Want Crm For Small Business Like Mine..

[Sadikk 301]

i want good CRM for my business and want to know-hows of it..

anyone using or have experience in this please throw some light..

saw couple of free CRMs but not sure what to opt for.

kindly guide.. Thanks..

[kshah 452]

Crm, why do you want it? List down your requirements first then choose. I think tally too has Crm module.

Crm is very very useful once you know your requirements. Else will make operation chaotic.

[Sadikk 301]

but i cant track sales leads, sales, after sales, customers interactions and customers complaints on the go on tally..

heard this can be done with CRM.. as everything is in clouds...

not sure what i want but need something to keep track of everything anytime i want..

[rajanmehta 4,056]

but i cant track sales leads, sales, after sales, customers interactions and customers complaints on the go on tally..

heard this can be done with CRM.. as everything is in clouds...

not sure what i want but need something to keep track of everything anytime i want..

Tally will be of no use for you as your main focus is CRM.

Checkout the following product links for your requirements

Goldmine Goldmine CRM By Frontrange

Act Act By Sage Contact and Customer Manager

Salesforce.Com India Salesforce CRM

Have used Goldmine and Salesforce both but long time ago. All 3 software above are leading CRM Products. Salesforce is a product used by many

Indian companies and they have different models from Small Business to Enterprise and Cloud support.

[ami1 237]

OK, given below is a list of some good opensource & free CRM &/or ERP solutions - I am assuming you wouldn't want to spend too much and comml ones are quite expensive. Many of these like opentaps compiere etc are used by MNCs like Toyota, Honeywell etc. so they aren't bad at all. There are some other opensource solutions like SugarCRM which have good support but they are not free - though cheaper than comml ones.

However, before you get into these, here's some advise based on my own experiences earlier in my career in running a small company:-

First, I would suggest that you decide exactly what (& WHY) you need a CRM solution for ?

If you are looking at a small salesforce/workforce of say 10-20 people it may be better to use something simpler as CRM/ERP solutions will take up huge management bandwidth and also require a lot of rigidity in your internal policies and practices which are not possible for smaller businesses which are changing very quickly.

Even if you are looking at a larger sales/work force, i would recommend hiring a good experienced marketing/sales manager rather than spending time and money on CRM/ERP.

Its nearly impossible to fit the infinite range of human behaviours into a set of software rules unless you can afford to have a year or so of time to smoothen out & adapt your policies to your market/product & people and the deep pockets to keep paying the people while you do this.

Its much better that each sales person uses his own low tech ways to keep track of his leads/calls/sales rather than centralizing such things. And 1-4 managers/team leaders give your simplified inputs on the performance and take your simple directions/strategy and convert it into actual tactical/operational plans for the salesmen.

Things at the top of the business hierarchy need to be pretty simplified - and that can only happen if the responsibilities are given to some leaders down the line to use their own brains on how to achieve objectives within given costs & time budgets.

Running a business like a techie is a big NO NO - unless you want to remain small & niche - & even then its difficult. You will need to keep your time & mind on your business rather than the shiny new complex software/hardware which eats up your days while your employees get lesser time to interact with you. You need to leave those things to others - EVEN IF THEY DO A MUCH WORSE JOB THAN YOU. You can only direct.

Most probably what you need is a good contact manager, scheduler or some simple workflow system which can be done by using microsoft's outlook or access add-ins and some well though out paper forms and ledgers/journals.

Here is a simple writeup/overview of CRM (from sugarcrm) - if you think carefully you'll realize that you need this ONLY AFTER your sales guys have been getting good & stable level of sales for at least 6-12 months and you are expanding rapidly and so your managers need these tools to perform better/quicker/cheaper.

Till you are in the start up phase (ie products, customer segments & business models changing rapidly - since you are trying out different things to survive and junking what doesn't work while selecting & improving on what does..) you don't need these things really.

Anyways, that my 2penny worth of thoughts. I am not really aware of your business plans so i could be entirely wrong. Here's the list of CRM packages/solutions (in the order of what i think would be good for you)

opentaps

opencrx

vtiger

openerp

compiere

hipergate

civicrm

Also here's some free & opensource online/e-commerce s/w - I think what what you really need is something like this to manage an online transaction point - if you're a techie then its always better not to compete with the offline people but to use your strengths and have more online presence with only the minimum required offline support. :

ZenCart

ApacheOpenForBusiness

Broadleaf

Whew ! Long Post. I can't seem to resist giving advice - must be growing old !

Edited August 16, 2010 by ami1

[rajanmehta 4,056]

OK, given below is a list of some good opensource & free CRM &/or ERP solutions - I am assuming you wouldn't want to spend too much and comml ones are quite expensive. Many of these like opentaps compiere etc are used by MNCs like Toyota, Honeywell etc. so they aren't bad at all. There are some other opensource solutions like SugarCRM which have good support but they are not free - though cheaper than comml ones.

However, before you get into these, here's some advise based on my own experiences earlier in my career in running a small company:-

First, I would suggest that you decide exactly what (& WHY) you need a CRM solution for ?

If you are looking at a small salesforce/workforce of say 10-20 people it may be better to use something simpler as CRM/ERP solutions will take up huge management bandwidth and also require a lot of rigidity in your internal policies and practices which are not possible for smaller businesses which are changing very quickly.

Even if you are looking at a larger sales/work force, i would recommend hiring a good experienced marketing/sales manager rather than spending time and money on CRM/ERP.

Its nearly impossible to fit the infinite range of human behaviours into a set of software rules unless you can afford to have a year or so of time to smoothen out & adapt your policies to your market/product & people and the deep pockets to keep paying the people while you do this.

Its much better that each sales person uses his own low tech ways to keep track of his leads/calls/sales rather than centralizing such things. And 1-4 managers/team leaders give your simplified inputs on the performance and take your simple directions/strategy and convert it into actual tactical/operational plans for the salesmen.

Things at the top of the business hierarchy need to be pretty simplified - and that can only happen if the responsibilities are given to some leaders down the line to use their own brains on how to achieve objectives within given costs & time budgets.

Running a business like a techie is a big NO NO - unless you want to remain small & niche - & even then its difficult. You will need to keep your time & mind on your business rather than the shiny new complex software/hardware which eats up your days while your employees get lesser time to interact with you. You need to leave those things to others - EVEN IF THEY DO A MUCH WORSE JOB THAN YOU. You can only direct.

Most probably what you need is a good contact manager, scheduler or some simple workflow system which can be done by using microsoft's outlook or access add-ins and some well though out paper forms and ledgers/journals.

Here is a simple writeup/overview of CRM (from sugarcrm) - if you think carefully you'll realize that you need this ONLY AFTER your sales guys have been getting good & stable level of sales for at least 6-12 months and you are expanding rapidly and so your managers need these tools to perform better/quicker/cheaper.

Till you are in the start up phase (ie products, customer segments & business models changing rapidly - since you are trying out different things to survive and junking what doesn't work while selecting & improving on what does..) you don't need these things really.

Anyways, that my 2penny worth of thoughts. I am not really aware of your business plans so i could be entirely wrong. Here's the list of CRM packages/solutions (in the order of what i think would be good for you)

opentaps

opencrx

vtiger

openerp

compiere

hipergate

civicrm

Also here's some free & opensource online/e-commerce s/w - I think what what you really need is something like this to manage an online transaction point - if you're a techie then its always better not to compete with the offline people but to use your strengths and have more online presence with only the minimum required offline support. :

ZenCart

ApacheOpenForBusiness

Broadleaf

Whew ! Long Post. I can't seem to resist giving advice - must be growing old !

Every word in this post worth its weight in GOLD! This is called real experience and no degrees can beat it! Completely agree with what you say. Infact my experience was very similar to all the pitfalls you outlined. Ultimately i designed a simple Excel Worksheet with various data being input and later analysed and commented upon by Seniors. SADIKBHAI please read Mr. Amitabh Ranjan's post TEN Times atleast, digest it fully and the knowledge which you will get will save you huge amounts, time wastages and frustation. The same piece of advice would cost you enormous amount of money if you go to a Marketing or CRM Consultant.

This forum is blessed with really talented members. Lucky to be part of it!

[hiteshkkk1 327]

@ami1...

One of the best posts i have come across on rimweb. +1 from me..

I thought the same way as sadikk. I had checked many opensource options like zoho & others. But, finally what ami1 says is true. For a small business like ours, managing its too time consuming & lengthy to follow systematic processes of CRM. Ultimately, we would end up wasting lot of our time. CRM I think is meant for very large companies who have interaction with 1000s of clients & have 10-15 people to just handle service issues.

This is just my view. Most of the things have been covered by ami1.

[jithesh405 4]

Hi Sadik,

I am using Vtiger which is an open source CRM product and found the same to be useful for Lead generation, Tracking leads, Lead Source assignment, Tracking the Marketing campaigns, Lead-Suspect to qualified prospect conversion, Assigning leads to sales engineers, tracking progress of the leads till closure, (Win or Loss & other stages) assign the revenue projections, Sales projections and the reports are also good.

I haven’t fully explored the Inventory, Sales & Support module as the primary expectation of the CRM selection was to first stream line the Marketing and sales process and to automate the process involved in the same.

Currently I am in the process of customizing the inventory and trouble ticket module and the process I would say is very smooth in Vtiger. I had seen atleast 5 product demo’s and evaluated little other software before going with Vtiger.

PLUS points

[*]Most of the features in Marketing, Lead generation and sales can be straight away used as the solutions offered out of the box was a perfect match for my requirements and I feel this to be same for other product / companies as I have deployed the same in two category of products (High Value low volume sales & Low value High volume sales)

Customization is very easy on this product as I hired an expert in PHP and he was able to qucikly do some tweaking for the sales and marketing modules to change the workflow and get the desired menus and UI / Data cards.

The product is free for download and use but if you go to VTIGER guys and ask for any support they charge a huge amount for customization. I preferred to take one PHP guy and the customization was not a problem.

Basically the source code for Vtiger is said to be same of Sugar CRM and these guys have repackaged it in a different way. This is what the blog says and even I feel so after using both products.

1. I would recommend you to first list down the requirements and then try to simulate the same in excel. This is very important and for a small & medium business it will help you to be clear about the requirements.

2. Be specific on your processes (Work flow) which you feel is the optimal process suiting your business needs.

3. Identify the areas of automation of the processes. For this before jumping into any conclusion of the CRM package you should be having a list of pain areas in your current processes

4. The basic problem what i feel in selecting the right CRM is that most of teh CRM companies offers modules which you may feel will satisfy your requirements and will try to convince that the process of automation what is available in their product is the best solution in the world.

5. The sales guys will try to sell "What they have" and make you forget "What you want"

6. Changing the CRM package half way thru your business is not advisable as the legacy data available in most of the existing CRM's are not fully migrate able to a different CRM.

7. Open source CRM's are a good option but it is important to select the best one which is really a tough job.

8. Also you need to see if you need a hosted solution over the cloud or app loaded in your office. Nowadays advance features and internet allows you to login to your system even if it is loaded in your home / office server.

9. Features like mobile integration are also common in most of the CRM’s and there are lot of fancy items which you should not be excited when the sales guys say as most of these are common in new gen CRM’s

10. Try to load the CRM package you selected and have a test data run for atleast a two week period, see if it is really working for you before you fully implement and make it product level.

11. Dont allow too many compromises.

12. Also look at a scalable option which can accommodate your future business needs.

13. Few of the packages offers upto five user licenses free and then they charge you for more users but it is still a good option if you are looking for a startup with less users

14. Identify the key players / users of the CRM and educate them about the product and the process flow.

15. Right implementation of the selected software across the organization is the key factor once you select the CRM

16. Until the system is stable there should be a close monitoring of the implementation and feedback sessions and you should dedicate a responsible person for the CRM PROJECT.

Last thing is that you should be clear that implementing a CRM is not going to do any wonders if you are not clear about the right processes good for your organizational needs and CRM software doesn’t have any inbuilt intelligence to correct the mistakes in the processes.

All the best!! I know it was a lengthy post but based on my experience..Hope i dint confuse you much... Happy CRM Hunting..

[manishashar 6]

Sadikk,

Just get ACT! and that should be sufficient for you.

Manish

[sagarbn 0]

Dear saddik,

check this software i am using the same from few days and its very good and simple.

http://www.ezysoft-dev.com/ezycm/ezycall.htm

if u need more suffisticated then go to sugar or tiger crm both are on opensource.