CRM SYSTEMS

On-demand CRM allows  to focus on customers and not on the technology while relieving from the risk and overhead of an onpremise approach. But is on-demand really this attractive? What’s the catch? As always, the devil is in the details – what constitutes an advantage can also pose a threat.

Short deployment time is only a promise, getting the system to work could take longer than expected because of problematic customization. Possibilities offered by the API are usually limited and once we want something more, we fall into the trap of an on-premise model – the vendor sends a team to work through a solution, extending the implementation time tremendously. Moreover, upgrades can be tricky – and tend to break existing customization and integration, which leads to abandoning valuable new functionality. Some institutions may be wary of being overdependent on the service provider. They have all the data which sometimes can be sensitive (banks, health care), difficult to protect from unauthorized access when out of your control and difficult to get back from the vendor should relations go south. Other organizations may feel like opting for on-demand results in losing their competitive advantage – everyone has the same software, so where’s the difference? However, the greatest problem with on-demand CRM is the time scale. Surely, we can achieve the lowest initial cost, the lowest risk, but all in the short term. In a three-year period, the cost can be the same for on-demand and onpremise, yet in the on-demand model the organization doesn’t own the system, it can’t be customized to grow along with the needs of the business. All in all, we might end up with our hands tied and a miserable ROI.

Tags: advanced CRM solutions, characteristic on-premise CRM, CRM, CRM on demand, CRM on premise

Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.