Sales Force Marketing - Salesforce.com CRM:
How to Select CRM Solution

The first factor: Processing Solution

The process of building CRM system can be divided into 2 periods: solution selection and implementation. A CRM solution selection is usually considered in many aspects and the most important one is: Does the solution fit with business strategy and current management system of the enterprise? Because the core of CRM is database and processing tools, thus CRM solution based on IT background prevails over other solutions. Therefore, some people think that selecting CRM solution is selecting database and CRM software.

At the beginning step of building CRM in enterprise, the first thing a manager thinks about is which database and CRM software should be used or how to build the CRM system to fit with selected CRM software. The following question is which technology platform the CRM software is based on. But, is technology the crucial factor to select a solution for CRM system in enterprise? The answer is NO.

CRM system implementation is to provide information and boost business process of the enterprise. That's why technology should be considered secondary concern and the first priority should be focused on support capability. In other words, it is method, settling process implemented by CRM system through algorithms used in information processing that be the crucial factor of the quality. In order make method and information processing work, they have to base on common factors (which are in accordance with rules) and specific factors (which are in accordance with operating mechanism in business and management activities of the enterprise).

A CRM system which cannot bring managers better information and improve enterprise business, it has no reason to exist. Nevertheless, the role of Information Technology in CRM is very important, it has great influence on project's feasibility and solution's utility such as: cost of CRM building and deployment; level and capability of addressing requirements of enterprise's managers.

Criteria to select CRM software
Providers often say that their products are powerful, suitable to any enterprise. In fact, is it true that features show capacity of the CRM software? The following are some oriented criteria that should be considered before selecting CRM software:

Is the CRM software really suitable to the area which enterprise is working on? Each area has unique and typical features, this leads to different requirements in client strategy. The suitable software, apart from having functionalities that meet the demands, must give out guidance to implement business or similar modules, measures for users to select.

How are contents of CRM expressed in the software? How much the key tools of CRM in such areas as do: marketing campaign management, sales management, customer care management appear in the software? Is there any forecast function in these systems? If any, what is the forecast method and how scalable are other forecast methods can be applied? In other words, does software provider have insight of CRM to create a product that can meet enterprise's demands?
resource requirements of enterprise in CRM software deployment and operation maintaining. Enterprise has to provide necessary resources such as: finance, IT infrastructure, man power etc. to not only CRM software deployment but also operation maintaining.

Compatibility of the software to other existing applications in the enterprise. Based on list of programs, data management system... provided by manufacturers, system administrator must review the compatibility to CRM software in order to ensure that IT changes are acceptable.
Capability of supporting interactivity and data collecting methods. For example, if enterprise wants to use the CRM anywhere, anytime it has to look for web-based CRM software.

Customizability of CRM software. Customizability is not only the ability to change configuration, to change search and statistics processing algorithm but also ability to change database structure. Normally, database structure is nearly fixed when it is built to ensure its integrity, thus customizability can hardly exists. However, changing structure at some level can meet settle some issues rising in deployment without having to upgrade which is complicated and costly.

The function of method suggestion and experience accumulation. This is not a typical feature of CRM but a requirement in common management software. Is the CRM software able to give out some feasible solutions based on existing data with management history stored in CRM database?

Besides, other factors such as: complex level in transfer process, usability, security, support from provider etc. should be considered to ensure CRM efficiency.

Source: Tom Downie link


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