Salesforce

[Dolby]

As a non technical person, I'm just curious as to how difficult it is to create a 'local' Salesforce/CRM program in the cloud? Is it just a database and a front end that pulls the info as requested?

 

[tnt11]

No.

 

[[)roi(]]

CRM solutions are very complex + difficult to setup, use & maintain; and for most small businesses it's a complete overkill -- IMO your money would be better spent elsewhere.

 

[_kabal_]

Yes, you can easily do this with something like sugarcrm

 

[Fulcrum29]

CRM solutions are very complex + difficult to setup, use & maintain; and for most small businesses it's a complete overkill -- IMO your money would be better spent elsewhere.

Why?

Open-source have a nice place in the market. SugerCRM (as mentioned) and Vtiger are both excellent products each with their own plus sides. Even the paid versions are very much affordable when following the on-demand cloud route. Integration possibilities are endless, any business who wish to stay up-to-date and expand should implement a CRM.

Maintenance is a on-going process with CRM's, easy to implement and most definitely not overkill for a small business and remember that business sizes are industry orientated as per requirements.

 

[[)roi(]]

Why?

Open-source have a nice place in the market. SugerCRM (as mentioned) and Vtiger are both excellent products each with their own plus sides. Even the paid versions are very much affordable when following the on-demand cloud route. Integration possibilities are endless, any business who wish to stay up-to-date and expand should implement a CRM.

Maintenance is a on-going process with CRM's, easy to implement and most definitely not overkill for a small business and remember that business sizes are industry orientated as per requirements.

Sorry but you're completely wrong; the majority of CRM projects end up as failures (Google it if you like to confirm)

Software is always a means to an end, not an end in itself -- you have to clearly understand the business problems you are trying to solve.

Most projects fail because like you, too many companies jump in too soon with implementation, and the projects crash and burn early; most even before the business units are properly engaged.

Remember CRM implementations (being a secondary system to for example ERPs) have a heavy reliance on integration to make them even moderately of use; and the integration is only second to the complexity of change management (for example: documenting / agreeing and changing processes, training, KPIs, customer and sales scorecards, ...)

It's always going to be easy to read a web site's marketing messages or install a open source solution -- but to derive any quantifiable benefit is a whole different kettle of fish.

Best to not give any advice if you have no real experience (ps it's shows)

 

[Fulcrum29]

Sorry but you're completely wrong; the majority of CRM projects end up as failures (Google it if you like to confirm)

CRM implementations (being a secondary system to for example ERPs) have a heavy reliance on integration to make it even moderately of use; second only to the change management nightmare (for example: changing processes, training, KPIs, customer scorecards, ...)

... And worst of all most CRM projects are tackled without a clear understanding of a problem and the steps necessary to make a difference.

It's easy to read a web site's marketing messages or install a open source solution -- but to derive any quantifiable benefit is a whole different kettle of fish.

Don't give bad advice!

Well, that's your opinion.

So what would you recommend above CRM's and ERP's?

 

[DJ...]

Sorry but you're completely wrong; the majority of CRM projects end up as failures (Google it if you like to confirm)

CRM implementations (being a secondary system to for example ERPs) have a heavy reliance on integration to make it even moderately of use; second only to the change management nightmare (for example: changing processes, training, KPIs, customer scorecards, ...)

... And worst of all most CRM projects are tackled without a clear understanding of a problem and the steps necessary to make a difference.

It's easy to read a web site's marketing messages or install a open source solution -- but to derive any quantifiable benefit is a whole different kettle of fish.

Don't give bad advice!

Even without the integration you speak of I derive a ton of value from Salesforce.com, simply for the reporting and analysis of the sales side...

 

[nand]

CRM's in general are hard to create, since most of the work still falls on the operator: like actually communicating(phoning) the client. Until we can get people over on electronic communication(and keep it personal) for good, 90% of CRMs already created will continue to fail.

There's a tiny amount of companies that actually get some aspect of CRM right, but they only focus on an individual aspect of it: like marketing and such.

P.S: Infusionsoft might be worth looking into.

 

[[)roi(]]

Even without the integration you speak of I derive a ton of value from Salesforce.com, simply for the reporting and analysis of the sales side...

Sorry you clearly have no clue. CRM systems when used in isolation offer no quantifiable benefit.

 

[DJ...]

Sorry you clearly have no clue. CRM systems when used in isolation offer no quantifiable benefit.

LOL. Why so aggressive? We derive considerable benefit from it, whether you like to accept it or not. In terms of management of a salesforce, and with proper management of the sales team, one can derive considerable value. We do. We're also pretty happy to be able to measure our marketing efforts as well. I'm not interested in an internet argument with you about this. I'm not stating an opinion here. As a matter of fact, we derive considerable benefit from the measurements, management, reporting and forecasting abilities that we extrapolate from data plugged into the system from disparate sales teams...

 

[[)roi(]]

CRM's in general are hard to create, since most of the work still falls on the operator: like actually communicating(phoning) the client. Until we can get people over on electronic communication(and keep it personal) for good, 90% of CRMs already created will continue to fail.

There's a tiny amount of companies that actually get some aspect of CRM right, but they only focus on an individual aspect of it: like marketing and such.

P.S: Infusionsoft might be worth looking into.

CRM solutions when focused on only call centers are proven to fail miserably -- their aren't many companies who derive real benefit from any CRMs; one option being for companies to extend their ERPs to cover many of the perceived business shortfalls (this is shown to have a much greater degree of success re no integration, no new system training, single place containing a shared single version of the truth)

Most companies who gave CRMs struggle to quantify any return on investment; with most overshooting their business cases / budgets, and you'll always find them in a constant struggle to get the marketing and operation teams to use and update the CRM; not the case with ERPs

 

[[)roi(]]

LOL. Why so aggressive? We derive considerable benefit from it, whether you like to accept it or not. In terms of management of a salesforce, and with proper management of the sales team, one can derive considerable value. We do. We're also pretty happy to be able to measure our marketing efforts as well. I'm not interested in an internet argument with you about this. I'm not stating an opinion here. As a matter of fact, we derive considerable benefit from the measurements, management, reporting and forecasting abilities that we extrapolate from data plugged into the system from disparate sales teams...

I've been consulting in ERP (incl. CRM) field for more than 30 years, managing major projects for at least 3 of the Fortune 50 companies, incoporating large systems like JD Edwards, Oracle Financials, SAP to name a few of the major ones.

So it is with that demeanor that I find your statements to be utter rubbish.

Ask yourself how without integration how those sales figures end up in the CRM? If you're manually capturing it, then that alone blows any business case out of the water.

 

[Fulcrum29]

CRM solutions when focused on only call centers are proven to fail miserably -- their aren't many companies who derive real benefit from any CRMs; one option being for companies to extend their ERPs to cover many of the perceived business shortfalls (this is shown to have a much greater degree of success re no integration, no new system training, single place containing a shared single version of the truth)

Most companies who gave CRMs struggle to quantify any return on investment; with most overshooting their business cases / budgets, and you'll always find them in a constant struggle to get the marketing and operation teams to use and update the CRM; not the case with ERPs

ERP and CRM software are distinctively different, both are business tools and production models, each with a purpose and service range in modules. We most definitely utilise both these systems to best interest of our organisation, never failed us once. Tell me rather why the failed study cases are overshooting their businesses cases and budgets? Sounds to me like a faulty organisational structure.

 

[DJ...]

I've been consulting in ERP (incl. CRM) field for more than 30 years, managing major projects for at least 3 of the Fortune 50 companies, incoporating large systems like JD Edwards, Oracle Financials, SAP to name a few of the major ones.

So it is with that demeanor that I find your statements to be utter rubbish.

So as a small company with sales reps spread across the country and always on the road, how else would you propose we manage them, monitor performance properly, and be able to forecast accurately without the use of CRM? I used to have an excel spreadsheet that everyone would have to complete at the end of every day but that became completely unworkable after a while.

In addition, when I was consulting as a rep, I personally derived a lot of benefit from using it for myself. Appointments, follow-ups, integration with Outlook, being able to look back at the complete history of clients and prospects - all centralised in one place and usually one screen, and all stemming from single entries from various staff from marketing, sales, and support. The alerts were good too.

You seem rather jaded about CRM in general and I don't anticipate that I'm going to change your mind whatsoever. Bottom line though is that we use it; we use it well; and it works for us. Boo-hoo for you if that pisses you off so much...

 

[[)roi(]]

ERP and CRM software are distinctively different, both are business tools and production models, each with a purpose and service range in modules. We most definitely utilise both these systems to best interest of our organisation, never failed us once. Tell me rather why the failed study cases are overshooting their businesses cases and budgets? Sounds to me like a faulty organisational structure.

Lol, again your experience shines through. If you blame organizational structures then you clearly missed the boat.

The problem is that most companies fail to understand their problems before embarking on CRM type projects. Better yet, do yourself a favor and investigate how many of the fortune 50 use CRMs successfully (ps. It's quite close to zero)

Your understanding of ERPs is possibly also a little warped; have you btw used either SAP, JDE or Oracle ?

 

[[)roi(]]

So as a small company with sales reps spread across the country and always on the road, how else would you propose we manage them, monitor performance properly, and be able to forecast accurately without the use of CRM? I used to have an excel spreadsheet that everyone would have to complete at the end of every day but that became completely unworkable after a while.

In addition, when I was consulting as a rep, I personally derived a lot of benefit from using it for myself. Appointments, follow-ups, integration with Outlook, being able to look back at the complete history of clients and prospects - all centralised in one place and usually one screen, and all stemming from single entries from various staff from marketing, sales, and support. The alerts were good too.

You seem rather jaded about CRM in general and I don't anticipate that I'm going to change your mind whatsoever. Bottom line though is that we use it; we use it well; and it works for us. Boo-hoo for you if that pisses you off so much...

In my experience the sales force could easily be measured by much of the ERP KPIs -- scorecards make most of the difference; true cost of sales would be a good starting point -- at least with that the purchasing, marketing, operation, and financial units have a single system and a single version of the truth; it avoids those pointless debates about whose system is most accurate.

Btw Outlook and exchange with shared calendaring does a perfect job on it's own, and what's wrong with weekly sales area reports (you'll be surprised how many corporates make use of these)

Remember a calendar, history of prospects, ... is always going to meaningless to your investors -- the real performance of your sales force will always be reflected accurately in the ERP.

Too often sales staff spend time constantly chasing leads that never pan out to anything; and their managers can easily lose sight of their performance against the mountain of garbage activity typically fed into a CRM; net profits never lie.

 

[DJ...]

ERP has traditionally been overkill for our business. That might change soon but for now CRM has delivered on what we've so far required, which has been management of a disparate sales function. Weekly sales area reports happen based on the info from CRM already. It does what we need it to do for now. And in terms of investors, you're talking to one of them. The rest of the board have been in agreement re: erp overkill but as I said, that looks to be changing soon.

My point though is that even in isolation, CRM has delivered what we've needed at a fraction of the cost of an erp investment to date. As we grow our needs are changing though and we will absolutely require deeper and cross-departmental integration. But to say that it's wholly useless without it is to undermine the value it brings in terms of managing the sales function at least, especially without an existing erp system...

 

[Fulcrum29]

Lol, again your experience shines through. If you blame organizational structures then you clearly missed the boat.

The problem is that most companies fail to understand their problems before embarking on CRM type projects. Better yet, do yourself a favor and investigate how many of the fortune 50 use CRMs successfully (ps. It's quite close to zero)

Your understanding of ERPs is possibly also a little warped; have you btw used either SAP, JDE or Oracle ?

Why again? Is it the software's fault? Automation still requires manual input, maintenance and reporting. Yes, I used SAP (ERP) prior 2006, Accpac and OpenERP (today).

Btw, how do you know about my experience?

You most certainly have a chip on your shoulder.

 

[[)roi(]]

ERP has traditionally been overkill for our business. That might change soon but for now CRM has delivered on what we've so far required, which has been management of a disparate sales function. Weekly sales area reports happen based on the info from CRM already. It does what we need it to do for now. And in terms of investors, you're talking to one of them. The rest of the board have been in agreement re: erp overkill but as I said, that looks to be changing soon.

My point though is that even in isolation, CRM has delivered what we've needed at a fraction of the cost of an erp investment to date. As we grow our needs are changing though and we will absolutely require deeper and cross-departmental integration. But to say that it's wholly useless without it is to undermine the value it brings in terms of managing the sales function at least, especially without an existing erp system...

You have an equivalent for the ERP, so why couldn't that be the single version of the truth.

Most marketing units fail to determine true net customer profitability i.e. Incorporating all costs, for example: entertainment, phone calls, travel/delivery costs, apportioned employee costs (not only the sales staff), ... -- those that do are surprised by how often an inordinate amount of time & cost is spent on less profitable customers.

Another example is how often updates to the Address Book master data on the billing system are neglected -- clear symptoms of these disparate and often conflicting ideologies.

I have experienced very few CRM systems that could be seen as adding real financially quantifiable returns for a business -- I've proved too many wrong to doubt my convictions in this case; and in most cases we saved the company the expense of a CRM system by simply tightening the business processes / reporting around their existing "ERP" system.

A wise French CEO once told me that email and written communication should never be a substitute for personal interaction; too often I have seen sales managers getting lost in mundane data contained in these systems i.e. Inability to see the forest for all trees.