There was a great, in-depth article by Jean Thilmany called "Custom Fits" (Copyright 2007, CRM Magazine/DestinationCRM.com) on the different ways Sales Force Automation (SFA) solutions are being delivered. But in trying to balance the tide between on-demand, on-premise and open source solutions, we think they neglected some key advantages on-demand solutions provide:
- Many businesses don't have the IT bandwidth to manage and customize systems to their teams and even if they bought a system outright, they would still have to learn and be trained on them to service them properly in-house. This can be doubly true for open-source tools.
- Organizations that are tapped in just their ability to support their core business strengths and values, may not have IT as the top of their list. And visa versa, sales automation might not be the top of the IT concerns either. So getting support for SFA initiatives can be challenging.
- For businesses that are in fairly dynamic markets (virtually any market that's competitive is dynamic) and require a sales team to adapt with those changes, you can change processes fairly quickly and easily with on-demand solutions. There aren't many on-premise providers who can do that without significant consultation and customization fees.
- On-demand SFAs/CRMs are more than just renting. Vendors are constantly updating and improving the service so its customers instantly get new features whereas on-premise solutions require staged upgrades, testing, budget allocation, maintenance, deployment, etc. So you have to think about software more as a utility than as a ownership. You don't own the electricity you use, you pay for what you consume.
Thilmany makes one great point, however, that with a little bit of work tuning the the right SFA solution to your business processes, a great SFA can be created. It's one of the areas Relationals prides itself on.
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