Which CRM should you choose for your business?

The million dollar question. Sometimes quite literally! The answer, of course is, ‘it depends.’ On what does it depend? It’s an increasingly crowded and differentiated marketplace. What are the critical decision-making factors when it comes to choosing a CRM platform?

Over the course of the past ten years, I’ve worked with a number of organisation who have posed themselves this question, and I’ve helped them answer it. I’ve learnt a lot about the available platforms in the process, from big hitters like Salesforce and Dynamics to the nimble Ninja’s like Iterable. The key success factors for selecting the optimum CRM platform for your business are organisational fit and commitment to the implementation, whatever platform is chosen needs aligned commitment across the business to make it work.

A core factor is always going to be cost, but it shouldn’t be the only factor. A thorough vendor selection exercise will allow a meaningful comparison of the cost models of short-listed systems. There are a number of differing commercial models that CRM providers utilise, from Saas (Software as a Service) tiered models, that provide more sophisticated functionality at a price offered by the likes of HubSpot and Iterable, to licence-based models such as that of MS Dynamics which prices against the number of users and module access, through to models based on factors such as data-storage and per-user storage utilised by Salesforce. The key insight is to have a clear implementation scope, scale and use cases to enable an accurate costing.

In order to detail the scope and scale of implementation, it’s key to also have a clear understanding of the functionality required from the system. What is it within your business that you will use a CRM platform to achieve? The wider the use cases and business processes to be enabled and automated, the greater array of functionality that will be utilised. Will the focus of the implementation be marketing communications via email, SMS or app-push? Do you also want to be able to raise customer service tickets when dealing with your clients? Will use the platform to manage finance and internal resources? Again, in decision-making, clarity of scope is crucial. The different systems have strengths and weaknesses in different areas of functionality. We’ll dive into some of the key platforms and features in the coming weeks.

One often over-looked factor, that I’ve experienced to be absolutely crucial is fit with the organisational culture, structure and digital maturity. There are the strategic and philosophical factors around Tech Stack integration requirements that need to be taken into account. Does the organisation have clear Tech stack direction and is it appropriately resources and skilled to manage the implementation and ongoing maintenance of the new system? How is data used and managed?

Smaller organisations may be better off implementing a more ‘off-the’ shelf' or ‘plug and play’ platform that doesn’t require a great deal of configuration, customisation and technical skill to implement and manage. The complexity of the existing ‘As-is’ infrastructure need to be understood in order to scope the implementation effort. The level of experience and digital skill of the intended end users is also crucial to pick a system with the optimised balance of functionality and user experience, which will dictate the level of training required for the system to be successfully implemented.

I hope you find this useful. Let me know if yu have any comments and questions bIn the coming weeks I will breakdown these core areas and dig into the detail. Stay tuned.

Blog Post Title Two

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.