“There are thousands of users of the older desktop software programs such as Act, Goldmine, Maximizer and others”, says Larry Caretsky, president of Commence Corporation. “These companies have been using contact management software for many years primarily because they own the license and the software has continued to operate without any additional expense.  The problem is that the software is now outdated and no longer operates on Microsoft’s newer desktop operating systems like Windows Vista and Windows 7 and does not integrate with the latest Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2010 software packages.”

“As a result, these companies are now forced to upgrade their software so it’s a great time to investigate CRM alternatives. While these companies are accustomed to desktop contact management software, they are well aware of the industry’s move toward online CRM programs that do not require any hardware upgrades or software implementation.  The interest in Commence Online CRM is based on their familiarity with Commence Corporation as a provider of CRM software for mid-market and smaller enterprises.  They know the Commence brand”, continued Caretsky, “ so we may be the first stop on their list of CRM alternatives”.

Learn more about the contact managment features in Commence’s Online CRM and see how they can help your business.

When people think about hosted CRM software they think about using the Internet to access their data.  This is because the majority of CRM solutions today are web based, deployed as a hosted service over the Internet and accessed as a browser based CRM application.

Commence Corporation has taken a slightly different approach to the deployment of their CRM software.   While the majority of businesses do select the company’s web based CRM offering, more and more are beginning to turn to a hybrid CRM deployment, where the CRM software is implemented on each personal computer with only the server being hosted by Commence Corporation.  This hybrid approach provides a full offline CRM client and is attractive to companies that do not have a reliable Internet connection and for those that would like to ensure that they have a copy of their data in-house.

Because the software is implemented on each computer, the Internet is only used periodically to update the main CRM server.  As a result, if an Internet connection is not available each employee can continue using the CRM system since they are interacting with their local offline CRM client on a desktop or laptop computer.  When the Internet connection returns, the CRM server is automatically updated with any changes that have been made.

“It’s really the best of both worlds”, says Larry Caretsky, president of Commence Corporation. “The customer can utilize our CRM software on premise and have immediate, local and offline access to their data without having to rely on an Internet connection.  Meanwhile our professional engineers are taking care of managing the server hardware and providing critical IT services such as back-up and recovery and managing the system security, such as virus protection.  This allows our customers to focus their energy on growing their businesses”.

To learn more about this unique hybrid CRM solution including full offline CRM client functionality, visit the Commence web site at www.commence.com.

Commence Corporation is one of these companies.  Commence has a rich history and has been providing on-premise CRM software to small enterprises and mid-size companies for more than two decades. In fact, Commence was the original developer of IBM Current, a desktop contact manager, and SuperSELL, IBM’s sales force automation offering. As such, Commence is no stranger to the CRM sector.  A few years ago the company expanded its product line by migrating its award winning desktop CRM software to the cloud.  Commence is one of the only companies that offers its customers the “freedom of choice” to deploy the software via the cloud or on premise.

Why Commence Makes Sense

One of the key CRM selection criteria that are driving customers to Commence CRM is that the company does not force you into a “pre-defined” box. Salesforce.com forces customers like you to select a specific product edition that locks you into a set of pre-defined features or limits the number of users you may have based on the price you paid. In fact, Commence does not have any restrictions of any kind.  The product is modular in design which means you can select the functionality you require today and add additional modules or users at any time without incurring a substantial price increase, just because you switched to a different “pre-defined” box or edition, or added additional people.

If you took a survey of companies that have selected CRM software, you will discover that many of them fell into the feature trap, where they ended up paying for more functionality than they end up using. This is because the vendor has forced them into buying a product edition with pre-set functionality as mentioned above.  This just doesn’t make sense.  To make matters worse, the majority of these companies are utilizing functionality that is standard in most quality CRM solutions like Commence, such as account and contact management, activity management, sales management, lead management, and Outlook and email integration.  Add those that also use it for marketing campaigns or mobile access and you have covered the lion share of the market.  Commence offers all of the above along with a help desk or customer support module, a document library, a project management application and integration with accounting systems like QuickBooks.

The point is this:  Trusted CRM providers like Commence have leveled the playing field and can provide similar functionality to products like Salesforce.com at a fraction of the cost.  If you’re an organization that requires a lot of users, the cost savings with Commence can be substantial.  If you are considering a CRM solution, take a few moments to evaluate Commence CRM. To learn more about Commence visit the company’s web site at www.commence.com or ask for a free CRM trial and experience Commence CRM for yourself.

The answer is no.
“If it aint broke, don’t fix it” does not apply to your small business application programs. Your application is like a good race horse, you run it until it can’t race anymore and then you retire it. You don’t try to patch it up.

The contact management sector is a prime example of this.  Thousands of small to mid-size businesses are still operating old versions of desktop programs such as ACT, Goldmine and Maximizer that are no longer meeting changing business requirements, but because they aint broke, they don’t get replaced.  As a result of this, these mid-size businesses are not taking advantage of newer web based CRM programs that are helping businesses become more effective marketing, sales and service organizations.

The great applications replace is upon us and we can’t fight it any longer but how do you go about deciding which applications to replace? See my list below.

• If it was built over a decade ago, no matter by whom, it is a prime candidate for replacement.
• If the underlying business requirements have changed significantly since the application was developed, you can be certain that it is not performing optimally.
• If the application was written to run natively on a mainframe, a midrange or even a personal computer, it’s on the list.
• If the application has a pure character interface and all of the reports are in text, it’s a candidate.
• If the application does not grant web-based access to staff or members, it needs immediate attention.  Some things to beware of:

If the application does not fit the business requirements then you have to go back to the drawing board. To do this properly, presupposes that you thoroughly understand how your business functions.

The good news about replacing older applications is that there is a large number of providers to choose from.  In the CRM sector for example products such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce.com and Commence CRM from Commence Corporation are excellent choices for managing customer interaction and improving sales execution and customer service.

About the author:  Jim Smith is the CEO of YChange International, a consulting firm that provides marketing and consulting services to small businesses. Smith has more than 30 years of experience in the field and has held executive level positions with several Fortune 100 software firms.  He is an accomplished author of numerous white papers on the subject of marketing and business development. Additional information may be found at http://www.ychange.com

Photo Credit: by Barbarossa source Wikimedia license GFDL from acobox.com

Take the recent article that appeared in Tech Vibes titled Hui Family takes over Maximizer software. The article indicates that Maximizer CRM has experienced a significant decline in revenue due to recession related issues.  While it’s clear that most CRM companies are not hitting too many home runs, this revenue decline may have more to do with the migration of small to mid-size businesses to Web CRM software than economic issues.  Maximizer does not offer a web based CRM solution.

Commence Corporation had been in a similar space, selling desktop customer management software and sales force automation software to small and mid-market companies. For many years we competed directly with the FrontRange Goldmine product, SalesLogix and later with Microsoft Dynamics after they entered the market, but even at that time it became clear that things were beginning to change in the SMB space.  Software as a service (SaaS) solutions from companies like Salesforce.com were beginning to pave the way for a migration from desktop solutions to web CRM software that were easier to implement and easier to use. While several of the companies outlined above stayed the course, Commence migrated its award winning CRM software to the web and introduced Commence On-Demand, a web CRM solution  specifically designed for small to mid-size businesses. While we still sell our desktop product, 80% of the inquiries we receive each day for customer management software are for our web CRM product and even through the economic conditions are not much improved, Commence On-Demand has experienced growth in both the number of subscribers and in revenue.

It’s clear that this trend towards web based CRM software vs. on premise CRM software will continue and those companies that do not have a “software as a service” or SaaS offering will continue to experience a decline in their customer base and revenue.