Business

In today’s business scenario, it is well agreed that companies have to be really good at what they do best. This at a reduced cost. This is achieved by doing business smartly.

The steps to do business smartly are:

Making changes in the business that will have the maximum impact.

Process automation

Effective analysis leading to improved sales

Increased customer responsiveness

Technological advancement

Since small businesses are essentially customer driven, it makes sense to have the business in more of a customer-centric role. Customer management serves the role of value addition to business, while tailoring the business to meet customer requirements based on analysis allows for value addition to the relationship with the customer. This is where a Customer Relationship Management solution comes into play. A good CRM solution is based on the following fundamentals:

Streamlining & Automation in sales

Streamlining & Automation in marketing

Increasing customer responsiveness

Productive relationship management & analysis


This is where the decision on the type of solution plays an important role. Most of the time, software solutions which are on-premise are perfect fits. However on account of cost & implementation issues, on-demand solutions are seeing growth these days. On-demand solutions allow a customer to rent the software solution after purchasing the license followed by the purchase at a later point of time.

In-House: An In-House solution has benefits like easier system integration, locally available data, customization and lower fees. But it suffers from drawbacks like high investment & upgrade charges, lengthy implementation and a longer period of time for the return on investment to fructify.

On-Demand: An On-Demand solution has benefits like lesser capital, shorter implementation period, easily accessible upgrades and a shorter period for the return on investment. However, the most identifiable drawbacks include data security issues as the information resides outside the company and monthly charges costing more over a period of time compared to a fixed installment payment.

Before choices are made of the Customer Relationship Management solution, one should understand that such a system should provide certain minimum functionalities like:

Existing process support & improvement

Easily customizable

Understandable user interfaces

Easy system integration

Scalability

Flexibility
Before picking a CRM solution, a thorough analysis of the available options is necessary. One should remember that the reason most CRM solutions fail is because of weak focus on business objectives & technology driven processes. This is where thorough research helps. Right down from the company to that of the necessary solutions. After all, doing your homework always helps.