Who's Who of Hosted CRM?

Hosted CRM was pioneered in the late 90s by application service providers who provided outsourced CRM systems. Companies such as Pandesic, Corio, Interliant, USInternetworking blazed the trail but struggled with a business model that was too far ahead of the technological capability and market demand.

A few years later, some innovative software vendors had resolved the technology issues with multi-tenancy hosting and automated billing systems. These Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers are generating plenty of buzz and are experiencing rapidly-growing demand due to their lower cost models compared to traditional on-premise software vendors.

Gartner predicts that by 2010 up to 30% of CRM software will be delivered via the hosted model, up from 10% in 2007.

So, who are the SaaS CRM providers? Well, some popular hosted CRM systems available to UK small and medium sized businesses include:

• Salesforce.com. An early entrant in hosted CRM, salesforce.com boasts an impressive list of marketing, sales force automation, customer service and support, and analytics features with many add-on products available from AppExchange.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM. An established on-premise CRM vendor with robust marketing, sales and service/support features, Microsoft offers its own hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online (only in North America) and partner-hosted CRM through its network of partners like Increase CRM in the UK.
• NetSuite. An early entrant in hosted accounting software, NetSuite now includes a robust range of CRM and ecommerce functionality.
• Oracle CRM On Demand. Having acquired Siebel Systems in 2006, Oracle now offers a complete range of CRM functionality with an emphasis on call centre automation and analytics.
• SageCRM.com. UK-based Sage offers its Sage CRM product as an hosted service with an integrated suite of marketing, salesforce automation and customer service functionality.
• Rightnow Technologies. For many years Rightnow Technologies has been best known for their customer service software. Having made a transition to an on-demand business model, Rightnow still lead this niche despite their acquisition of Salesnet.
• Sugar CRM. Sugar CRM is best known as the leading open source CRM software vendor. Sugar offers free CRM software source code, but also offers paid-for professional, enterprise and hosted versions for fans of the LAMP stack.

The hosted CRM market also has plenty of new and niche vendors too. But I get the feeling that with rampant industry consolidation, most CRM buyers (hosted or on-premise) are increasingly looking for vendors with a financial stability and a published product roadmap that they can rely on.

What is CRM?

At Increase CRM, our misson is to help our customers become addictive. We host their Microsoft Dynamics CRM system so that they can get on with generating leads, closing opportunities, providing great service, managing their business and looking after their customers (not their CRM system).

Hard as it is to believe, not everyone we talk to even seems to have heard about CRM. Or if they have heard about CRM, they have a certain preconception. So for the benefit of CRM newbies, here's our definition of CRM:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) describes the processes and systems that an organisation uses to attract and retain profitable customers.

So What is a CRM System?

While we're at it, here's our definition of a CRM system:

A CRM system is a central customer database with features for marketing, sales and service users to help them generate better leads, manage customer accounts and opportunities, solve customer requests and boost customer loyalty. A real-time system also provides managers with the insight they need to make decisions and direct resources to the right places.

Most CRM systems include the following features:

• Marketing - provides marketing users with features for importing customer data, customer and prospect segmentation, planning and executing marketing campaigns, managing direct mail and email communications and qualifying leads. Combined with analysis features – such as campaign performance analysis and lead source reporting – marketing managers can manage campaign budgets and improve lead quality while reducing the cost per lead.
• Sales force automation (SFA) - provides sales people with features for managing contacts and accounts, leads and opportunities, as well as orders and invoices. Combined with management features – such as forecasting and quota mangement, territory management, and pipeline reporting – sales managers can coach the sales team and improve overall performance.
• Service and Support - provides service and support staff with features for managing customer cases and requsts and scheduling services. Combined with management features – such such as knowledgebase management and case origin analysis – customer service and support manager can allocate appropriate resources, resolve customer requests quickly and ensure customer satisfaction.
• Analytics - provides key users and managers with features for running ad-hoc queries, developing reports and building real-time dashboards so that they can make more informed business decisions, and gain strategic insights about customer data and staff performance.