Today, as a result of high competition among companies engaged in marketing and service
providing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) practices became mandatory for all business
organizations. CRM software systems are specially customized programs for better customer
relationship management; they automate all company procedures like customer tacking, contacting and
serving customers. At their introduction, CRM software programs are standard packages, with all
wanted and unwanted CRM applications.
Though many businesses have taken up on-demand CRM however, many are also moving away from it.
On-demand CRM solutions may seem a good fit to start with, but businesses can soon outgrow them,
find they are limited in what they are capable of, or that the business needs a more comprehensive
CRM solution.
Both open source and on-demand CRM software systems are capable of integrating multiple tasks such
as multi-channel collaborative selling, customer lifecycle marketing, integrated customer service,
integrated fulfillment management, sales force automation, data tracking, data migration, data
integration, etc. All customer relationship management systems serve as large databases for storing
and integrating all customer information such as customer name, contact method, customer taste,
frequency of visit and buying capacity. Both CRM solutions help to find reliable customers and plan
better services for them.
On-demand solutions frequently have limited functionality, and are notoriously difficult (which
usually means expensive!) to integrate with other applications. So, although on-demand CRM solutions
may seem cheap to start with, the price may not always turn out to be as attractive as it first
appeared. Paul Petersen, Senior Director of the GoldMine Business Unit for FrontRange Solutions,
recently stated "We talk with many companies that learn too late of the limitations of on-demand
CRM". He goes on to say "On the surface, on-demand CRM is compelling and seems to offer incredible
benefits. Yet, an increasing number of organizations that tried on-demand applications have returned
to an on-premise solution, and we want customers and partners to be as informed as possible about
the options for cost-effective and mission-critical CRM."
In the right circumstances, on-demand CRM can certainly be the right solution for some businesses.
For example, SageCRM.com can be an ideal CRM starting point for some small and mid-sized companies,
enabling them to share and manage customer information across all departments. It's often a quick
and easy fit, and can go a long way in installing a "CRM culture" within a growing business. What's
more, as these businesses expand, it's straightforward to transfer the SageCRM.com database to an
in-house CRM system (and migration to on-site Sage CRM is seamless). Similarly Microsoft CRM is an
on-demand (hosted) CRM solution built with the same code base as Microsoft Dynamics CRM Professional
Edition. It has a variety of options to fit business needs, with the ability to easily migrate data
as businesses evolve.
