Cloud Subscription comparison to Capital Purchase of CRM:
The selection of a CRM system is key to the success in the business development areas and for continued improvement of the business in today’s competitive environment. It’s critical to know more about your ideal customers than any other business and have processes to develop and retain profitable customer relationships.
We are here to help you feel comfortable in making smart decisions in selecting and implementing CRM so it is an appreciating asset to your business.
In our previous blog article we talked about factors that affect the pricing of a CRM implementation. It covered planning points of a subscription from the software vendor or software capital purchase of licenses as your business options with ACT! and SalesLogix CRM.
Here are the key aspects to consider and advantages of each:
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The software publisher provides the hosted environment and basic technical support to the CRM administrator. |
Deployed in your environment: at your site or at an IT partner’s hosted site. |
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CFO Friendly: A constant known lower operating expense versus a larger initial capital expense. Rapid time-to-value of traditional CRM Software-as-Service solution. |
Take advantage of existing network capability: Microsoft SQL database and IIS web server capability exists. |
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IT involvement: The business has no IT department, the systems in place are not capable of hosting a CRM system, the IT department is unable to implement or support the CRM system (too busy with other projects, don’t have the required skills set). |
Data integration: There is a need for a continuous integration of data with other on site applications such as accounting or ERP, especially if these applications don’t have web services capability. |
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You’ll be using the Web and/or Mobile user access and not the Windows client version of CRM. |
Security Requirements: Use if security policies or regulations require an on-premise system. |
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End user skills: The end users are capable of managing their own devices; security, browser configuration, email configuration. |
IT Skills: The IT department has the skills to manage the technologies (Microsoft SQL, Microsoft IIS web server, etc.) |
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Need to have a rapid deployment deadline. |
IT department has capacity to meet the deployment schedule. |
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Compared to other cloud vendor solutions you have peace of mind that your data is secure and only accessible by you, not intermingled with data of thousands of other companies by using the SalesLogix Cloud. You own and control your data right from the start and can switch from a cloud-based solution to an on-premise solution. |
There is a need to have both the Microsoft Windows desktop client and web client for running business applications. Legacy Windows applications are primarily used. |
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Plays well with others since the SalesLogix cloud is built on a flexible, standards-based platform that enables integration with other business management solutions such as Microsoft Outlook on your desktop. |
The IT department endorses or requires modern, standards-based platform that enables integration with other business management solutions such as Microsoft Office. |
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You’re in control of the CRM experience. The SalesLogix Cloud gives you control of upgrades so you can perform them when it’s right for your business – not when the IT department or vendor decides. |
Your IT department has the capability to create a cloned system so upgrades can be tested before placing into production. |
Other Points of Interest:
You can move from an on-premise implementation to the cloud subscription implementation and receive credit for original purchases.
Likewise the cloud subscription provides the capability to back up the full database and deploy on-premise.
Good advice on selection of CRM. Came across another whitepaper on selection and migrating to Microsoft dynamics CRM that readers will find useful "Pros and cons of migrating to Microsoft Dynamics CRM from Salesforce.com” @ http://bit.ly/17UgKN7
There are certainly differences between the various software publishers of CRM solutions. It’s also important to identify key characteristics of whether to have your CRM system hosted off site that is in the ‘cloud’ as a subscription charge each month compared to purchasing the licenses as a capital purchase and then deploying either in-house or with a trusted IT partner.
Many times a business still needs to have much more control and ability to securely integrate with other internal application databases so they go with a capital purchase. Their return on investment is about 3-4 years compared to annual subscription model that is never ending. For outside access by field reps they still allow the web access, thus they have their own managed ‘cloud’.