Top CRM Blogs

Chris Bucholtz has listed the top CRM blogs of 2011. Well, as you can make out from this blog - I am not a good creator, but do read up from time to time. Even if you don't care about the blogs listed here, you should go through them at least four times in four weeks before outright rejecting any of them. They take up precious little time, but have the potential to give you something new (in CRM ofcourse).

My own list of sites (note - not only blogs) is not as lengthy, but does keep me occupied for a couple of hours in the week.

• Paul Greenberg's blog: Though Mr. Greenberg dropped the organization I work for in this year's CRM idol :). His posts are informative, full of CRM with a touch of humor
• Enterprise Irregulars: I am fairly regular on this site (through my reader). There are a bunch of really smart people who talk about a lot of things (not CRM, or IT alone)
• DestinationCRM: Well, this looks like a 90s magazine, and website. But, is a good source of information
• CRM Outsiders: This started more because of my interest in SugarCRM, but has continued ever since
• CRM Daily: A few good posts about CRM information can make one's day

What do you think, are you a regular anywhere else!?

vTiger - A Serious Open Source CRM Contender

I had been intending to explore vTiger CRM for sometime now, and am glad I finally came to it. vTiger CRM has been out there for a while, and I had been hearing about it everytime I hear "CRM" and "open source" in one sentence. What follows are bits and pieces of my first impression, a few cool things and some not-so-cool stuff.

Product and the Company

• vTiger is a small company, one of the two offices is in my own home town (= Bangalore, yeah!). The product is based on the LAMP/WAMP stack, and guess what, Sugar CRM. One of those instances of open source projects introducing competing products? Yes, this is (or can be) good for the customer, but do I want to see this as the Sugar CRM CEO? :). Some of us, open-source proponents, might want to think that this leads to a better all-round product, since there should be mutual learning for the two streams! 
• The entire product is open source, thankfully there are no "different editions" (yet)
• While going through the various screens, one cannot help but compare how this stacks with Sugar. Since vTiger exposes all functionality, it has an unfair advantage in some of the below points (I only have access to SugarCE)
• While the CRM product is completely open source and available for download, vTiger can also be tried online. There is a on-demand version available for $12/user (check price list). Again, no editions, no limits - except for space - 5GB per client.
• The overall product is polished, and works well. I liked the UI finish and overall functionality better than Sugar

Features and Functionality

• UI is very similar to Sugar, but some of the features are a sure welcome. A brighter UI (with the colour buttons thrown in) is not helpful on its own, but adds to the lustre

• Entities like accounts can be assigned to individuals or groups. This is a far cry from person-based/team-based visibility, but still something powerful for small or mid-sized businesses
• As in other web-based CRM products, by default the user lands in the list view. Drilling down on the record will show detailed information for the entity. Associated information (like activities or contacts for the account) do not show up by clicking on another 'tab'. But getting individual entities like activities, contacts by clicking each time is a pain.

• An interesting feature is tagging. All entities can be tagged with any custom attributes, and these show up in a 'tag cloud'. Users sure will love this feature, anything to find out 'all accounts that are important for this campaign' in a single click :)

• Users of this application are assigned a role, while roles can have one or more profiles. Access to entity views or the individual fields can be pre-determined

• Analytical reports can be customized by end-user. It kind of provides "actionable-intelligence" since any record in the report can be drilled-down to see more details

Development and Maintenance

• As in other web-based CRM systems, vTiger provides an administration screen where UI and fields can be configured. Changing UI and adding new fields is real easy and intuitive

• One of the interesting features is the ability to take backups. You can schedule a backup to be taken locally (where the server runs), or to any location through FTP
• There is also a provision to build workflows. OOB you get to do a few things like create an activity or send an email, and is also extensible. Workflows can run immediately upon satisfying the given criteria or wait for a pre-configured/customizable time to get initiated
• vTiger is extensible like Sugar, and getting new modules (mostly) is as easy as importing the zip file within the application. vTiger has its own market place, contributions have been mostly from the product development team. Some of the extensions sure seem interesting (keep a look out here for more :)

With continued development, vTiger sure is set to become more interesting. Sufficient to get you to try it? - head on over to vTiger site and try the click-click installation or the demo!

CRM 2011!

It is that time of the year folks - time when you, I and every IT guy worth his salt tends to get clobbered with analyst talk. This is all about the past year - how they prophesized just right, and how the world is converting to paradise or is getting destroyed in the nuclear winter next year. Since I too am finding myself putting together hard-to-comprehend words one too many times, I thought this is something ought to be addressed pronto (before you sink too deep in the holiday mood that is). Since CRM is what I am doing all the time (it is actually Siebel application development, but it feels liberating to be more generic), this is a short list of what I think should happen to CRM in 2011.

1. Fusion should come out of its wraps
   Inspite of Elison's jab at the implementable state of Oracle Fusion apps, I quite look forward to it. In the process, I also look forward to throwing out all the experience of developing lousy scripts using eScript/Siebel VB, half-baked COM interfacing programs, workflows with a clunky interface and all the configuration fun that can be had in any version of Siebel apps post v7. I will miss dismissing customer requests with a hard-hitting statement - "the functionality is tagged to SRF, and cannot be changed now". 2011 is a good year to brave up to J2EE, ODI, WebCenter, WebLogic and other hotchpotch. This is number one solely because I am associated with Siebel for too long a time.
   
2. SaaS triumps in Large Enterprises
   Yes, I know this has been said since the inception of SFDC and the glorious just-dream-forces unleashed upon us. But it is not hard to listen when businesses (not IT) is shouting at you about why they should be spending so much on CapEx and ongoing maintenance including upgrades. So there will be a slew of studies on SaaS take-over, hybrid architectures and how many millions one saved while firing the software and the dream-teams which were keeping them afloat. Well, this cannot happen in next year alone but will enable me to brag about how it came true to a certain extent at the end of 2011.
   
3. Mobile to the Rescue!
   Mobile phones with their ubiquity and affordability, should wield greater power over deciding the CRM strategy. How many of us wants to navigate the shiny website of Airtel when the transactions can be done through mcheck? CRM will get more focussed in the mobile space, true for developed and developing countries alike. App development, here I come!
   
4. Social CRM will bring down companies to their knees
   Well, I sort of made it up - companies don't have knees. Service companies especially will struggle to keep an eye on what is going on, and would have to resort to several IT adventures before they can get things right. A piece of copied advice - it is not about IT guys (a.k.a 'dont blame me'), set your focus on what you want to do when customers are talking all good or bad about you.
   
5. Paul Greenberg should be crowned the undisputed thought-leader of CRM
   I really like his way of writing - the book and the blog, even with my zero knowledge of baseball. Though I feel he vastly over-rates the power of getting Social, being a undisputed leader will push to the fore-front his genial thoughts on maintaining good customer relationship.