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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
SugarCRM is a popular customer relationship management system. It is an ideal way for small-medium business to try out a CRM system without committing large sums of money. Although SugarCRM is carefully designed for ease of use, attaining measurable business gains requires careful planning and research.
This book will give you all the information you need to start using this powerful CRM system. It is the definitive guide to implementing SugarCRM. Whether you are wondering exactly what benefits CRM can bring or you have already learned about CRM systems but have yet to implement one or you're working with SugarCRM already, this book will show you how to get maximum benefit from this exciting product. It demonstrates how to install SugarCRM and also how to get the most out of it by customizing it and integrating CRM into your organization as per your needs.
Focused on the needs of the enterprise, this book provides a solution-driven approach for both business and IT specialists to get the most from this powerful and popular Open Source application. It begins with a general discussion about CRM. You will then learn the benefits of such systems, and then explore SugarCRM and its unique value. You will then go through the guidelines for installing and making deployment selections that are set out alongside information for identifying, planning, and applying customizations. Training guidelines and ongoing administrative tasks will be discussed as you progress further into the book. A brief overview of SugarCRM 6.0 is provided at the end of the book.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010
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Table of Contents
Implementing SugarCRM 5.x
Implementing SugarCRM 5.x
Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: September 2010
Production Reference: 1080910
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 32 Lincoln Road Olton Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-847198-66-2
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar ( <[email protected]> )
Credits
Authors
Angel Magaña
Michael Whitehead
Reviewer
Mark Berthelemy
Acquisition Editor
Swapna Verlekar
Development Editor
Swapna Verlekar
Technical Editor
Azharuddin Sheikh
Copy Editor
Neha Shetty
Indexer
Tejal Daruwale
Editorial Team Leader
Mithun Sehgal
Project Team Leader
Ashwin Shetty
Project Coordinator
Joel Goveya
Proofreader
Jacqueline McGhee
Graphics
Geetanjali Sawant
Production Coordinator
Aparna Bhagat
Cover Work
Aparna Bhagat
About the Authors
Angel Magaña based in Los Angeles, California, currently works as a CRM consultant helping businesses of all sizes realize the benefits of SugarCRM. He is a seasoned veteran of the technology world, initially getting his start in the CRM industry back in 1996 with GoldMine Software (now FrontRange Solutions). During his years at GoldMine, he authored numerous technical documents and contributed heavily to development and product management efforts that helped make GoldMine a leading and award winning solution.
His affection for open source software began in 1998 when he started exploring Red Hat Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP; now widely known as the LAMP stack. As an advocate of open source technologies, Angel has continually focused on emphasizing their feasibility and viability in relation to CRM and small business needs.
SugarCRM first caught his attention in 2005. Impressed by what he saw, Angel quickly moved to familiarize himself with its capabilities, and shortly thereafter deployed his first instance. Since then, Angel has continuously refined his SugarCRM skills while also sharing his knowledge with others as an active member of the SugarCRM user community. In addition to his numerous contributions on the SugarCRM Forums, his projects on SugarForge.org have earned him two "Project of the Month" recognitions. Angel also maintains a blog at http://cheleguanaco.blogspot.com, where he shares additional insights on customizing and troubleshooting SugarCRM.
Away from the computer he is an avid soccer fan and regularly writes about the local soccer scene for LAist.com. When he is not playing, watching or writing about soccer, he is out running, riding his bike or enjoying the outdoors. He is fluent in English and Spanish, with a little French in between. His two dogs are a constant source of amusement.
First and foremost, I want to thank my loving wife Ana. This book would not be possible without all her support, never ending encouragement and vote of confidence throughout the years. Knowing she was in my corner was the best inspiration any one could ask for. I love you very much.
I also want to express my many thanks to my family and friends for all their support, help and encouragement throughout the years.
Lastly, many thanks to the folks at SugarCRM and the user community at large, past and present. Their willingness to share their knowledge with others, including myself, is invaluable and helped make this book possible.
Michael Whitehead is a leading authority on the design and implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Michael's experience and expertise spans a thirty year career in software architecture, design and development as well as business management and ownership of multiple technology organizations. Among many other accomplishments Michael is the contributing author of the SugarCRM Open Source User Guide.
Michael has authored this book for entrepreneurs and small/medium business leaders, like himself, to help propel the success of their businesses through the disciplined application of CRM best practices. More than just a practical guide for the implementation of SugarCRM, this book explores and explains the business implications—and benefits—of customer relationship management for the small/medium business.
Michael is currently the founder and President of The Long Reach Corporation (www.thelongreach.com). Long Reach blends real world CRM expertise with commercial open source technologies to develop and deliver cost effective CRM solutions for small/medium business and divisions of large enterprises. Long Reach offers a full range of SugarCRM implementation, customization and training services. Long Reach is also the developer of Info At Hand™, a complete, commercial-grade, customer-centric business management solution built on SugarCRM Open Source.
About the Reviewer
Mark Berthelemy is a Solutions Architect for a large UK-based business process outsourcing company. He has spent his professional life designing and implementing database-backed systems to support key business processes: customer relationship management, content management, and online learning.
He specializes in the following:
Preface
SugarCRM is a popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. It is available in both free open source and commercial versions, making it an ideal way for small or medium-size businesses to try out a CRM system without committing large sums of money. Although SugarCRM is carefully designed for ease of use, attaining measurable business results requires careful planning and research. This book distills hard won SugarCRM experience into an easy-to-follow guide to implementing the full power of SugarCRM. SugarCRM is an extensive PHP/MySQL based application, but with its rich administration interfaces, no programming is required to get measurable benefits from its use.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Doing Business—Better, discusses the business size classifications and their varying technology needs. We also discuss the benefits of using CRM technology and systems, the definition of a CRM system, available CRM options and deployment models, customization considerations and their importance to a CRM system, an overview of SugarCRM and what makes it an effective CRM solution.
Chapter 2, One Size Does Not Fit All—CRM Your Way, goes through the process of analyzing the CRM needs of specific businesses, and uses the RayDoc case study as an example of how to match CRM capabilities to the needs of a business and focus primarily on the business objectives and benefits sought from the implementation of a CRM system. We also address the practical issues of how to get your CRM customized, what sorts of partners to look for to help you in that process, how to document your customization requirements, and how to manage a customization contract.
Chapter 3, CRM Deployment Options, takes a systematic approach to making the right deployment choices for your business. We take a detailed look at the alternatives available for a CRM deployment including On-Demand, Collocation, On-Premise, and a Shared Server hosting option for small organizations. We also discuss some important points to be considered while deploying a CRM system in detail, such as selecting an operating system (Windows Server or Linux), hardware configuration of the server, the required infrastructure, data backup and security concerns, and the Internet bandwidth.
Chapter 4, SugarCRM Basics, takes a guided tour of SugarCRM, covers the basic CRM functions, and shows how they are interpreted and performed within SugarCRM. We also discuss the basic CRM concepts, such as common CRM processes and terminology, creating accounts and contacts, relating multiple contacts to a single account, following links between related data to get a full view of a customer, creating and tracking the Sales Pipeline from leads to opportunities to contacts and accounts, creating and monitoring sales activities and accumulating activity history, and scheduling activities with colleagues by referring to their calendars.
Chapter 5, Extending The Business Role of Your SugarCRM System, deals with the expansion of the role of your CRM system within your business, beyond that of basic CRM functions. We cover removing the sample data and resetting the database to eliminate the default data and creating and running e-mail marketing campaigns.
Chapter 6, The SugarCRM Ecosystem, explores a number of free add-ons for SugarCRM Community Edition that can extend it even further in a myriad of directions. Along the way we will also take a look at the process of using the Module Loader tool and the benefits of upgrading to Professional or Enterprise Edition.
Chapter 7, Managing Your CRM Implementation, discusses some of the real-world challenges of introducing a new CRM solution into an organization. The goal of this chapter is to leave you with a good understanding of how to approach and structure your own CRM implementation project. You will discover that one of the keys to a successful CRM implementation is to approach it in a step-wise manner, we therefore focus on some important topics, such as key steps to a successful CRM implementation, the CRM training process, and continuous feedback and enhancement.
Chapter 8, Linking Your Customers to Your SugarCRM, discusses important topics, such as capturing customer leads and requests for information from the public website directly within the CRM system, efficiently tracking customer service requests, and related product/service flaws to improve customer satisfaction. We also discuss developing a customer self-service portal in conjunction with the CRM system to allow clients to file or monitor their own service cases.
Appendix A, Installing SugarCRM on Linux, discusses the steps required for the installation of SugarCRM on CentOS Linux server. It also discusses the installation of CentOS Linux server and the configuration of PHP and Apache web server.
Appendix B, Installing SugarCRM on Windows Server, provides all the necessary steps for installing SugarCRM on a Windows server. It also provides guidelines for installing SugarCRM with Microsoft SQL server and Internet Information Services (IIS).
Appendix C, Data Import and Export, provides the guidelines for importing and exporting data from accounts and contacts. It also discusses the insertion and extraction of data from the CRM system through import and export tools when the role of the CRM tool grows within an organization.
Appendix D, The System Administrator Role, discusses the functions and responsibilities of a System Administrator for a SugarCRM installation, covering installation time and post installation topics.
Appendix E, Customizing SugarCRM, discusses the techniques for customizing SugarCRM using various customization tools, such as the Studio, Module builder, Logic hooks, Dropdown Editor, and Model-View-Controller (MVC).
Appendix F, A Word About SugarCRM 6.0, briefly discusses SugarCRM 6.0 and how it is different from SugarCRM 5.x and its benefits.
What you need for this book
You need a basic understanding of computing and database terms. The book also assumes a certain level of proficiency with common computing tasks, such as browsing the file system, downloading files, and so on. More advanced tasks, such as manipulating your firewall, DNS server (if necessary), or adjusting security are not discussed and may require the assistance of a qualified professional.
To follow the examples, you will need access to a server upon which you can install Linux, Windows, and/or other necessary components, such as PHP, Apache, and MySQL.
Who this book is for
If you are a small or medium-sized business owner/manager with reasonable IT skills, a system implementer, or a system administrator who wants to implement SugarCRM for yourself as either a first CRM or as a replacement for existing solutions, this book is for you. Existing SugarCRM users who want to broaden their understanding of the topic will find this book valuable too. No programming knowledge is required to use this book.
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Chapter 1. Doing Business—Better
On the face of it, you have to wonder why we do it. Why we work all the long hours, often making a less than comfortable income and dealing with seemingly endless problems in all different areas of the business. Whether it is about handling internal staffing issues, supplier problems, customer complaints, government paperwork, or technology challenges—some days it never seems to stop!
Of course, we do it because we love it, as being a vital part of a small or medium-size business allows us to accomplish many goals, while simultaneously, influencing the performance of the business significantly. Helping to realize a vision of a business we believe in, gives us so much satisfaction that we are prepared to put up with everything else it entails. However, we are not crazy—if we could find a way to reduce the pressure and workload that comes with being a part of a dynamic small or medium-size business, we would likely embrace it, with all our might. Even more so, if it helps grow the business and makes our customers happier—that would be quite something.
However, while there are many technologies that profess to deliver these benefits, many of the available solutions are often too expensive, complicated, or too poor a match to the specific requirements of our business for them to deliver a significant benefit.
This book is about being a part of a Small or Medium-Size Business (SMB) and their unique technology requirements. The principal constituencies within a small or medium-size business addressed by this book include: Senior Management (the CEO, owner, executives or partners), the Information Technology group (the CTO, an IT manager, specialist, or advisor), the Sales Department (Sales Manager or quota-bearing sales executive or representative), as well as the Administration (both the managers of finance and administration and the rank and file employees). The objective of this book is to demonstrate and explain how to improve your business processes, business performance, and quality of life using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools created specifically for managing small and medium-size businesses.
This chapter will discuss the following important points:
After reading this chapter, you should have a clear understanding of not only the make up of a CRM system, but also the data and communication sharing challenges they intend to address.
Small and medium-size businesses: The good, the bad, and the ugly
Let us stop a moment to consider and clarify our definition of a small or medium-size business, as it covers a wide range of organizations, so definitions may vary depending on whom you ask. For example, Gartner Group, a U.S. based information technology research and advisory firm, has one definition, while their competitors, your local government, or other influential parties may have another. For our purposes, we will define a small or medium-size business as one that falls into one of the following categories:
If your business has more than 100 employees, you are on the verge of becoming—or have already become—a more sophisticated, complex, and wealthier organization with different needs than those of the businesses described previously. If your business falls under the 100 employee level, this book is definitely for you.
It should be noted that while businesses with less than 100 employees are classified as small or medium-size, there is nothing small about the job of administering and managing these organizations! Being your own boss (of the organization, or of a department within it) may mean there is nobody around to tell you what to do. However, it also means that you have to manage and prioritize your own responsibilities, which are often numerous. In a typical small business the owners, managers, and employees usually fill multiple roles. At one moment the owner might be running finance, while at the next moment, sales. All the while, a customer service request also awaits response, a proposal requires input, an issue needs to be addressed with the landlord, and so on.
This is due to the fact that small businesses have limited resources, both human and financial. The latter of the two also forces small businesses to be cautious, creative, and smart with their money.
For many a year, these same financial limitations also prevented small businesses from accessing critical business management tools aimed at helping them grow, such as advanced CRM systems.
That, fortunately, is in the past.
Open source has been a driving force behind this change. The open source movement is a software development philosophy dictating that source code, or recipes, used to create a solution are to be made freely available to anyone who needs them without any restrictions or financial considerations. The ever growing acceptance and maturation of solutions developed under this philosophy has brought many new tools to the masses by eliminating financial barriers.
Today, organizations of even the smallest size can easily access business management tools, that rival in sophistication the expensive systems, once the exclusive domain of large organizations.
Typical small business needs
A glance at the income statements for a typical small business should expose a need to lower administrative costs. If it does not, it usually means the owner's quality of life may be suffering, as they are likely to be doing it all by themselves. It can also indicate that administration is being very poorly managed. Unfortunately, even though administration costs are usually high, the administration resources that exist are typically overworked, and struggle to meet the workload. This usually does not get much better until the 100 employee milestone is passed.
Another key need for those managing smaller businesses is the need to get out of the office more. Reasons will vary, from spending time with the family to winning new customers or servicing existing ones, but in the end, it needs to happen without the business collapsing upon itself. Often, the usual day spent managing a smaller business consists of the following:
Getting out of the office often means traveling some distance on business. Such scenarios serve well to highlight another need, that is, access to business information when away from the office, either through laptops or smartphones, and regardless of whether or not an Internet connection is available.
This kind of connectivity and flexibility is what it takes to compete in today's increasingly demanding and cost-conscious business environment. However, most small and medium-size businesses do not have access to systems that provide such connectivity.
Readily available tools that they might have, are usually client-server based meaning that some software are loaded on a shared server and more software are loaded on each user's computer. In addition to technical limitations inherited by such applications, there are also significant financial concerns relating to licensing, and even yearly maintenance fees that one must further consider. These types of tools also tend to lack extensive connection points, making it difficult to access the system when a user is away from their desk, as they no longer have access to the computer with the installed software that normally provides it.
Widespread Internet usage introduced new models for these systems. Soon after Internet and web usage became the norm in the mid-90s, software vendors began to modify their systems to work within a web-based environment, instead of the traditional client-server model of years past.
Web-based systems offered a number of advantages never seen before. They do not require software to be loaded on each user's computer in order to provide access to its information and equally important, access is nearly universal. To access such systems, a user simply uses their web browser of preference, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari, and merely points the browser to a specific web address. The geographic location of the user is irrelevant.
SugarCRM is a web-based system offering all these benefits and more when compared to its competitors. In addition to the availability advantages, SugarCRM is also open source. This latter point means that one is free to install and use the application for as many users as one's infrastructure can handle, without incurring any licensing fees whatsoever. For those who are more technically inclined, this also means one has full access to all the code used to create the application and one is free to modify it; thus, providing an unparalleled level of extensibility and customization.
SugarCRM directly addresses all the aforementioned information accessibility and connectivity needs. It allows you to get out of the office, yet stay in touch. It lets you see your family or win more business without excluding you from the organization's information loop. It reduces administrative load and costs by ensuring that the company and customer information only needs to be keyed in once and is well‑organized and easily accessible. SugarCRM is accessible not only by home computers and road-warrior laptops, but also through handheld devices, such as a BlackBerry or iPhone, using the device's built-in web browser.
Note
Chapter 6 explains details of wireless and mobile device access
The business benefits of CRM technology
The introduction and subsequent mass adoption of personal computers in the business world during the early 1980's, had a deep and profound impact on the workplace that continues to be felt to this day. In a similar manner, CRM technology continues to play a significant role in business since its early beginnings some 20 years ago. The technology has established itself as a necessary tool for efficiently managing any business, including—and perhaps most importantly, the small and medium-sized.
Until recently, smaller businesses typically could not afford management tools of this type. Even when they could, those tools were more oriented towards larger businesses and were often impractical and unwieldy. The maturation of these technologies has addressed these issues and simultaneously helped small and medium-sized businesses better compete against any and all competitors.
Throughout this book, I will endeavor as much as possible to deal with CRM from a business, not a technical, perspective. However, the later chapters do become quite technical in nature as we discuss the architecture of the system and various techniques for customizing it. The information in this book will focus on SugarCRM, the leading open source CRM tool. SugarCRM is an excellent example of a very capable, yet affordable CRM tool, focused on the needs of smaller businesses.
In this book, we will not just discover the specifics of installing and implementing SugarCRM, but also explain the business context and broader business perspective associated with CRM implementations in smaller businesses. Through the course of the various chapters in this book, we will examine what CRM is, what SugarCRM can do for your business, how to implement it effectively, and how it should be customized to maximize the benefits it can afford your business. By the end of the book, you too will be able to leverage SugarCRM to better manage your business.
What is Customer Relationship Management?
Before you implement your CRM system, you should understand what CRM is and is not, as well as how it compares to other tools with which you may already be familiar.
A CRM or Customer Relationship Management system is: a system that manages information and processes pertaining to the relationship and interactions with your customers. However, it extends beyond technology. It is also a work philosophy for which the system merely serves as a receptacle.
CRM encompasses not only the sales aspect of a business relationship, but also the ongoing service and support aspects. The system should provide at least basic information about the companies or organizations you interact with and the people you work with at those companies. Typically, these are referred to as accounts and contacts, respectively. Accounts can be your customers, but they may also be your suppliers, your partners, or your subcontractors.
You may already be familiar with one or more simple contact management systems, such as Microsoft Outlook, ACT!, or Maximizer that touch on some of the related needs for an effective CRM. Among these, Microsoft Outlook tends to be the one that most readers are familiar with, and is worth examining further as a basis for comparison to a true CRM system.
Although it is used mostly as an e-mail client, Outlook is also a contact manager. It keeps track of the people you know—often both personal and business contacts—in one system. Each person stored in Outlook can contain attributes and other pertinent information such as the company they work for, their phone number(s), e-mail address(es), mailing address(es), birthday, and anniversary. Outlook also offers tools that allow you to customize the application to store additional data and others to easily link multiple person entries to a single company.
Unfortunately, some of those tools and features can be rather limiting for many businesses. You must remember that Outlook's strength is in the management of e-mail, not the management of relationships, although for some businesses its capabilities might be adequate.
In contrast, CRM tools, such as SugarCRM are designed from the ground up as tools aimed at helping you to manage your business relationships effectively. Relevant areas of functionality that may seem limiting in Outlook are usually much more feature-rich in SugarCRM. For example, SugarCRM provides a built-in customization studio that allows you to easily add custom fields or modify the look and feel of the application. In short, it can be more easily adapted to suit many more varying business needs than Outlook. It is also designed with various features for not only tracking a greater variety of information, such as Opportunities, Customer Service Inquiries, Leads, and others, but also quickly establishing relationships between these various entities and their related accounts or contacts.
Conversely, it is important to note that while SugarCRM will often excel in areas where Outlook may struggle, there are also areas where the scenario is reversed. Perhaps the best example is that of the e-mail capabilities in SugarCRM. Given the fact that Outlook was designed to be an e-mail client first and foremost, it is far more feature-rich than the SugarCRM e-mail client. You should not expect the e-mail capabilities of SugarCRM to meet or exceed those of Outlook. Chapter 6 discusses different methods for effectively addressing this need.
Some may consider the above observation an obvious one, but the example is used to underscore the importance of understanding the point that SugarCRM is a tool designed for a specific task: to improve the management of customer relationships. While highly extensible and customizable, it cannot be everything to any and all businesses. It also has its limitations and not acknowledging them upfront often leads to frustration, or poor user adoption rates, this in turn usually translates to a business never fully realizing the benefits of a CRM system.
From this, you might have already begun to ponder what you should look for in a CRM system. As CRM tools have matured over the years, a core set of features and capabilities have become widely recognized as fundamental components. These core features are partly based on well-known sales methodologies, marketing best-practices, and other popular trends and processes from the business world. A CRM system should include tools that address the following:
A well-conceived CRM must also have a truly outstanding user interface, as the whole purpose of the system is to make the organization's information accessible quickly, easily, and naturally. If users do not utilize the system because it is too complex to access or use, it will be difficult to realize its potential benefit.
Remember, the software on its own will not do anything for your business. Its effectiveness is directly tied to the quality and volume of data that is provided.
CRM customization
Few, if any, CRM systems would be useful without customization capabilities. This is such a critical component that it warrants its own section to provide a more in-depth discussion of the topic.
If you are skimming this book thinking that CRM customization is an advanced topic and not applicable to you, stop right now and listen to some advice for a moment. Customization is a fact of life and indeed, is generally a positive one for most business applications. The negative aspect of customization is that it can sometimes be long and involved and can often be quite expensive. The positive side is that it takes an off-the-shelf, shrink-wrapped software application and adapts it to the way your business actually works.
When evaluating or comparing CRM options, customization capabilities should be near the top of your requirements list. CRM systems are known to need customization more frequently than other business applications. You should refrain from assuming that the customization experience will be similar to that of implementing other systems, such as an accounting solution. After all, the average Sales, Purchase, and General Ledger accounting system works pretty much the same way for any business: set up your structure of initial account codes, and away you go. CRM systems are vastly different. Customization needs for a CRM system will vary greatly from business to business, even within the same or similar industries.
Every business has a set of processes that they use to conduct day-to-day operations, whether it is procedures for handling service inquiries or those related to the qualification process for potential new customers. Sometimes these processes are well known and documented. At other times, formal guidelines may not exist but instead are executed out of habit or comfort. In the end, few, if any of these processes are likely to completely mirror each other across a broad selection of businesses.
Think about how you handle the tracking of potential revenue opportunities or quarterly sales goals for your business. Do you do it in exactly the same way as it is done at the company where a friend or family member works? Chances are that the answer is, "no".
The challenge of customizing a CRM system lies in the clear definition of the business processes that dictate your day-to-day operations and their subsequent translation into functionality within the CRM system. This is the primary reason that CRM customizations can take time to plan and implement.
As you become familiar with some of the capabilities offered by CRM solutions, you will notice that CRM customizations generally fall into the following classes:
Most advanced products make it easy to change the cosmetic aspects of the system. Earlier, user interface changes were fairly difficult and expensive to perform, but all that has changed.
With the release of the Customforce tool by Salesforce.com some years ago, the customization of the user interface of its CRM was greatly simplified. Its introduction raised the bar to a significant degree in this key area. Salesforce.com deserves recognition as an innovator in this field of technology and it has caused nothing short of a revolution in CRM. Today, most CRM manufacturers (including SugarCRM) offer this extremely important and useful capability. However, some up-and-coming solutions (namely Highrise by 37signals) do not offer these capabilities.
Major application changes will always require the services of a software consulting and development firm, unless you happen to have those resources in house. These changes involve tailoring a CRM to manage aspects of a business that are not uniform across the gamut of small businesses.
The vast majority of CRM manufacturers, including SugarCRM, offer methods for programmatically interfacing their respective CRM solutions with other systems.
Like major application changes, application integration requires a certain level of technical expertise and is usually best left to individuals specializing in that type of work.
What will a CRM do for my business?
A CRM system is to some extent a groupware application for managing your business. Groupware is a term used to describe computer software designed to help a group of people work together in a collaborative manner. As such, a CRM application helps everyone in the business (especially all those in direct contact with customers) to quickly and easily access the historical and planned activities of the business involving a specific customer. This is clearly very useful and helps avoid miscommunications with the client that are the usual result of a lack of communication within the business. With a CRM system, everyone in the business can record all of their interactions with a client, helping all their colleagues understand the current state of any issues, sales opportunities, and so on.
Equally important, a CRM system records all new business leads and keeps track of promising qualified leads as specific opportunities. These opportunities are recorded with an expected date on which the business will be closed, the current stage of the sales cycle for this opportunity, and a value indicating the likelihood of closing or winning the business.
This information, aggregated across the business, provides a clear view of the organization's sales pipeline. Visual charts of this information are typically live-linked, making it easy to drill down to view the individual data items that were aggregated to build the chart. The classification of opportunities by sales person, by lead source, or by expected close date is a simple activity, easily performed and fantastically informative.
A properly implemented CRM solution used by all customer-facing staff will help you track the performance of your business more closely, with much less work. It will also help you get a clearer view of future needs, allowing more effective planning.
Just as the customer is the focus that ties all business activities together, your CRM system can be the business tool that ties together all your business information. Particularly custom integration into other business systems, such as your public website and other technologies that allow customers to leverage self‑service websites where they can submit orders, create and review service inquiries, and manage their own information profile.
Another key area in which a CRM can help greatly is in customer communication. After all, a CRM knows who your customers are, is connected to the Internet, holds all your key marketing documents, and can send and receive e-mails. There are very few tools that are as useful as a CRM when it comes to sending out customer newsletters on a monthly or quarterly basis, selecting only those customers who have purchased specific products, or keeping track of any customers who have indicated that they do not want to receive marketing e-mails.
These powerful capabilities add up to make big changes at most businesses where they are adopted.
Some of the benefits you should expect include:
While they are exciting, these benefits are difficult to achieve without some degree of discipline within your business.
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, a CRM system is merely a tool and will not on its own yield any of these benefits. Diligent use, training, proper customization and knowledge of your business processes are also critical components of a successful implementation.
What are my CRM options?
Depending on whom you talk to, CRM started somewhere between the mid 1980's and the early 1990's, with efforts from companies such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems, and System Applications and Products (SAP). But true CRM, involving not just the accumulation of static customer databases, but also a genuine enhancement of business processes, began only recently, around the turn of the millennium. This evolution of CRM would not have been possible without the increasing influence of the Internet and the development of web services. The Internet has connected multiple business systems together despite being in different locations and implemented using different technologies.
Originally, CRM systems from the big four companies named previously were uniformly expensive, required heavy customization, and were unwieldy for any but the largest firms. In 2001, Siebel Systems had sales worth US$2.1 billion, based on a business model in which each customer spent millions of dollars implementing the software they produced. However, their market share and gross sales slipped in later years as the built‑for‑the‑web generation of medium-size CRM systems came to market from firms such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite and other vendors who have since ceased operations.
Years from now, history is likely to show that the introduction of SugarCRM in 2004, revolutionized the CRM marketplace by eliminating financial barriers, that in turn allowed smaller firms to gain access to the latest CRM technologies.
One easily identifiable trend is that since 2000, the market has been rapidly moving to web-based CRM tools as indeed it has in many other business application areas. The advantages are many: ubiquitous access, efficient use of expensive user licenses, and simplified integration with other business systems through web services.
Some of the more highly-regarded CRM solutions available for smaller business today include the following:
Deployment options
In today's CRM market, there is not only a choice of vendors, but also a choice of deployment options. The options are as follows:
