CRM systems or ‘Customer Relationship management’ systems form the backbone of every organization’s sales and marketing team. This post gives a brief insight into the necessity for dealing with CRM systems, the different types of CRM systems, the main vendors of CRM technology and various features of CRM technology.
History of CRM systems:
Going back in time, when the Internet was not alive the only relationship between a customer and a business was through a brick and mortar store. The use of computers was still in its infancy and the only way to track regular customers, new enquiries and leads was by means of a paper and pen.
Gone are those days and now businesses have grown by leaps and bounds and e-business is normalcy. We also have technology to keep track of existing customers, make new customers which in turn increases profits for the same organization along the way. The entire customer lifecycle is now studied and the different interactions are noted to better serve the customer.
Types of CRM systems:
Having seen that CRM systems are an absolute necessity from a business perspective in today’s world, let us next see the different types of CRM systems. There are two types of CRM systems:
- On-premise CRM systems
On-premise CRM as the name suggests is when the software resides on the organization’s server itself. The company takes the responsibility of maintaining the database, providing security to the database in addition to managing updates about the CRM software. On-premise CRM gives a business more control over the data that they own. (Rouse)
With on-premise CRM systems, instead of buying yearly subscriptions, the licenses are purchased upfront. Some examples of on-premise CRM are Microsoft CRM, Onyx, Pivotal, SAP and Siebal. - SaaS (‘Software as a Service’) CRM or Cloud based CRM
Cloud based CRM on the other hand is hosted CRM and the organization does not need the infrastructure to install it or the dedicated IT staff to maintain it. The licenses are on a per user basis per month basis, paid annually. In this type of CRM model, the business will have limited control over the data they own and data security is always a point in question.
Some examples of hosted CRM are Salesforce CRM, ProsperWorks CRM and PipelineDeals. - In addition to the two different types of CRM, we also have the open source CRM which indicates that the source code is made public. Sugar CRM, Vtiger are some examples of open source CRM.
Features of CRM technology:
Having seen the different types of CRM, let us next move onto understand some of the features of CRM systems:
- Customer Data management
All customer data and interactions are stored which makes it easy to track this information by all employees. Enduring customer relationships are built which ultimately helps to increase the revenue of a business.
- Integrating with external applications
Given that corporate data before CRM was stored in multiple places, CRM tools helps us to integrate with different applications. This in turn helps us to manage and assimilate the data better.
- Reporting
The reporting feature of CRM tools helps us to generate appropriate reports which can be used to understand customer behavior.
- Workflow automation
Instead of manual entry, automating business processes will improve a business’s productivity in the long run and CRM tools enable you to just that. (Diana) (Wallace)
We saw CRM systems, the different types and some features in this post. We will explore more about CRM tools in subsequent posts.
Bibliography Diana. (n.d.). Main features of effective CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Retrieved from intetics.com: http://www.intetics.com/main-features-of-crm-customer-relationship-management-software/ Rouse, M. (n.d.). customer relationship management (CRM). Retrieved from Tech Target.com: http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/definition/CRM Wallace, L. (n.d.). Compare CRM Software. Retrieved from softwareadvice.com: http://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/
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