Desi CRM Anyone?

This other day, while hunting for CRM news at work, I encountered a surprising Google ad – “ImpelCRM, the market leader of OnDemand CRM in India”. Wait a minute now – where was I when a player, hitherto unknown, is already claiming to be a leader? I do try to keep tab on the happenings in CRM market, and this would be too big a splash to go unnoticed. Something is indeed going on – I decided to check it out.

I am taken to this slow loading website that may not be termed “pretty”. Some last minute collage could be put up, no? The site also tries to install an ActiveX control – at least now I am not willing to risk installing it and checking out its purpose.

Anyhow, Impel CRM is the wonder boy and the promoters are from Kempapura in “namma Bengaluru” - PK4 Technologies, quoted in a listing site as “delivers software solutions in a revolutionary manner: by reducing team-size and increasing the use of tools and technologies”. “Adaptable, Affordable, Adjustable – CRM for India” goes the tagline. Why India I wonder? Well, I cannot be too skeptical, have to see what is going on.

The Company

PK4 Technologies, the Bangalore based company, was selected as one of the finalists in NASSCOM's 100 IT Innovators 2007 for its framework ZeroCode, an on-demand web application development framework that enables users to quickly build and instantly deliver browser-based applications. PK4 exhibited the product at Startup City trade show on 24-May-2008, held at the NIMHANS Convention Centre. Expectedly, “ImpelCRM is India’s only completely OnDemand CRM solution”. The release also says they have garnered lot of interest in the six weeks from launch. Whew, I have not distanced myself too much from the CRM happenings.

The Solution

Is a typical hosted CRM solution, datacenters are based in India. Vendor claims scalability to thousands of users. The application is customizable and “integrates with any system”. While writing about comprehensive CRM, the focus points have been provided as:

• Sales Force Automation
• Marketing Automation
• Customer Service Automation
• Partner management

Since most vendors claim whatever they do and that alone as CRM, we will try to drilldown into how Impel satisfies these functionalities.
There are “verticalised” solutions catering to Manufacturing, Healthcare, Government, Insurance and Real Estate. But the message I get is that their “product” fits into the various verticals – which I read as “You can use this product, but is not really tailored for your processes”.

Mobility

Accounts, contacts and opportunities can be added using SMS. All that and orders can be reviewed through SMS as well. Users can add or view accounts, contacts, opportunities and activities through the browser on mobile phone using “Impel Mobile SFA”, while “Impel Mobile Customer Support” lets users add trouble tickets and view resolutions. Getting mobile comes at a price, Rs.1500 setup and Rs.200 /month thereon. First 50 SMS are free while anything additional costs Rs.2/SMS.

Technology

Ajax and JSON technologies are used to auto fill data entry forms. Apparently, PK4 uses its ZeroCode under the hood. Will update further details if I find out any.

Service & Support

Impel guarantees a 99.99% uptime other than scheduled maintenance. Support is provided 8X5 – that is 8hrs/day on regular working days. Phone, email along with chat support through a bunch of Gmail, Yahoo IDs? Email support is unlimited, we are told.

Security

We are assured of data security through legal and procedural measures to limit access to data. Each customer gets a db on a virtual server and is not shared. Hosting is in Level 3 data centers. Servers are monitored real time and I suspect this is largely done by the data center, while Impel relies on SMS sent during disaster. Relevant data backups and replication are in place.

Cost

Is the pricing is confusing or is it just me? Probably, they could have best taken it to the end user and make it transparent to the first timer visiting the site. In short, the more you use it, the bigger discounts you will get ('Big Bazaar' CRM!?). It ranges from Rs.1000 per user per month at the higher end to Rs.700. Setup is Rs.1500 per user and mobility charges are extra.

My gripes

• The website itself needs a hand in content management and aesthetics. Though I am no website freak (you have seen this, yeah?), a more professional look & feel would do good. The server going down and coming back up in some time reminds me of the way we manage our CRM applications, but of course demoing it to users on the web can be disastrous.
• There are featured customers on the website, but we don’t know what they are doing with the product. Maybe, the company will do that as time progresses
• There are claims of ROI within 12 months. What is the data to back this up? Is it just that other products can do it and hence, we can do it? Or were they in business before the product launched?
• Lot of copied in posters, case studies & gyan – Just providing lot of information will not translate into “my product will do that”

What's Good?

Well, you may say I had time to waste to go through the vendor’s offering before it catches the eye of the people. But, that is precisely the point – I have nothing but admiration and appreciation for the team involved. I want people in India to stand up and notice. Launching a CRM product is no small feat and innovation is not that widespread in that area. Coupled with their technical expertise I am sure this will make its mark in the market. Hmm.., I want them to succeed.

• Created an impact with their ZeroCode (http://www.zerocode.com)
• Their blogs are cool (http://blog.impelcrm.in/?cat=11,12,13,14,15,18)

You want more? Check out their site. I couldn't find more because I was not given a "Try" license in my personal capacity.

References

http://www.impelcrm.in

CRM & Web 2.0

We hear great stories about Web 2.0 every other day – how people can share, be in touch and can in turn help humanity. Great tools, so how do we use that in CRM? Why CRM you ask – this is too good an opportunity to miss, people all around you are discussing your product and service, complaining about your service, expressing interest in business and you certainly treat that as a major channel for CRM. And this is not the only thing about that, but also utilizing the Web 2.0 tools to run business – among sales people, partners etc. After all, CRM is a movement by the people and for the people (there is no “from the people”, we in IT are not considered human enough).

Thoughtfully, people are not far behind in utilizing this opportunity. Vendors – large & small have been having a go at this great integration of Web 2.0 and social networking features in the mainstream enterprise. But first, why move on to Web 2.0?
Traditional CRM has been just an “upload” application for sales reps. There is no immediate visible benefits for them to do what is expected out of them
Sales force could choose not to be entirely honest with the CRM application, just entering loads of information is not everyone’s piece of cake
Structured organization and presentation of data works really well for IT, but is seldom human, but selling is

And what will happen to the end consumers. These are the guys who just don’t want to purchase a product just because marketing is telling them that they will get everything (yes, including the kitchen sink). They want to discuss with like minded people, get an overview of what they are getting into, check how the product fares in the market and the like. They may be doing that through blogs, forums and WIKIs, but good CRM should enable the organization to have a stake in it. A good discussion might prompt sales offers, a flame can be doused through prompt service – CRM using Web 2.0 can be one indispensable tool. Following is a brief look at what a couple of major vendors are doing about Web 2.0 in CRM.

Oracle

Oracle is one serious player in this segment. Oracle Social CRM (Siebel OnDemand in its new avatar), launched March 2008, is going to be a major step towards using Web 2.0 technologies in enterprise IT. The launch included a “blogger call” prior to disclosing information to public. A bird’s eye view of what we can do with it:

• Real time predictive analytics using not only the data available to the enterprise systems but also with external sources, making it one killer sales tool. For example, a CG industry could decide which sector to target a particular territory based on sales history for similar products in that territory, the recent consumer spend trends from a leading analyst and if need be, even the seasonal conditions that promote or discourage a product. This amalgamation of group behaviour combined with sales force knowledge is “social intelligence”. Get the application to adjust to inputs from users and take into account the factors lying out there that influence the buying behaviour
• Generating excitement about using a product often translates into better information being captured and in-turn being utilized in sales and services. A user friendly screen to capture product literature and display it ala FlickR
• Ability to form arbitrary groups like sales force from a particular region who share customers in the same regions etc
• Sticky notes feature to mark any object and have access to present and future information about that object in fingertips. Or if need be, expose it as a gadget in iGoogle or elsewhere
• Get involved in discussions in a centralized environment message centre

What have we covered here? – RSS feeds, WIKIs, forming of interest groups, expose information through widget APIs. The target audience includes large scale enterprises and not only your neighborhood SMB. Take a hard look folks, Oracle applications as a career option is surely working out :) . Though I would say, SaaS is making it more fun for the businesses.

SAP

SAP, the biggest CRM software vendor out there, did some major Web 2.0 enhancements in its SAP CRM 2007. Announced in Dec 2007, it was compared to iGoogle portal in the introductory summit. At this point in time, I am not in a position to say how effective their new interface is or whether CRM 2007 really helped them go past the bad UI issues of the erstwhile CRM applications.

• Easy to use applications with drag & drop functionality for lot of functions, building mashups were some of the key things outlines for the CRM application
• Widgets like weather forecast module and Google search bars

Salesforce

Where there is innovation, can Salesforce be left behind?

• Salesforce widget APIs have created good excitement (and also good business for a number of small players).
• Salesforce allows creation of RSS feeds
• Salesforce SOA gives a “Yahoo! Pipes” like program where businesses can consume services from Amazon, pull information from Google Adwords or MSN Adcenter
• ContentExchange (not CRM in the purist sense!) gives the power to manage content management of unstructured data as well
• Use tags to subscribe to information (termed web 2.0 folksonomy as against taxonomy in traditional applications)
• Plan for interfaces to WIKIs, interface with word processing services on the web like Google Docs, Zoho Docs

RightNow

RightNow incorporates support for Widgets, Videos, Forums and Blogs in its latest customer portal application August '08. Also present are collaboration tools like Chat and co-browsing.

It deserves special mention to the fact that Oracle & Salesforce are not only vendors, but major implementers of Web 2.0 in the way they run businesses. Oracle blogs provide useful information to one and all, while the forums are abuzz with customer problems, view and feedback. Utilising Web 2.0 in CRM is not constrained only to these major players. There are also numerous other players providing Web 2.0 capabilities in their product. For example HeapCRM, one of the smaller but earlier vendors to embrace Web 2.0, where every message in Heap can be subscribed through RSS and widgets provide access to data through iGoogle or in Mac OS & Windows Vista. What is seen here is a clear indication of the next-gen UI and functionalities that make CRM fun and at the same time, more effective.

The Verdict

In summary, there is lot of proliferation of Web 2.0 functionalities going on in CRM, no doubt beneficial to all stakeholders. Web 2.0 in CRM will enable employees and partners input useful information, share information within & external to organization and able to better sell and service customers. Add to it the end users who will better appreciate the “face” of the organization and the sales/service offers from organization by the very timing of it – ah.. next is what?

But hold, there should be a catch – there is always one for all good things in life.

• The biggest one – information security. Security threat not necessarily because of the software, but the very nature of Web 2.0 that encourages sharing of data. With easier profiling, comes the risk of identity thefts. This was already demonstrated to a bunch of salesforce customers targeted for phishing attacks
• The success of this whole model relies upon sharing of data among stake holders. But in reality, sales people may not be so forthcoming with contact & lead data. Although this makes it hard to determine effectiveness, we are still in a better position as compared to traditional CRM
• Management will find it hard to keep track of what is going on with the traditional tools at their disposal. A right mix of structured with unstructured should make things exciting

CRM Everywhere

CRM or Customer Relationship Management, simply put, is to manage customers. Wikipedia defines it as

"Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term applied to processes implemented by a company to handle its contact with its customers. CRM software is used to support these processes, storing information on customers and prospective customers. Information in the system can be accessed and entered by employees in different departments, such as sales, marketing, customer service, training, professional development, performance management, human resource development, and compensation. Details on any customer contacts can also be stored in the system. The rationale behind this approach is to improve services provided directly to customers and to use the information in the system for targeted marketing and sales purposes."

CRM is a term that has evoked resentment in the past, but what, as some people put it, is undergoing a transformation for the good. It had and still suffers from problems like demanding too much data input without being responsive to sales/service needs, considered a "management" tool to track whatever is going on rather than help create business and often just used as a centre for customer information. Hopefully, the perspective is undergoing major changes. CRM is no more just about storage/retrieval of customer information or ROI tracking, it is "all about the customer!".

CRM to me is a combination of front office & back office functionalities that enable organizations to "see" a customer. So we have many things under this umbrella - managing data, making sense out of it using analytical tools, helping organizations to effectively sell & service across channels and the list goes on. CRM is not software, but the way of putting customer at the heart of the organization.

Lousy post? I know the feeling, but I wanted something heartfelt about CRM to be the first post :)

Cheers!

Hello & Welcome!

Since I am lazy, I am going to post the same message posted elsewhere.

Well, I really don't know where I am going with all this. First came the idea of a website, a blog and a forum. Why not power everything by Google and bring it under one roof? Nothing innovative there - but it is something challenging for me nevertheless. If not anything, it will be a good indicator of how sustainable my ideas are.

Cheers!