October 9, 2015
Question 1: What types of companies are most likely to adopt cloud-based CRM software services? Why? What companies might not be well-suited for this type of software?
The traditional enterprise software vendors like Oracle are using their well-established position to grad a share of the cloud-based application market; new comers like Right Now, Compere, and Sugar CRM have found success using some different tactics. Because most companies that are interested in cloud computing are small or mid size and lack the know-how or financial resources to successfully build and maintain CRM applications in-house. However, the large companies have made the switch to cloud. Company officials were hoping to eliminate maintenance and administrative costs, but not at the expense of a storage system that meets their requirements, were never out of service, and worked perfectly.
The companies that most likely to adopt cloud-based CRM software services are small companies such as Fireclay Tile, a small sustainable tile manufacturer and Large companies such as Siemens, the Wall Street Journal, Pitney Bowes and Starbucks. Small companies adopt cloud-based CRM software service to find the on-demand model especially appealing because there are no large up-front hardware and software investment on lengthy implementation corporate computer systems. Large companies adopt cloud-based CRM software service track sales performance against objective in real time and to monitor key performance indicators, sales calls and sales volume. The companies like Nikon might not be well-suited for cloud-based CRM software service because Nikon had been using different system to perform business functions and was struggling to merge customer data located on a variety of legacy systems.
Question 2: What are the advantages and disadvantages of using cloud-based enterprise application?
The cloud-based advantages as it attempted to merge information from different sources, and many smaller companies have taken advantage of a new type of cloud computing. For example, cloud-based applications can merge customer data 25 disparate sources and applications into a single system.
Disadvantage is that company officials were hoping to eliminate maintenance and administrative costs, but not at the expense of storage system that met their requirements, was never out of service, and worked perfectly and they will cost a lot of money from enterprise.
Question 3: What people, organization, and technology issues should be addressed in deciding whether to use a conventional CRM system versus a cloud-based version?
Nikon found that not only Right Now had the capability to implement that system, but also it had an array of other useful services. When Nikon discovered that it could combine outbound e-mail, contact management, and customer records into a single system in Right Now’s cloud, it made the move, expecting to receive a solid return on the investment. However, more customers found the information they needed on the Web, call response times dropped by 50 percent, and incoming e-mail dropped by 70 percent. While Nikon still hosts its SAP system internally due to its complexity, Nikon switched its entire CRM system to Right Now. Companies that manage their CRM Apps with a cloud infrastructure have no guarantees that their data will be available at all times, or even that the provider will still exist in the future.