Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The origin of Online CRM

Online CRM is the fastest growing area of CRM applications. It promises to render on-site CRM services obsolete in a few years to come. But it all began a few years ago when competition amongst small to medium sized businesses increased to an all time high. These businesses were competing against each other for a larger share of the pie and there was a need for improvised business practices, strategies and applications.

Software automation was the need of the hour but the lack of a single comprehensive platform that integrates all departments of software was apparent. Onsite CRM was a distant and far too expensive proposition for small companies to venture into.

CRM vendors were the first to notice this and they immediately went back to the drawing board and created a much more cost effective version of the CRM tool. This was called hosted CRM, onsite CRM, online CRM and software as a service or Saas.

The Pros

  • CRM tools are hosted by a third party web host, typically the software vendor. These services are then delivered over the internet.


  • Cost effectiveness: The cost of entry and installation is reduced by a huge margin as there is no infrastructure needed. All that is required is a high speed internet connection and you are all set.


  • Data sharing and collaboration: You can share and collaborate data across the entire organization at multiple levels.


  • Scalability and flexibility: Unlike an on-site CRM, online CRM is far more scalable and flexible. You can customize it and add unlimited number of users to it.


  • Features: Online CRM for small businesses has some of the best features that are required for small and medium sized businesses to succeed.


The cons

It isn’t really easy to choose the best CRM vendor. There are hundreds of such vendors and you have to ensure that you make the right choice.

8 comments:

Capetowner said...

Web based CRM solutions are great, provided you have the bandwidth. Here in South Africa we have such a poor excuse for broadband, web based apps can be excruciatingly slow.

Hopefully this will change once the new undersea optic fibre cables provide the high speed internet promised.

Perry
www.smallbizcrm.com
Small Business CRM Solutions

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Intelestream Inc. - CRM Sotware said...

Very informative article. Choosing the right on demand crm can be difficult. Written with small businesses in mind Intelestream has published a white paper that compares SugarCRM with Salesforce.com and our online CRM application intelecrm. You can view it by visiting www.intelestream.net/whitepapers

Intelestream Inc. - CRM Sotware said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Intelestream Inc. - CRM Sotware said...

Good pros detailed. I would add the low monthly fee web based CRM vendors charge to the cost-effective tips. For instance, we have a unique pricing model, charging not for the amount of users but for the information accessed on the cloud and the number of records stored. For those with small budgets, you can pick and choose the features you need most. Check it out at www.intelestream.net/intelecrm
Good Luck! Intelestream Team

Carlene said...

The development of computer technology benefits a lot of companies (from small to large scale businesses). Advance software like MAS90 software, is very useful in saving history of account files. Every history of accounts are very essential because IT support help agents can monitor each account's movement. With that, it is easier for agents to market the service and product that they're handling.

Maria_Rilke said...

I bet many companies right now are using channel management software
beacause it offers increased in productivity, flexibility, and security be means for having a set of targeted efficiency tools, easy update options plus the chance to administer security levels in an easy manner.