05 Feb Top 3 reasons to choose Cloud CRM…. And top 3 reasons to not!

A good CRM allows companies to optimize their selling and also customer retention. Remember less than one third of customers leave for a competitor. Most move on because they have not been engaged well. The ability to keep all your customer data central and accessible, and link it to a measurable objective based sales process with meticulous forecasting is a powerful business enabler.

But as you decide on a CRM you are now faced with an additional decision. Do you want to have the CRM based on premise? Or do you wish to put it in the cloud? We’ve identified top three reasons you should go cloud and top three reasons you should go on premise!

The top 3 reasons for on premise CRM:

1. A lot of users in a stable business– If you have a large amount of users who access your system you will want to go with an on premise CRM. The cost benefit should work out in your favor because after 5 years the Total Cost of Ownership for on premise CRM is very good.

2. Robust existing IT investments – If your current IT investments support backups and enterprise grade multilayered security you may wish to consider an on premise solution. Because smaller or medium organizations have lean information technology budgets, on premise CRM that has sensitive and critical customer data is a riskier investment. But if for any reason even if you are an SMB the investments on security, servers, storage and backup software and IT personnel are in place you’ll be fine going on-premise.

3. Regulatory challenges – If you are a utility, telecom or a bank, regulatory challenges to data being bound by location may exist. You do not wish to ever run afoul of a regulator. In some cases where the regulation is in the grey area we urge customers to err on the side of caution and keep the data on premise.

The top reasons for a cloud based CRM:

1. Limited IT budget – You’re a young fast growing company. You are investing money from investors or revenue back into managing growth. You do not have the infrastructure investments done to support a secure CRM with backup. You probably need that CRM immediately as part of managing that very growth! You should go with a cloud based CRM.

2. Mobile sales force – You need a CRM accessible anywhere from a tablet or a smart phone. Your sales people may need any kind of information on the fly in the field. A Cloud based CRM is a smart choice in this case because its accessibility via mobile is far ahead of on premise based solutions.

3. Connectivity is not an issue in your geography – In many emerging markets this is a valid concern that can make or break the decision to go cloud. Sure the ability to go live immediately on a per person cost model with a highly mobile CRM solution is attractive but only if your mobile connectivity network and/ or the connectivity to your offices do not suffer from outages.

As InfoTech implements CRM solutions for all kinds of businesses we are keeping an eye on this space. The robustness and customization options for cloud based CRM’s are growing and we have been helping select clients move to cloud based CRM’s. But there are always scenarios where we advise against this too.

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