On demand or on premise

CRM On-Demand or On

Points to Ponder before making a

Demand or On-Premise

before making a final decision on product finalization

Premise

product finalization

Contents

Introduction: ...........................................................................................................................................................3

CRM On Demand or On Premise: ...........................................................................................................................4

Available Products & Discussion based on standard Reports: ...............................................................................8

Conclusion: .............................................................................................................................................................8

Introduction:

The latest enterprise software forecast from Gartner shows Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

increasing to a $36.5B worldwide market by 2017, a significant increase from the $20.6B forecasted in Q1 of this

year. CRM also leads all enterprise software categories in projected growth, showing a 15.1% CAGR from 2012

to 2017, also revised up from 9.7% in the Q1 forecast.

With the advancement of Internet & Mobile Technologies and demanding customer satisfaction CRM plays a

vital role for business evolvement.

CRM is directly coupled with the Business strategy, process mapping and their relationship with different

department across your organization either marketing, sales, service etc.

CRM or Customer Relationship Management should not only be considered as an IT (Information Technology)

software application but should be handled as a product which determines your business strategy.

With the upcoming 4th

Generation mobile technologies knocking at our door, shouldn’t we plan ourselves for

making a best move for a low cost and self sufficient means to interact with our customers?

To quote Gartner “The CRM customer engagement center (CEC) refers to a logical set of technologies and

business applications that are engineered to provide customer service and support, regardless of the interaction

(or engagement) channel. The goal of the CEC is not only to provide service to customers as they move among

communications channels — including social media — while retaining the customers' context, but also to deliver

the appropriate business rule to determine the next best action, information or process with which to engage the

customers.” (Ref: Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center).

There are many CRM products available in the markets which have evolved through continuous business process

studies. During this walkthrough I will avoid to comment on any product or strategy as available in the market

for a user and organization for CRM implementation.

Frankly speaking, USP or unique selling point of a CRM product is determined by the customer requirements and

the sales person ability to sell the product to the customer.

By 2015, organizations that have not embraced the concept of the customer engagement center will lose

customers to competitors that have. (Ref: Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center).

As a business leader involved with IT implementation I would like to share some important criteria’s which each

organization should pay heed to before making a final decision.

CRM On Demand or On Premise

In order to take a decision one needs to discuss the below criteria:

� BUSINESS VISION:

CRM on Premise requires a lot of CAPEX whereas the

model. User can pay to the vendor based on the data

the application users.

Current Business Size, Number of concurrent

Budget, project delivery timelines, the Risk bearing capacity

to short list the product.

� IT ENVIRONMENT:

The proposed CRM application should fit well to the business d

future IT environment.

Organizational IT leaders should plan the CRM product management strategy.

development to deployment methodology.

for its product deployment and support.

a product to vendor. This methodology

internal IT team.

On Premise application will require users to

The various points to consider during deployment will depend upon the

etc.

� VENDOR PRODUCT STRATEGY:

There are various CRM product vendors in the market but one should keep a close eye on the vendor

reputation, the business strategy, vision for the

knowledge.

CRM On Demand or On Premise:

one needs to discuss the below criteria:

CRM on Premise requires a lot of CAPEX whereas the CRM on Demand works well with the OPEX business

model. User can pay to the vendor based on the data usage, business processes, modules implemented

Number of concurrent application users, Forecasted Business Growth, planned IT

, the Risk bearing capacity are few other factors which

proposed CRM application should fit well to the business domain and should support the current

Organizational IT leaders should plan the CRM product management strategy. They should finalize the

deployment methodology. The CRM on Demand has a dependency on the product v

support. The overall control of the organization is lost in case of outsourcing

methodology is advantageous for an organization who does want to have a small

will require users to finalize the IT hardware sizing and deployment techniques.

The various points to consider during deployment will depend upon the Network, CPU, Memory and Caching

us CRM product vendors in the market but one should keep a close eye on the vendor

vision for the product growth, product support and vendor domain

CRM on Demand works well with the OPEX business

, business processes, modules implemented and

Forecasted Business Growth, planned IT

which plays a major role

should support the current and

They should finalize the

dependency on the product vendor

The overall control of the organization is lost in case of outsourcing

organization who does want to have a small

the IT hardware sizing and deployment techniques.

Network, CPU, Memory and Caching

us CRM product vendors in the market but one should keep a close eye on the vendor

vendor domain

� PRODUCT READINESS:

Domain specific COTS/ Off the Self product should be preferred. More product customization should be

avoided.

It is favored to select a product which can be configured and customized

The ability to tailor an application with low

business requirements and processes change) is highly desirable and preferable to tailoring by

using programming.

� IMPLEMENTATION RISK:

The major project risk can be identified as:

“55% of traditional CRM projects are a failure and 42% of licenses purchased are shelfware”

As per a study, On Demand applications have

� PROJECT ROI:

Understanding ROI will help to make decisions with positive financia

forward. The basic ROI calculation is to divide the net return from an investment, by the cost of the

investment and express this as a percentage

product should be preferred. More product customization should be

a product which can be configured and customized as per the business requirement.

The ability to tailor an application with low-cost configuration (both when initially deployed and later as

and processes change) is highly desirable and preferable to tailoring by

risk can be identified as:-

“55% of traditional CRM projects are a failure and 42% of licenses purchased are shelfware”

applications have fewer chances of failures.

Understanding ROI will help to make decisions with positive financial benefits and keep business moving

The basic ROI calculation is to divide the net return from an investment, by the cost of the

investment and express this as a percentage.

product should be preferred. More product customization should be

as per the business requirement.

initially deployed and later as

and processes change) is highly desirable and preferable to tailoring by customization

“55% of traditional CRM projects are a failure and 42% of licenses purchased are shelfware” - Gartner

l benefits and keep business moving

The basic ROI calculation is to divide the net return from an investment, by the cost of the

In case of On Demand project the projects can be implemented at a less initial investment and

benefits. Even the delivery time can be lessened and may achieve a break even in less time.

� GO LIVE SUPPORT:

Organization implementing CRM should consider the

build, data migration strategies, post Go Live support

for product deployment and bug fixing

� PRODUCT FEATURES:

A CRM product should support below modules. These may vary based on the domain, industry for which the

product needs to be implemented.

On Demand project the projects can be implemented at a less initial investment and


CRM should consider the Technology used for product development, solution

post Go Live support associated with the product. Help

deployment and bug fixing

hould support below modules. These may vary based on the domain, industry for which the

On Demand project the projects can be implemented at a less initial investment and with more


Technology used for product development, solution

Help & support available

hould support below modules. These may vary based on the domain, industry for which the

The various other features which may help to shortlist a product are:

• Application usability and flexibility provided to the internal users and if possible for external customer.

It’s good to have a multi-channel application support for self-service, particularly for the sales and

customer service functions.

• Look for applications that are easy-to-maintain. Ease of maintenance has both cost implications and IT

resource implications.

• Offline database availability and synchronization to the main database.

• Product usability on the smartphones, PDAs, laptops and as an mobile APPs

• Load balancing facility, servers clustering

• Email, SMS, IVR integration facility

• User friendly search. Build in contextual search. Search in internal as well as external application from

the product

• The Document storage and retrieval application to be integrated

• Data retrieval, update by using Excel or notepad as most of the business user use Excel or Notepad to

track their data and this needs to be uploaded on a periodic basis.

• Data Merge and De Duplication facility. Huge volumes of data load and retrieval with data cleansing

features.

• Audit Trail or check for any updates. This helps to provide a data security.

• Live chat with customer integrated within application.

• Integration with Banking/ payment gateway

• Roles and responsibility based application for data viewing.

• Friendly user interface where the users can change the color and font as per the need

• Multiple language as well as currency support

• Bi-directional Contact, Appointment, Task Synchronization fro outlook/ Email applications

• Support for secure communication protocols (SSL, IPSec)- Robust security infrastructure with support for

industry standard encryption

• Enterprise-level management capabilities - Robust error logging and user management

• Stage wise deployment of the product based on the customer need and enhancement and up gradation

facility

• Look for light-weight, flexible, and tiered architectures.

• Inbuild migration facility from current application with data and business logic

• The product should not face the restrictions due to data security. Some regulatory authority and country

rules does not allow the data and business logic to be shared. This happens in case of On Demand

application usually.

• Disaster Recovery & Business continuity planning

• Backup & Data archival plans

� FUTURE BUSINESS STRATEGY:

Life cycle of CRM product consists of maximum of 3-4 years. A CRM product should be deployed which

allows easy product enhancements and should be easy for migration to another application.

Available Products & Discussion based on standard Reports:

Gartner positions different product in the Magic Quadrant based on the product‘s ability to execute and the

completeness of vision. The Niche players fit into specific domain.

Conclusion:

It should be a complete business leadership decision while implementing a CRM product in their industry. It

should be backed by vision and technical expertise.

CRM implementation should act as a Change agent and should help the organization to grow at an exponential

rate with 360 degrees customers’ service.

It’s difficult to attain new customers but easy to retain existing customers!