A Comparative Analysis of the Top 10 CRM Vendor Solutions

>> Click here for the link to the CRM Buyers Guide from CRMsearch.com

Juniper Media, a digital media company that delivers business technology focused content through online channels, has released the 2011 CRM Buyers Guide exclusively on CRMsearch.com.

This free research advisory is an independent and objective examination of the Top 10 CRM software systems delivered via the cloud or software as a service (SaaS) deployment. Expert analysis by Juniper Media analysts delivers a balanced review to business and IT leaders seeking practical and transparent CRM software evaluation.

“All of the top 10 CRM systems are impressive but each has different strengths and drawbacks. This report provides an independent basis for CRM buyers to align their most significant objectives with the top CRM applications and advance to a qualified short list,” said Chuck Schaeffer, CEO of Juniper Media. “Above all, CRM buyers seek out expert, objective and balanced content when making IT purchase decisions,” added Schaeffer.

The analysis report examines the unique capabilities as well as deficiencies in the sales, marketing and service software modules and notes clear identification of both the strengths and weaknesses for each CRM system. The report also notes social CRM capabilities, advantages and disadvantages for each CRM software product.

“This report is clearly done by CRM experts,” said Sanjay Rai Gupta of CRM Blog Guy. “It will be well received by the market as the report is balanced, actionable and without bias. This is not another speak-no-vendor-weakness, please-everybody marketing report."

2011 CRM Buyers Guide

This free research advisory is an independent and objective examination of the Top 10 CRM software systems delivered via the cloud or software as a service (SaaS) deployment.

Expert analysis by Juniper Media delivers a balanced review to business and IT leaders seeking practical and transparent CRM software evaluation.

This report includes:

• Detailed reviews and analysis of the Top 10 CRM vendors.
• Unique capabilities and deficiencies in the sales, marketing and service software modules.
• Social CRM advantages and disadvantages for each product.
• Clear identification of both the strengths and weaknesses for each CRM system.
• This report is not another sugar coated, ‘please everybody’ marketing collateral. It’s the real thing.

>> Click here for the link to the CRM Buyers Guide from CRMsearch.com

About CRMsearch.com

CRMsearch.com is laser focused on the issues and matters that most influence success or failure with CRM strategies, processes and software solutions. The website is an authoritative information resource and online community for business and IT leaders and practitioners seeking to advance their organization and careers by advancing their customer relationship management strategy, performance and results.

About Juniper Media

Juniper Media publishes technology content that helps business and IT buyers make better IT purchase decisions. Juniper’s technology focus, global reach, original research, editorial content, syndicated coverage, web site portfolio, trusted brands and information delivery network make the company the best in the world at delivering education, research and analysis to business and IT leaders seeking quick, trusted and fact-based content to develop short lists of IT solutions for purchase consideration.

We live in a world of a giant construction zone.

Take a look outside, and you’ll see new house being built, as well as older homes being renovated.

It’s the same for the CRM industry.

You have new companies diving head first into a new CRM package, whether the entire staff likes it or not.

Then you have larger companies unhappy with one vendor and switching to another. 

Ah, yes, good ol’ migration projects.  The word “migration” means dollar signs to consultants around the world.

But you never hear about the horror stories.  I wish more companies could blog about the possible headaches in a migration, and the lessons learned.

At Shopzilla Tech Blog, they wrote a nice piece on their migration from an Oracle database into Salesforce.com.

It wasn’t perfect, and no migration ever is, but it’s a good read.

In this example, Informatica Cloud Services was migrating from Dev to QA to Production.  You start the migration by logging into the target organization, then from there log into the source organization and pull the desired tasks and connections into the target organization.  You will need accounts for both organizations.

They listed 4 errors during the migration:

• Rounding Errors in Large Numbers

• Trailing Zeros in Smaller Numbers

• Oracle Views vs. Informatica Transformations

• Informatica Log Files Rollover

Read their full report here. A good lesson.

The 3 golden rules for a real estate agent is “location, location, location” but in the world of migrations, it’s “test, test, test”.

And documentation, which is always sorely lacking in IT shops.

There’s enough chatter about Chatter these days.

In the future, you can expect to see Chatter morphing in features.  A good example is the acquisition of DimDim with its teleconferencing and desktop sharing features.

Let’s face it, the way we do business is different than 5 years ago, and enterprise software will certainly be different 5 years from now.  It just hasn’t been invented yet.

But with CRM, Social Media and Content Collaboration all on the same page (or should I say, on the same mobile device?), we can now be more effective and productive, which means better value from your employees.

I’ll give a brief overview of some of the feature I like about Chatter, and one Christmas Wish List that could potentially add more sales to a mid-sized or large company.  Remember, CRM is all about about knowing thy customer and every bit of personal details can turn a cold call into a warm lead.

On 6 features, I would give Chatter a 5 out of 6, because there is one feature I think they should or could expand on.  Luckily, there’s an add-on that comes to the rescue.  (I am purposely leaving out teleconferencing and the possible DimDim features, because we know it’s coming)

1. Know your Strengths
   
   Don’t you love it when you can ask one question, and get multiple feedback from trusted sources?  That’s the beauty of Facebook, LinkedIn, and of course Chatter.  For example, let’s say you are going to San Diego for the weekend and wanted a restaurant recommendation?  Or you wanted to review the slide deck of an existing customer for a prospect in the same industry?  By tapping into your trusted sources (in this case, your employees) you will have reliable and up to date information.
2. Know your Weaknesses

   With every compliment, you must be able to take criticism.  You can participate in a lively Facebook or Chatter debate about weaknesses in a competitor (but be nice!) or even critique your own products.  You can even go as far as why you hate the New York Yankees in October, but that should be saved for Facebook.

3. Real Time

   Gone are the days of sending out an email to 20 people with another 20 people CC’ed (I always hated those emails, especially if they weren’t relevant).  Unless you have a threaded email interface (like Gmail’s conversation mode), your results aren’t real time.  By glancing at a feed, you can scan quickly to see if the information is relevant to your needs, and jump in if you have something to add of value.

4. Everyone is Equal

   You have to love some corporate cultures where the CEO and Maintenance guy are all wearing the same uniform, even if it’s a white lab coat.  Or an open space environment where everyone has a cubicle.  No secrets here.  By creating a level playing field, and open door policy, everyone can participate and join in the discussion.  I used to work in a startup where once a month you had a paid lunch as long as the other person was not in your department, or someone you knew.  This way you get to know your whole company.

5. Content Collaboration

   I’ve advocated that Chatter could be the death of Microsoft SharePoint (and I’ve had enough SharePoint implementation expertise to make this statement).  For every dollar you spend on SharePoint license, you have to spend up to 10 times more to support it.  Today, we are seeing a trend in business with an increase in collaboration, and decrease in emails.   But let’s not forget human phone calls, SMS, emails, Instant messaging, and social media, as they all have their place in the workforce.

6. Six Degrees of Separation with CRM 
   
   Everyone is talking Social Media and Social CRM (SCRM) but we’re missing the bigger point of “social”.

   It’s not about pushing feeds or data.  It’s who you know.  Or who you didn’t know who knows who.

   Of course, Chatter is integrated with Salesforce’s flagship CRM product. But one missing element in my opinion is a true relational CRM.  True relational business intelligence.  In Facebook or LinkedIn, you can see your friend’s friends, if they allow access.  Imagine if you had the power to tap into your colleagues personal contact list. (In this example, I’m referring to companies using Exchange and Outlook)

   Let’s imagine you have a potential opportunity with Company XYZ.  But your CRM turns up empty because it’s a cold call.

   With Chatter, you could start a feed and ask, "Hey, anyone have a contact at Company XYZ?”.  Wouldn’t it be nice if this could be automated?

   In the world of people, it’s the hidden gems that go missing.  What if your employee actually has a personal friend from Company XYZ that he plays tennis with every week?

   BranchIT has those capabilities, both as a standalone product as well as an add-on for Chatter.  But you’ll need a fairly substantial employee number to untap its full potential.  Branchit for Chatter was the winner of the 2010 Salesforce AppQuest Competition and also won the AppExchange App of the Week for the week of Jan 7, 2011.

   BranchIt’s initial strengths are for Sales and Marketing but I can see this being used for HR and Recruiting.  The familiarity is similar to LinkedIn with the number of degrees of separation, but LinkedIn is lacking on the strength, relevance or influence of that connection. Anybody can connect to Marc Benioff or Bill Gates on Facebook or LinkedIn, but how many emails or phone calls have you actually corresponded on a monthly basis?

   Speaking of which, another problem with traditional CRM is a large number of contacts never make it to the CRM.   Over 80%.  There are too many methods of communication such as phone calls, SMS, emails, Instant messaging, and social media that don’t get entered in the CRM.  Thus there is a need for CRM to go beyond the tradition relationships, either as a feature or add-on for Chatter.

   With the law of six degrees of separation, cold calls may be a thing of the past.  Just looking at my LinkedIn stats, I have 261 connections 1st hand, 147,000 2nd degrees, and almost 7 million 3 degrees away.  That’s a lot of people.  By truly knowing who knows who, that will be the ultimate CRM model.  Because it’s really is a small world after all. 

Last year (which was 3 weeks ago) saw a trend in the CRM competition.  CRM vendors were offering free migrations from CRM-X to CRM-Y.  It was also a war on trying to lure customers to switch.

We are even seeing try-before-you-buy sales pitches with free trials anywhere from 30 to 90 days.

The biggest fear among companies are the unexpected hidden limitations that pop up later in the implementation because they didn’t define their requirements properly.  And of course, there are the wish lists that come up down the road.

But trying to compare Microsoft CRM Dynamics, Salesforce.com and Oracle is like comparing a Granny Smith, Macintosh, and Fiji apple.  Yes, they are all apples, but they are all different apples which differ in costs depending on the time of year.  And they all taste different, too. 

At the end of the day, it will all come down to user requirements, and word of mouth recommendations from a trusted source.

There are literally hundreds of CRM solutions to choose from (check out our vendor page in alphabetical order) at price points ranging from free to $125 per user per month.  (Contact me if your product is not listed)

Microsoft CRM Dynamics is offering new customers of who sign up before June 30^th at $34 per month for one year.

The pricing is significantly different compared to Oracle’s CRM on Demand which begins at $75/month; and Salesforce.com’s which is either $65 or $125 depending on whether you choose the Professional or Enterprise edition.  Note that for Salesforce.com, Jigsaw data services is available at an additional fee.  If you need Territory management, then you must choose the Enterprise edition.

All 3 vendors have their advantages.  Microsoft CRM Dynamics will leverage “Microsoft Shops” where they can integrate it with existing Microsoft software suites, such as Office 2010 or SharePoint.

Salesforce.com has Chatter, which is the Facebook for the Enterprise.   Chatter is a great add on as it requires no training because everyone knows how to use Facebook.  Plus, it adds the component of tapping your entire Enterprise for feedback, including “data” talking to to you.

Oracle’s CRM on Demand strengths lie in the trusted and loyal Siebel customers.

And then there are the smaller companies like Netsuite, SugarCRM and Zoho whose price points are even lower than the above 3 giants.

At the end of the day, trying to choose a CRM package will probably all come down to price, just like anything else you buy (or rent in this case).  Don’t forget to include the cost of your Professional services to migrate, configure, and implement your CRM.

The good folks at BrianSell.net have produced a great 4 page summary outlining the differences between SugarCRM and Salesforce.com.

Everything from price to data management and backup.

Here is a snippet, but you’ll have to go through their registration to download the whitepaper. 

Too bad this isn’t an iPhone app.

BARCELONA — Veeva Systems, the global leader in cloud CRM solutions for the life sciences industry announces the ability to integrate with Mederi, a leading provider of network intelligence and insights for the healthcare industry. The seamless integration between Veeva CRM and Mederi allows pharmaceutical companies to manage their customer relationships and to analyse professional networks within one application, ensuring a much more coordinated and effective interaction with key stakeholders.

"Based on our alliance, we are glad to offer true integrated stakeholder management to our customers. Mederi’s capabilities in providing industry-leading stakeholder information and state-of-the-art visualisation and analysis, combined with Veeva’s highly successful CRM software, allow our customer to draw upon two best-in-class solutions through one simple interface" explains Sven Schartl, Partner Relationship Manager, Mederi.

Customers using an integrated Veeva and Mederi solution now have the ability to:

• Draw upon Mederi’s extensive market and stakeholder information to understand market access, key opinion leader and prescriber landscape and networks
  
• Leverage Mederi’s Network Intelligence Portal within Veeva to visualise the networks, evaluate stakeholder impact, and target stakeholders with specific strategies
  
• Build a systematic stakeholder management activity planning and tracking through the Veeva CRM solution

"The Pharmaceutical industry is not standing still. Transformation in business models and the healthcare ecosystem demand that companies find new and innovative ways to understand the customer landscape" says Dan Goldsmith, General Manager, Europe, Veeva Systems.

"The integration of Veeva and Mederi empowers organisations to create and execute strategies that take into account a far more comprehensive and accurate view of customer relationships. While many CRM tools still focus on the way Pharma has traditionally done business, Veeva and Mederi enable organisations with strategic solutions that deliver value both now and in the future."

About Veeva

Veeva Systems is the leader in cloud-based solutions for the global life sciences industry. Committed to innovation, product excellence, and customer success, Veeva has over 50 customers, ranging from the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to emerging biotechs. Founded in 2007, Veeva is a privately-held company headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Philadelphia, Barcelona, Beijing, and Shanghai. For more information, visit http://www.veevasystems.com.

About Mederi

Mederi is the leading provider of network intelligence in life science. The company was founded in 2005 as a scientific spin-off with the headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany and offices in Switzerland, France, Great Britain and the United States. The customised solutions strongly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing, sales, and market access activities. By now eight of the global top-10 pharma companies use segmentation solutions from Mederi.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.–Success Accelerators announces “CRM for Sales Managers,” part of their Fall Webinar Series, is scheduled for October 21, 2010 from 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm.

Register here: www.successaccelerators.com

CRM applications provide a diverse range of tools to sales reps. but for all of the attention given to training end users on how to get the most out of CRM systems, very little training is offered to Sales Managers.

This session takes a close look at how Sales Managers can leverage CRM to: coach their teams, add velocity to the pipeline, improve close rates and make their teams more efficient.

The sessions will include the 5 critical sales manager reports and practical examples using Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to run an effective sales team.

For more information on the event and starting times, or to register, visit: www.successaccelerators.com.

Sponsored by C5 Insight.

Success Accelerators focuses on providing research, content and events to deliver instant expertise to the marketplace in the areas of cloud computing, CRM, collaboration, business intelligence and document management.

Contacts

C5 Insight, Inc.
Jerod Brown, 704-895-2500
www.c5insight.com

7 Points to Consider Before Selecting Your CRM Solution

Whitepaper by Larry Caretsky, President, Commence Corporation

Customer Relationship Management is one of the fastest growing sectors of the computer software industry. In order to gain a competitive edge, companies of all sizes are looking for ways to improve how they market, sell and provide service to their customers.  Many are turning their attention to Customer Relationship Management software as a tool that will enable them to effectively manage their customer relationships before, during and after the sale.

The rapid growth of this sector has attracted dozens of software solution providers many who have taken advantage of the popularity of “software as a service” or SaaS, as a vehicle to deliver their solutions over the Internet. SaaS has paved the way for the introduction of a myriad of new product offerings from specific vertical industry solutions to pure play CRM vendors that sell their solutions across all industry segments, (enterprise, mid-market and small business).

In fact, there are now so many offerings that companies engaged in a CRM initiative have found the evaluation and selection process simply daunting. The challenge is simply trying to differentiate the products because so many of them make similar claims. But, just because these solutions appear alike, don’t be fooled into thinking they are. There are some significant differences that you need to be aware of before making your selection.

One of the ways to narrow the field is to utilize industry reports such as Business-Software.com’s popular Top 10 reports. Business-Software.com features research on a number of CRM solutions including the Top 10 Hosted CRM Vendors and the Top 10 Small Business CRM Vendors. Another resource that will help is to utilize the, “7 Points to Consider Before Selecting Your CRM Solution” outlined below.

To read the white paper (no email opt-in required), click here (PDF, 663 Kb)

This is too funny.

If you are following the OracleWorld Open conference, you may get caught up in the little feud between CEO Larry Ellison and Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff.

It all started earlier this week with the new Oracle’s Exadata machine.  Yes, Sun hardware.  A "cloud in a box" analogy.

Salesforce.com users knows Benioff’s agenda with his keynotes.  First, to evangelize his cloud computing message, and second, to promote his own products.

A day later at his keynote, he counterattacks Ellison’s message and rants about "clouds aren’t in a box" and joked repeatedly about how tall the “boxes” were.  The other half of the presentation was focused on Chatter and mobile computing given by Kraig Swensrud.

A couple of cameo appearances by Dell helped them with their latest Streak mobile device.

The YouTube video is here.

But it didn’t end there.

Ellison would later say, "Salesforce.com runs on 1,500 Dell servers…which are boxes."

You can watch the video on ZDNET here.

At the end, do we really care who owns the box or if it is a box?

All IT decision makers want is low costs, pay per use with no contract, great up time, iron clad security, and increased productivity.. and of course more sales and more profit.  Think about your mobile device provider.

We’ll leave the definition of “cloud computing” to Webster.. or better yet, Gartner!

All CRM packages are not created equal.

Keep in mind who will be using the CRM system, and ensure it integrates with other key systems in your organization.  I am referring to email and financials; and for larger organizations, social media, content and collaboration.

Needless to say, every industry and organization are different in their own needs.

A while back, there were some solutions for the Best CRM Software by Industry: Construction Sector and Best CRM Software by Industry: Nonprofit Organizations as well as CRM Solutions Applied in the Food Industry.

Lauren Carlson from Software Advice wrote some of her favorite Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner solutions by Industry.

This is the power of using partners that resell, customize and implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  Just like there are 3rd party resellers for Google Apps and Salesforce’s Force.com.  According to Gartner, the global cloud service market reached $58.6 billion in 2009, and estimates $68.3 billion in 2010.  By 2014, it could reach $148.8 billion.  The cloud market is alive and well.  Pick and choose your partners carefully.

The 15 industries she focuses in her article (found here):

• Advertising
• Financial Services
• Non-Profit
• Agriculture
• Healthcare
• Pharmaceuticals
• Automotive
• Hospitality/Travel
• Public Sector
• Construction
• Insurance
• Real Estate
• Distribution
• Legal
• Retail

If there is an industry you would like to see, please comment on the form below.

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