Automated crm software in Vendor negotiations

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when evaluating potential customer relationship management systems or CRM software as they're better known there's a lot of options in the marketplace there's plenty of options for small and mid-sized companies larger companies and they all have pros and cons and strengths of weaknesses and I'm going to talk today about the top 10 CRM systems in the marketplace my name is Eric Kimberling I'm the CEO of third stage consulting or an independent consulting firm that helps clients through their digital transformation journeys and as I mentioned there are a lot of CRM systems out in the marketplace there's dozens if not hundreds of CRM systems ranging from small startup upstart types of vendors to well-established CRM vendors to ERP vendors that provide CRM capabilities so navigating this terrain can be very difficult and overwhelming so what I want to do today is talk about our objective ranking of the top 10 CRM systems based on a number of criteria which includes functionality ease-of-use flexibility total cost of ownership etc there's a lot of different criteria that go into this ranking but without further adieu we'll jump right in and talk about the top to end list [Music] coming in at number 10 is a product called hub spot and hub spot is a system that's better known for its marketing automation capabilities but it also has CRM capabilities it allows you to track your sales pipeline your opportunities assign probabilities track tasks that sort of thing and the beauty of hub spot is even though it's not a super robust or super complex CRM system it's something that HubSpot offers for free to users and it's a way to hook you into the hub spot platform so that eventually you might use the marketing automation system which you pay for now some of the strengths of the HubSpot CRM system in addition to being free in addition to being simple is that it can be great for small businesses because if you're looking for basic CRM capabilities or you just want to try out a CRM system HubSpot can be a great place to start and the other advantage is that it ties into marketing automation so if you have email marketing campaigns social media campaigns blog posts to your website landing pages all that stuff it will allow you to take those marketing automation processes and the leads that come in through marketing automation and go straight into your pipeline so that's one of the other benefits of the product now the downside is if you're a complex organization or you have a large sales team or you're a high-growth organization HubSpot can be pretty limiting and you're you're getting a no frills CRM solution a pretty vanilla solution but for a lot of small and mid-sized companies that aren't large and their sales teams HubSpot can be a great place to start so with all that being said that's enough to land HubSpot at number 10 on our list another good product for small and mid-sized companies is odoo CRM and you may actually know or do better as an ERP solution they provide broad capabilities that span inventory management financials manufacturing supply chain etc they also have a fairly strong CRM module as well now I do is also an open source ERP system meaning that generally it's going to be less expensive and generally it's going to be more open so you can do more with it you can change the code you can change the product and there's a whole third-party ecosystem of apps that tie into odoo so those are some of the benefits of being on the o dó platform in general but if we look at the CRM module in particular not only is it suited for small and midsize companies but it's very user friendly that's one of the products biggest strengths is its ease of use it does all the basic things that you need for a CRM system and it's also a very modular product so it ties together with other modules outside of CRM as well so if you're a small company or a growing company you can start off with CRM and know that you can add modules of other capabilities that extend beyond CRM to build or grow into a broader ERP solution now the downside of odoo is it can be somewhat limiting in its capabilities so if you're a midsize organization a larger organization or a more complex sales organization mode is probably going to be a bit limited for its capabilities and some of the other products in our top ten list can do more and they have more power if you're a larger organization but with all that being considered that's enough to lando do it number 9 on our list now another ERP provider that has strong CRM capabilities is a product called Sage CRM Sage is an ERP system that's used by a lot of mid-sized organizations and some smaller organizations as well the CRM system is a bit more robust than some of the others we've talked about so far it can do a bit more in terms of forecasting and planning it can do some marketing automation and can also do customer service so if you're a customer intensive organization or you have a high-touch customer service function Sage CRM can be a really good spot to not only sell and provide the initial sales automation but also to provide ongoing support and customer service now Sage also allows you to handle quotes proposals and orders it allows integration to other third-party systems as well so even if you're not using Sage ERP and you have a different back office ERP system or you might have a back office ERP system at some point in the future sage CRM has pretty open integration capabilities with those third-party systems and then the final thing worth noting about Sage is that you can deploy it on premise or in the cloud so it's one of the few vendors that are still giving you the option of deploying on-premise if that's what you prefer and you want that flexibility and you want to be able to customize or change the software however you want or if you want a cloud version you can opt for that as well now the one downside of Sage is that if you're a larger organization and you require more robust capabilities Sage may not be the best fit but for most midsize organizations it's enough to land stage and number eight on our list [Music] sugarcrm is a product that's been around for a long time very specialized in CRM capabilities and it can handle a lot of robust needs and a lot of complex capabilities that sales organizations may have it's a product that's used heavily by financial services firms companies that do wealth management and also staffing and recruiting those are some of the industries that find the most benefit from Sugar CRM and one of the unique aspects of sugar is that it has specific capability to some of those industries I just mentioned for example staffing and recruiting it allows you to not only track your sales opportunities and potential clients that you might be pursuing but it also allows you to track candidates that you may be interviewing and having in your your candidate pipeline so that's sort of a unique functionality for a specific industry that sugar has honed in on they also have similar capabilities and specific industry processes that they support within financial services and a few other different industries as well so if you're looking for a very targeted sort of solution that can do things that are specific to your industry Sugar CRM is one that's worth checking out and they're another product much like Sage that can be deployed either on-premise or in the cloud one of the strengths will point out with with Sugar here today is that it can also handle customer service so if you're looking for more of a customer experience type of capability beyond the initial sale and you want to track customer service longer term and ongoing Sugar CRM has some great capabilities there so with all that being said that's enough to land sugar at number seven on our list coming in at number six is si P CRM and this is the first entry into our top ten list that really focuses on CRM capabilities for larger organizations and larger sales teams so if you're an organization that has a big or a complex sales cycle this product could be great for managing territories and commissions and sales plans it also has capabilities that will track marketing and customer service as well as contracts and billing so it's a fully integrated suite of capabilities that again focus is not just on managing the sales in the pipeline but also on managing the sales force the sales team and all the capabilities that go along with that as well as customer service and marketing more of a true customer experience type of product versus a pure CRM type of solution and by the way that's one thing to note is that many of these systems are migrating from a sales automation tool to more of an overall customer experience type of tool and that's what you see and that's what you get with s ap CRM now the downside of s ap CRM is it can be overkill for a lot of organizations unless you're a big organization with a complex and big global sales team ASAP CRM is probably going to be overkill for you so in those cases you may want to look at some of the other options in our top ten list that are more focused for the small to mid market but for those larger global organizations with big global sales teams s AP CRM can be a great option all those things being considered are enough to land sa P at number six on our list coming in at number five is Oracle CRM an Oracle CRM is part of Oracle's overall customer experience module or capability and they're one of the vendors much like SA P that is really investing in the overall customer experience I'm looking at how their product can enhance and optimize all the different touch points that a customer may have with your organization from the time they first reach out to you until they sign up with you to become a customer through the time that they're an actual customer and getting serviced by your organization now much like s ap Oracle CRM can also handle territories Commission sales plan and forecast those sorts of sales management capabilities one of the things that's unique to Oracle and one thing that Oracle CRM is very strong in is something called configure price quote or cpq capability so if you're an engineering type of organization or let's say you manufacture products that are make to order they're complex engineer to order and make to order products the CPQ module will allow you to feed your sales staff with availability of different parts and products that might go into an n solution it'll allow them to create a quote based on a configured solution and allow them to price out the solution based on the different components or the different choices that your customers may have so if that's the type of organization you are where you have a complex make to order type of product that's custom to your each individual customer Oracle CRM can be a great fit another cool thing that Oracle CRM does is it looks for signals in your pipeline it looks for behavioral signals of what your prospects are doing that might trigger and need to reach out to them and they use artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify patterns or signals that might trigger some sort of outreach from your sales staff so that's an example of a vendor being on the forefront of technology as it relates to CRM to use the technology not just to track things that used to track on paper or in your head but also to anticipate what buyers might be doing and when the right times might be to reach out to them now Oracle is a flexible product but the downside of being flexible is that if you're looking for standardization and you really want to tighten up your sales operations and go for something a little bit more common or standardized a product like sa P is probably going to be stronger and some of the other products in our top 10 list might be stronger in terms of enforcing standardization but if you're looking for something as flexible can tie into a broader ERP system that Oracle also provides and you're looking for a breadth of CRM and customer experience capabilities Oracle CRM is one you might consider and that's enough to land Oracle at number five on our list [Music] coming in number four is NetSuite CRM you may know NetSuite which is also provided by Oracle as a small and mid-sized market ERP system but they also have a very strong CRM module within that ERP capability and it's something you can purchase on its own as a standalone product now the benefit of NetSuite CRM the reason it rates so high and our ranking is because a lot of small and mid-sized companies find that the CRM capabilities are very strong because they also have a RP capabilities the CRM product ties in well with e-commerce ties in well with forecasting and planning and integration to other capabilities within your operations so that makes for a pretty strong CRM capability another unique aspect of NetSuite CRM products is if you're the type of organization that not only sells to customers but perhaps you forge partnerships with other firms that might be referring you business or that you might be partnering in to sell and deliver your product or service it has a specialized functionality that allows you to track those sorts of partnerships and the partner management function so that's something that's being unique to NetSuite and something that's worth considering so especially if you're a small or mid market company you'll want to consider this product and even if you're a larger organization and perhaps your sales staff and your sales needs aren't that complex next we can be a great option for you and that's enough tool and NetSuite at number four on our list coming in at number three is Salesforce in Salesforce has been around for about 20 years they're one of those first Best of Breed systems that went after the vulnerabilities of ERP systems and one of those vulnerabilities historically was CRM and when Salesforce started they weren't trying to be everything to everyone they were just trying to build CRM capabilities better than the leading air P vendors could and since then ERP vendors and other CRM upstarts have sort of caught up and created capabilities that are on par with Salesforce but Salesforce still has a head start they're the first native cloud CRM solution out there other than NetSuite which is also a native cloud solution on both the ERP and CRM side so this cloud solution combined with its depth of capability within the sales automation side of things is given Salesforce a really strong foundation to build on now over time Salesforce has also created a third-party ecosystem of bolt-ons and applications that can extend and enhance the functionality of Salesforce and that's a big part of the appeal of Salesforce is you're not just getting the product itself that Salesforce sells but you're also having the option to add on third party applications that can address gaps or industry specific needs that you might have Salesforce is a pretty complex product you can do a lot of different things a lot of the things I've mentioned throughout this video that other CRM systems can do and more it's somewhat difficult to maintain and somewhat difficult to integrate all these different moving parts especially if you start getting third party applications so one word of warning about Salesforce is you probably want to make sure you have a fairly robust internal IT capability to be able to manage that software and to be able to manage the capabilities longer-term but if you're a larger organization or even a midsize organization that does have those capabilities Salesforce can be a great option if you're a smaller organization there's probably better options out there that are a little bit more right sized for your needs because like I said Salesforce can be a bit complex for the simpler sales organizations but with all that in mind that's enough to land Salesforce of number 3 on our list [Music] coming in at number two is a product called Zoho and if you follow the ERP industry or maybe even the crm industry you may not have heard of Zoho but it's actually a very widely used system a lot of small to mid-size organizations use it and it has a lot of unique capabilities that are very specialized within CRM so in addition to doing all the typical CRM type stuff like pipeline management and lead scoring and things of that nature it can also do pretty cool things with artificial intelligence and predictive analytics for example there are predictive sales capabilities within Zoho so it looks at the behaviors and the activities within your pipeline to identify where the priority should be and what the highest priority leads might be and in addition it also has some pretty neat integrated social media capabilities so you can really tie together the Zoho CRM capabilities can tie to your marketing activities your social media posts your social media engagement as well as more traditional communication methods like phone and email so it really supports that whole army channel sales and customers experience approach and another strength of Zoho is it has extremely high NPS and overall analyst ratings and that combined with its ease of use is enough to Land's Ojo at number two on our list [Music] so coming in at number one is Microsoft Dynamics CRM Microsoft Dynamics is another ERP provider but the CRM capabilities are particularly strong and the thing that lands Microsoft at number one on our list is they have the right balance in our opinion of being able to cater to smaller organizations as well as large multinational organizations they have a good balance and a good mix of clients and in both sides of the spectrum and the capabilities they provide range from simple pipeline management and forecasting and managing leads and lead flow and that sort of thing all the way on up to customer service as well as artificial intelligence to flag next steps or leads or prospects that need some sort of follow-up as well as recommended next steps with those leads and prospects and because Microsoft now owns LinkedIn LinkedIn ties in very well and pretty seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics CRM so if you're an organization that's selling to other businesses b2b type of organization especially if you're selling complex products to businesses with multiple decision-makers that LinkedIn integration can be a great way to mine information about your prospects to stay connected to engage with them via social media and tracking all that in your back-office CRM system the other benefit of Microsoft CRM is that it has that Microsoft look and feel and a lot of our client users really like that look and feel they're very comfortable with it they're used to it it integrates well with office 365 and SharePoint and other Microsoft products so if you're a Microsoft shop already Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be a great fit for you in another unique aspect of Microsoft Dynamics CRM is that they have the app source third-party ecosystem much like Salesforce they also have third-party applications that are being built that can extend the functionality of Microsoft CRM and fill in some of the gaps or industry specific needs of the product and of course because Microsoft also provides Dynamics 365 is the back-office ERP system if you were to ever opt to go to their ear piece system it's a great starting point to begin with the CRM solution now the downside of Microsoft are probably its biggest downside is it does have great deal flexibility but that has a dark side as well so that can create some complexities and difficulties for organizations that don't have a clear vision of what they want and how they want their business processes to look it can be difficult to configure the product and to make all those decisions around what the product needs to look like but with all that being said that's still enough to land Microsoft you're number one on our list so to summarize this top 10 list we've given you our general ranking across industries and company sizes and at the end of the day it's going to come down to what your needs what are your sales automation and your customer experience types of capabilities and needs and what product best fits you if you're a small organization your top ten list is probably going to look different than a large multinational organization but hopefully this gives you a good starting point of understanding what those different capabilities are and what some of the strengths of weaknesses are if you use any of these products you have experiences at any of these products I'd love to hear your comments below feel free to provide comments or feedback in the fields there's anyone we missed any products you feel I should have made the top 10 list I'd love to hear from you as well and if you'd like to reach out to discuss you our CRM initiative and what products might be best for you feel free to reach out to me I've included my contact information below be happy to be an informal sounding board for you as you continue your journey so I hope you found this information useful and hope you have a great day [Music] you