexible and completely smooth.
Therefore, planning a CRM strategy is an important component of your business strategy. Increase your three-year cost-of-ownership analysis to understand the requirements for integrating into other systems to determine if your company's CRM system is appropriate or if you should initially use a web-based CRM software solution.
