Customer Relationship Management (CRM) suites are an indispensable part of a holistic strategy for managing end-to-end customer interactions. Selecting the right platform that aligns with your requirements is a significant undertaking.

Despite the importance of CRM selection and implementation, many organizations struggle to define an approach to picking the right vendor and rolling out the solution in an effective and cost-efficient manner.

The CRM market is rapidly evolving and changing, making it tricky to stay on top of the space.

CRM platform selection must be driven by your overall customer experience management strategy: link your CRM selection to your organization’s CXM framework.

Determine if you need a CRM platform that skews toward marketing, sales, or customer service; leverage use cases to help guide selection.

1. Define CRM platforms
2. Classify table stakes & differentiating capabilities
3. Explore CRM trends

1. Build the business case
2. Streamline requirements elicitation for CRM
3. Construct the RFP

1. Discover key players in the CRM landscape
2. Engage the shortlist & select finalist
3. Prepare for implementation

• Consensus on scope of CRM and key CRM capabilities

• CRM selection business case
• Top-level use cases and requirements
• Completed CRM RFP

• CRM market analysis
• Shortlisted vendor
• Implementation considerations

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Call #3: Define your key CRM requirements.

Call #6: Review implementation considerations.

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

A customer relationship management suite provides many key capabilities, including but not limited to:

• Account management
• Order history tracking
• Pipeline management
• Case management
• Campaign management
• Reports and analytics
• Customer journey execution

A CRM suite provides a host of native capabilities, but many organizations elect to tightly integrate their CRM solution with other parts of their customer experience ecosystem to provide a 360-degree view of their customers.

Info-Tech Insight

CRM feature sets are rapidly evolving. Focus on the social component of sales, marketing, and service management features, as well as collaboration, to get the best fit for your requirements. Moreover, consider investing in best-of-breed social media management platforms (SMMPs) and internal collaboration tools to ensure sufficient functionality.

Build a cohesive CRM selection approach that aligns business goals with CRM capabilities.

Info-Tech Insight

Customers expect to interact with organizations through the channels of their choice. Now more than ever, you must enable your organization to provide tailored customer experiences.

Customer expectations are on the rise: meet them!

A CRM platform is a crucial system for enabling good customer experiences.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS EVOLVING

1. Thoughtfulness is in
   Connect with customers on a personal level
2. Service over products
   The experience is more important than the product
3. Culture is now number one
   Culture is the most overlooked piece of customer experience strategy
4. Engineering and service finally join forces
   Companies are combining their technology and service efforts to create strong feedback loops
5. The B2B world is inefficiently served
   B2B needs to step up with more tools and a greater emphasis placed on customer experience

(Source: Forbes, 2019)

A strong CRM platform supports a range of organizational objectives for customer engagement.

The metrics of a smooth CRM selection and implementation process include:

• Better alignment of CRM functionality to business needs.
• Better functionality coverage of the selected platform.
• Decreased licensing costs via better vendor negotiation.
• Improved end-user satisfaction with the deployed solution.
• Fewer errors and rework during implementation.
• Reduced total implementation costs.
• Reduced total implementation time.

A successful CRM deployment drives revenue…

• Increased customer acquisition due to enhanced accuracy of segmentation and targeting, superior lead qualification, and pipeline management.
• Increased customer satisfaction and retention due to targeted campaigns (e.g. customer-specific deals), quicker service incident resolution, and longitudinal relationship management.
• Increased revenue per customer due to comprehensive lifecycle management tools, social engagement, and targeted upselling of related products and services (enabled by better reporting/analytics).

A successful CRM deployment decreases cost…

• Deduplication of effort across business domains as marketing, sales, and service now have a common repository of customer information and interaction tools.
• Increased sales and service agent efficiency due to their focus on selling and resolution, rather than administrative tasks and overhead.
• Reduced cost-to-sell and cost-to-serve due to automation of activities that were manually intensive.
• Reduced cost of accurate data due to embedded reporting and analytics functionality.

Customer Experience Management (CXM) Portfolio

Review Info-Tech’s CXM blueprint below to build a complete, end-to-end customer interaction solution portfolio that encompasses CRM alongside other critical components. The CXM blueprint also allows you to develop strategic requirements for CRM based on customer personas and external market analysis.

Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management

Design an end-to-end technology strategy to drive sales revenue, enhance marketing effectiveness, and create compelling experiences for your customers. View the blueprint

Eighty percent of organizations are more satisfied after changing their software vendor.

• Most organizations see not only a positive change in satisfaction with their new vendor, but also a substantial change in satisfaction.
• What matters is making sure your organization is well-positioned to make a switch.
• When it comes to switching software vendors, the grass really can be greener on the other side.

Over half of organizations are 60%+ more satisfied after changing their vendor.

IT is critical to the success of your CRM selection and rollout

Today’s shared digital landscape of the CIO and CMO

Info-Tech Insight

Technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences: IT must stand shoulder to shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for customer relationship management.

IT Operations

Service Delivery and Management

IT Support

IT Systems and Application

IT Strategy and Governance

Digital Strategy = Transformation
Business Goals | Innovation | Leadership | Rationalization

Customer Experience
Architecture | Design | Omnichannel Delivery | Management

Insight (Market Facing)
Analytics | Business Intelligence | Machine Learning | AI

Marketing Integration + Operating Model
Apps | Channels | Experiences | Data | Command Center

PEO Media

Brand Management

Campaign Management

Marketing Tech

Marketing Ops

1/3

Statistical analysis of CRM projects indicates failures vary from 18% to 69%. Taking an average of those analyst reports, about one-third of CRM projects are considered a failure. (Source: CIO Magazine, 2017)

92%

92% of organizations report that CRM use is important for accomplishing revenue objectives. (Source: Hall, 2020)

40%

In 2019, 40% of executives name customer experience the top priority for their digital transformation. (Source: CRM Magazine, 2019)

Case Study

INDUSTRY
Entertainment

SOURCE
Forbes, 2017

Beginning as a mail-out service, Netflix offered subscribers a catalog of videos to select from and have mailed to them directly. Customers no longer had to go to a retail store to rent a video. However, the lack of immediacy of direct mail as the distribution channel resulted in slow adoption.

Blockbuster was the industry leader in video retail but was lagging in its response to industry, consumer, and technology trends around customer experience.

In response to the increasing presence of tech-savvy consumers on the internet, Netflix invested in developing its online platform as its primary distribution channel. The benefit of doing so was two-fold: passive brand advertising (by being present on the internet) and meeting customer demands for immediacy and convenience. Netflix also recognized the rising demand for personalized service and created an unprecedented, tailored customer experience.

Netflix’s disruptive innovation is built on the foundation of great customer experience management. Netflix is now a $28-billion company, which is tenfold what Blockbuster was worth.

Netflix used disruptive technologies to innovatively build a customer experience that put it ahead of the long-time video rental industry leader, Blockbuster.

2.1 Build the business case

2.2 Streamline requirements elicitation for CRM

2.3 Construct the RFP

3.1 Discover key players in the CRM landscape

3.2 Engage the shortlist & select finalist

3.3 Prepare for implementation

• Tracks and captures a lead’s information, automatically building a profile. Leads are then qualified through contact scoring models. Assigning leads to sales is typically automated.

• Enables oversight over future sales. Includes revenue forecasting based on past/present trends, tracking sales velocity, and identifying ineffective sales processes.

• Tracks and stores customer data, including demography, account and billing history, social media, and contact information. Typically, records and fields can be customized.

• Provides integrated omnichannel campaign functionality and data analysis of customer intelligence. Data insights can be used to drive new and effective marketing campaigns.

• Provides integrated omnichannel customer experiences to provide convenient service. Includes case and ticket management, automated escalation rules, and third-party integrations.

Identify differentiating CRM features

While not always “must-have” functionality, these features may be the final dealbreaker when deciding between two CRM vendors.

• Workflow Automation
  Automate repetitive tasks by creating workflows that trigger actions or send follow-up reminders for next steps.
• Advanced Analytics and Reporting
  Provides customized dashboard visualizations, detailed reporting, AI-driven virtual assistants, data extraction & analysis, and ML forecasting.
• Customizations and Open APIs
  Broad range of available customizations (e.g. for dashboards and fields), alongside ease of integration (e.g. via plugins or APIs).
• Document Management
  Out-of-the-box centralized content repository for storing, uploading, and sharing documents.
• Mobile Support
  Ability to support mobile devices, OSes, and platforms with a native application or HTML-based web-access.
• Project and Task Management
  Native project and task management functionality, enhancing cross-team organization and communication.
• Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ)
  Create and send quotes or proposals to prospective and current customers.

Sales

Marketing

Customer Service

TRACK PROSPECT INTERACTIONS

COORDINATE LEAD SCORING

AI-DRIVEN REVENUE FORECASTING

DRIVE LOYALTY

AUTOMATE WORKFLOWS

TARGETED CAMPAIGNING

OMNICHANNEL SUPPORT

INTELLIGENT SELF-SERVICE PORTALS

LEVERAGING ANALYTICS

Best-of-Breed Point Solutions

Full CRM Suite

• Features may be more advanced for specific functional areas and a higher degree of customization may be possible.
• If a potential delay in real-time customer data transfer is acceptable, best-of-breeds provide a similar level of functionality to suites for a lower price.
• Best-of-breeds allow value to be realized faster than suites, as they are easier and faster to implement and configure.
• Rip and replace is easier, and vendor updates are relatively quick to market.

• Everyone in the organization works from the same set of customer data.
• There is a “lowest common denominator” for agent learning as consistent user interfaces lower learning curves and increase efficiency in usage.
• There is a broader range of functionality using modules.
• Integration between functional areas will be strong and the organization will be in a better position to enable version upgrades without risking invalidation of an integration point between separate systems.

• Best-of-breeds typically cover less breadth of functionality than suites.
• There is a lack of uniformity in user experience across best-of-breeds.
• Data integrity risks are higher.
• Variable infrastructure may be implemented due to multiple disparate systems, which adds to architecture complexity and increased maintenance.
• There is potential for redundant functionality across multiple best-of-breeds.

• Suites exhibit significantly higher costs compared to point solutions.
• Suite module functionality may not have the same depth as point solutions.
• Due to high configuration availability and larger-scale implementation requirements, the time to deploy is longer than point solutions.

1.1 Define CRM platforms

1.2 Classify table stakes & differentiating capabilities

1.3 Explore CRM trends

3.1 Discover key players in the CRM landscape

3.2 Engage the shortlist & select finalist

3.3 Prepare for implementation

IT Leader

Technical Lead

Business Analyst/
Project Manager

Business Lead

Process Expert(s)

Alignment to strategic goals is always important, but that is especially true with CRM because customer relationship management platforms are at the intersection of your organization and your customers. What are the strategic marketing, sales and customer service goals that you want to realize (in whole or in part) by improving your CRM ecosystem?

Identify areas where your customers may be impacted by poor experiences due to inadequate or aging technology. What’s the impact on customer retention? On revenue?

Define how internal stakeholders within the organization are impacted by a sub-optimal CRM experience – what are their frustrations and pain points? How do issues with your current CRM environment prevent teams in sales, marketing, or service from doing their jobs?

Describe the challenges within IT of using disparate systems, workarounds, poor data and reporting, lack of automation, etc., and the effect these challenges have on IT’s goals.

• Conveys the current state of the organization and the path it wants to take.
• Identifies future goals and business aspirations.
• Communicates the initiatives that are critical for getting the organization from its current state to the future state.

• The CRM strategy and the rationale for deploying a new CRM can be and should be linked, with metrics, to the corporate strategy and ultimate business objectives (such as improving customer acquisition, entering new segments, or improving customer lifetime value).

• Communicates the organization’s budget and spending on CRM.
• Identifies IT initiatives that will support the business and key CRM objectives.
• Outlines staffing and resourcing for CRM initiatives.

1.

Lack of a flexible, configurable customer data model that supports complex relationships between accounts and contacts.

2.

Lack of a flexible, configurable customer data model that supports complex relationships between accounts and contacts.

3.

Lack of meaningful reports and useable dashboards, or difficulty in surfacing them.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Inability to ingest customer data at scale (for example, no ability to automatically log e-mails or calls).

8.

Major technical deficiencies and outages – the incumbent CRM platform goes down, causing business disruption.

9.

The platform itself doesn’t exist in the current state – everything is done in Microsoft Excel!

• Achieving success when switching vendors first requires reflection. We need to ask why we are dissatisfied with our incumbent software.
• If the product is old and inflexible, the answer may be obvious, but don’t be afraid to include your incumbent in your evaluation if your issues might be solved with an upgrade.
• Look at your use-case requirements to see where you want to take the CRM solution and compare them to your incumbent’s roadmap. If they don’t match, switching vendors may be the only solution. If your roadmaps align, see if you’re fully leveraging the solution or will be able to start working through process improvements.

Download the blueprint Improve Your Statements of Work to Hold Your Vendors Accountable to define requirements for installation and configuration.

60% of IT projects are NOT finished “mostly or always” on time (Wellingtone, 2018).

55% of IT personnel feel that the business objectives of their software projects are clear to them (Geneca, 2017).

Benefits at 25%

Benefits at 75%

Benefits at 100%

Costs at 50%

Costs at 100%

Costs at 100%+

• How much risk is associated with the timeline of the CRM project?
• Is this timeline realistic and can you reach some value in the first year?

• Have we undertaken previous projects that are similar?
• Were those successful?
• Did we note any future steps for improvement?

• Where have the numbers originated?
• How comfortable are the sponsors with the revenue and cost forecasts?

• How likely is the project to have cost overruns?
• How much process and design work needs to be done prior to implementation?

• Is this a priority project?
• How likely are resourcing issues from a technical and business perspective?
• Do we have the right resources?

• How volatile is the area in which the project is being implemented?
• Are changes in the environment likely?
• How complex are planned integrations?

Add to your business case by identifying which top-level use cases will meet your goals.

Examples of target use cases for a CRM project include:

• Enhance sales acquisition capabilities (i.e. via pipeline management)
• Enhance customer upsell and cross-sell capabilities
• Improve customer segmentation and targeting capabilities for multi-channel marketing campaigns
• Strengthen customer care capabilities to improve customer satisfaction and retention (i.e. via improved case management and service knowledge management)
• Create actionable insights via enhanced reporting and analytics

Info-Tech Insight

Lead with the most important benefit and consider the timeline. Can you reach that goal and report success to your stakeholders within the first year? As you look toward that one-year goal, you can consider secondary benefits, some of which may be opportunities to bring early value in the solution.

• Improved customer satisfaction
• Improved operational efficiencies
• Reduced customer turnover
• Increased platform uptime
• License or regulatory compliance
• Positioned for growth

Typically, we see business benefits in this order of importance. Lead with the outcome that is most important to your stakeholders.

• Net income increases
• Revenue generators
• Cost reductions
• Improved customer service

Costs can be high when customizing an ill-fitting module or creating workarounds to solve business problems, including loss of functionality, productivity, and credibility.

• Start with use cases to drive the initial discussion, then determine which features are mandatory and which are nice-to-haves. Mandatory features will help determine high success for critical functionality and identify where “good enough” is an acceptable state.
• Consider the implications to implementation and all use cases of buying an all-in-one solution, integration of multiple best-of-breed solutions, or customizing features that were not built into a solution.
• Be prepared to shelve a use case for this solution and look to alternatives for integration where mandatory features cannot meet highly specialized needs that are outside of traditional CRM solutions.

Pros and Cons

Sales
Enablement

• Generate leads through multiple channels.
• Rapidly sort, score, and prioritize leads based on multiple criteria.
• Create in-depth sales forecasts segmented by multiple criteria (territory, representative, etc.).

Marketing
Management

• Manage marketing campaigns across multiple channels (web, social, email, etc.).
• Aggregate and analyze customer data to generate market intelligence.
• Build and deploy customer-facing portals.

Customer Service
Management

• Generate tickets, and triage customer service requests through multiple channels.
• Track customer service interactions with cases.
• There is a need to integrate customer records with contact center infrastructure.

Once you’ve identified the top-level use cases a CRM must support, elicit, and prioritize granular platform requirements.

Understanding business needs through requirements gathering is the key to defining everything about what is being purchased, yet it is an area where people often make critical mistakes.

Info-Tech Insight

To avoid creating makeshift solutions, an organization needs to gather requirements with the desired future state in mind.

Risks of poorly scoped requirements

• Fail to be comprehensive and miss certain areas of scope
• Focus on how the solution should work instead of what it must accomplish
• Have multiple levels of detail within the requirements, which are inconsistent and confusing
• Drill all the way down into system-level detail
• Add unnecessary constraints based on what is done today rather than focusing on what is needed for tomorrow
• Omit constraints or preferences that buyers think are “obvious”

Best practices

• Get a clear understanding of what the system needs to do and what it is expected to produce
• Test against the principle of MECE – requirements should be “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive”
• Explicitly state the obvious and assume nothing
• Investigate what is sold on the market and how it is sold. Use language that is consistent with that of the market and focus on key differentiators – not table stakes
• Contain the appropriate level of detail – the level should be suitable for procurement and sufficient for differentiating vendors

The MoSCoW model was introduced by Dai Clegg of Oracle UK in 1994.

Requirements must be implemented for the solution to be considered successful.

Requirements that are high priority should be included in the solution if possible.

Requirements are desirable but not necessary and could be included if resources are available.

Requirements won’t be in the next release, but will be considered for the future releases.

Criteria

Description

1. Once you’ve captured and prioritized your requirements – and received sign-off on them from key stakeholders – it’s time to bake them into a procurement vehicle of your choice.
2. For complex enterprise systems like a CRM platform, Info-Tech recommends that this should take the form of a structured RFP document.
3. Use our CRM RFP Template and associated CRM RFP Scoring Tool to jump-start the process.
4. The next step will be conducting a market scan to identify contenders, and issuing the RFP to a shortlist of viable vendors for further evaluation.

Need additional guidance on running an effective RFP process? Our Drive Successful Sourcing Outcomes with a Robust RFP Process has everything you need to ace the creation, administration and assessment of RFPs!

Download the CRM Request for Proposal Template

Download the CRM Suite Evaluation and RFP Scoring Tool

Public Sector

• Constituent management and communication.
• Constituent portal deployment for self-service.
• Segment constituents based on geography, needs and preferences.

Education

• Top-level view into the student journey from prospect to enrolment.
• Track student interactions with services across the institution.
• Unify communications across different departments.

Financial Services

• Determine customer proclivity for new services.
• Develop self-service banking portals.
• Track longitudinal customer relationships from first account to retirement management.

Common pitfalls for CRM selection

• Tangential capabilities may require separate solutions. It is common for stakeholders to list features such as “content management” as part of the new CRM platform. While content management goes hand in hand with the CRM’s ability to manage customer interactions, document management is best handled by a standalone platform.

Keeping stakeholders engaged and in line

• Ballooning scope leads to stakeholder dissatisfaction. Appeasing stakeholders by over-customizing the platform will lead to integration and headaches down the road.
• Make sure stakeholders feel heard. Do not turn down ideas in the midst of an elicitation session. Once the requirements-gathering sessions are completed, the project team has the opportunity to mark requirements as “out of scope” and communicate the reasoning behind the decision.
• Educate stakeholders on the core functionality of CRM. Many stakeholders do not know the best-fit use cases for CRM platforms. Help end users understand what CRM is good at and where additional technologies will be needed.

1.1 Define CRM platforms

1.2 Classify table stakes & differentiating capabilities

1.3 Explore CRM trends

2.1 Build the business case

2.2 Streamline requirements elicitation for CRM

2.3 Construct the RFP

Consolidating the Vendor Shortlist Up-Front Reduces Downstream Effort

Put the “short” back in shortlist!

• Radically reduce effort by narrowing the field of potential vendors earlier in the selection process. Too many organizations don’t funnel their vendor shortlist until nearing the end of the selection process. The result is wasted time and effort evaluating options that are patently not a good fit.
• Leverage external data (such as SoftwareReviews) and expert opinion to consolidate your shortlist into a smaller number of viable vendors before the investigative interview stage and eliminate time spent evaluating dozens of RFP responses.
• Having fewer RFP responses to evaluate means you will have more time to do greater due diligence.

1. Reviewing your requirements
2. Checking out SoftwareReviews
3. Shortlisting your vendors
4. Conducting demos and detailed proposal reviews
5. Selecting and contracting with a finalist!

SoftwareReviews

Vendors are ranked by their Composite Score, based on individual feature evaluations, user satisfaction rankings, vendor capability comparisons, and likeliness to recommend the platform.

Vendors are ranked by their Customer Experience (CX) Score, which combines the overall Emotional Footprint rating with a measure of the value delivered by the solution.

SoftwareReviews

Fact-based reviews of business software from IT professionals.

Top-tier data quality backed by a rigorous quality assurance process.

Comprehensive software reviews to make better IT decisions

We collect and analyze the most detailed reviews on enterprise software from real users to give you an unprecedented view into the product and vendor before you buy.

Product and category reports with state-of-the-art data visualization.

User-experience insight that reveals the intangibles of working with a vendor.

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

• Breadth of features
• Quality of features
• Sales management functionality

• Cost of service
• Ease of implementation
• Telephony and contact center management

*Pricing correct as of August 2021. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor’s website for latest information.

“Salesforce is the pre-eminent vendor in the CRM marketplace and is a force to be reckoned with in terms of the breadth and depth of its capabilities. The company was an early disruptor in the category, placing a strong emphasis from the get-go on a SaaS delivery model and strong end-user experience. This allowed them to rapidly gain market share at the expense of more complacent enterprise application vendors. A series of savvy acquisitions over the years has allowed Salesforce to augment their core Sales and Service Clouds with a wide variety of other solutions, from e-commerce to marketing automation to CPQ. Salesforce is a great fit for any organization looking to partner with a market leader with excellent functional breadth, strong interoperability, and a compelling technology and partner ecosystem. All of this comes at a price, however – Salesforce prices at a premium, and our members routinely opine that Salesforce’s commercial teams are overly aggressive – sometimes pushing solutions without a clear link to underpinning business requirements.”

Ben Dickie
Research Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group

Est. 1975 | WA, USA | NYSE: MSFT

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

Strengths:

• Business value created
• Analytics and reporting
• Lead management

Areas to Improve:

• Quote, contract, and proposals
• Vendor support

*Pricing correct as of June 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor’s website for latest information.

“Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a strong and compelling player in the CRM arena. While Microsoft is no stranger to the CRM space, their offerings here have seen steady and marked improvement over the last five years. Good functional breadth paired with a modern user interface and best-in-class Microsoft stack compatibility ensures that we consistently see them on our members’ shortlists, particularly when our members are looking to roll out CRM capabilities alongside other components of the Dynamics ecosystem (such as Finance, Operations, and HR). Today, Microsoft segments the offering into discrete modules for sales, service, marketing, commerce, and CDP. While Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a strong option, it’s occasionally mired by concerns that the pace of innovation and investment lags Salesforce (its nearest competitor). Additionally, the marketing module of the product is softer than some of its competitors, and Microsoft themselves points organizations with complex marketing requirements to a strategic partnership that they have with Adobe.”

Ben Dickie
Research Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group

Est. 1977 | CA, USA | NYSE: ORCL

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

Strengths:

• Quality of features
• Activity and workflow management
• Analytics and reporting

Areas to Improve:

• Marketing management
• Product strategy & rate of improvement

“Oracle is long-term juggernaut of the enterprise applications space. Their CRM portfolio is diverse – rather than a single stack, there are multiple Oracle solutions (many made by acquisition) that support CRM capabilities – everything from Siebel to JD Edwards to NetSuite to Oracle CX applications. The latter constitute Oracle’s most modern stab at CRM and are where the bulk of feature innovation and product development is occurring within their portfolio. While historically seen as lagging behind other competitors like Salesforce and Microsoft, Oracle has made excellent strides in improving their user experience (via their Redwoods design paradigm) and building new functional capabilities within their CRM products. Indeed, SoftwareReviews shows Oracle performing well in our most recent peer-driven reports. Nonetheless, we most commonly see Oracle as a pricier ecosystem play that’s often subordinate to a heavy Oracle footprint for ERP. Many of our members also express displeasure with Oracle as a vendor and highlight their heavy-handed “threat of audit” approach. ”

Ben Dickie
Research Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group

Oracle CX Sales - Pricing Opaque:

“Request a Demo”

Est. 1972 | Germany | NYSE: SAP

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

Strengths:

• Ease of data integration

Areas to Improve:

• Lead management
• Marketing management
• Collaboration
• Usability & intuitiveness
• Analytics & reporting

*Pricing correct as of August 2021. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor’s website for latest information.

“SAP is another mainstay of the enterprise applications market. While they have a sound breadth of capabilities in the CRM and customer experience space, SAP consistently underperforms in many of our relevant peer-driven SoftwareReviews reports for CRM and adjacent areas. CRM seems decidedly a secondary focus for SAP, behind their more compelling play in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) space. Indeed, most instances where we see SAP in our clients’ shortlists, it’s as an ecosystem play within a broader SAP strategy. If you’re blue on the ERP side, looking to SAP’s capabilities on the CRM front makes logical sense and can help contain costs. If you’re approaching a CRM selection from a greenfield lens and with no legacy vendor baggage for SAP elsewhere, experience suggests you’ll be better served by a vendor that places a higher degree of primacy on the CRM aspect of their portfolio.”

Ben Dickie
Research Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group

SAP CRM - Pricing Opaque:

“Request a Demo”

Est. 2010 | NY, USA | Private

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

Strengths:

• Sales Management
• Account & Contact Management
• Lead Management
• Usability & Intuitiveness
• Ease of Implementation

Areas to Improve:

• Customer Service Management
• Marketing Management
• Product Strategy & Rate of Improvement

*Pricing correct as of June 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor’s website for latest information.

“A relatively new offering, Pipedrive has seen explosive growth over the last five years. They’re a vendor that has gone from near-obscurity to popping up frequently on our members’ shortlists. Pipedrive’s secret sauce has been a relentless focus on high-velocity sales enablement. Their focus on pipeline management, lead assessment and routing, and a good single pane of glass for sales reps has driven significant traction for the vendor when sales enablement is the driving rationale behind rolling out a new CRM platform. Bang for your buck is also strong with Pipedrive, with the vendor having a value-driven licensing and implementation model.

Pipedrive is not without some shortcomings. It’s laser-focus on sales enablement is at the expense of deep capabilities for marketing and service management, and its profile lends itself better to SMBs and lower midmarket than it does large organizations looking for enterprise-grade CRM.”

Ben Dickie
Research Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group

Est. 2004 | CA, USA | Private

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

Strengths:

• Ease of customization
• Product strategy and rate of improvement
• Ease of IT administration

Areas to Improve:

• Marketing management
• Analytics and reporting

*Pricing correct as of August 2021. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor’s website for latest information.

“SugarCRM offers reliable baseline capabilities at a lower price point than other large CRM vendors. While SugarCRM does not offer all the bells and whistles that an Enterprise Salesforce plan might, SugarCRM is known for providing excellent vendor support. If your organization is only after standard features, SugarCRM will be a good vendor to shortlist.

However, ensure you have the time and labor power to effectively implement and train on SugarCRM’s solutions. SugarCRM does not score highly for user-friendly experiences, with complaints centering on outdated and unintuitive interfaces. Setting up customized modules takes time to navigate, and SugarCRM does not provide a wide range of native integrations with other applications. To effectively determine whether SugarCRM does offer a feasible solution, it is recommended that organizations know exactly what kinds of integrations and modules they need.”

Thomas Randall
Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

Est. 2006 | MA, USA | HUBS (NYSE)

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

Strengths:

• Breadth of features
• Product strategy and rate of improvement
• Ease of customization

Areas to Improve:

• Ease of data integration
• Customer service management
• Telephony and call center management

*Pricing correct as of August 2021. Listed in USD and absent discounts See pricing on vendor’s website for latest information.

“ HubSpot is best suited for small to mid-sized organizations that need a range of CRM tools to enable growth across sales, marketing campaigns, and customer service. Indeed, HubSpot offers a content management solution that offers a central storage location for all customer and marketing data. Moreover, HubSpot offers plenty of freemium tools for users to familiarize themselves with the software before buying. However, though HubSpot is geared toward growing businesses, smaller organizations may not see high ROI until they begin to scale. The “Starter” and “Professional” plans’ pricing is often cited by small organizations as a barrier to commitment, and the freemium tools are not a sustainable solution. If organizations can take advantage of discount behaviors from HubSpot (e.g. a startup discount), HubSpot will be a viable long-term solution. ”

Thomas Randall
Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

Est. 1996 | India | Private

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

Strengths:

• Business value created
• Breadth of features
• Collaboration capabilities

Areas to Improve:

• Usability and intuitiveness

* See pricing on vendor’s website for latest information.

“Zoho has a long list of software solutions for businesses to run end to end. As one of Zoho’s earliest software releases, though, ZohoCRM remains a flagship product. ZohoCRM’s pricing is incredibly competitive for mid/large enterprises, offering high business value for its robust feature sets. For those organizations that already utilize Zoho solutions (such as its productivity suite), ZohoCRM will be a natural extension.

However, small/mid-sized businesses may wonder how much ROI they can get from ZohoCRM, when much of the functionality expected from a CRM (such as workflow automation) cannot be found until one jumps to the “Enterprise” plan. Given the “Enterprise” plan’s pricing is on par with other CRM vendors, there may not be much in a smaller organization’s eyes that truly distinguishes ZohoCRM unless they are already invested Zoho users.”

Thomas Randall
Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

Est. 2009 | CA, USA | ZEN (NYSE)

SoftwareReviews’ Enterprise CRM Rankings

Strengths:

• Quality of features
• Breadth of features
• Vendor support

Areas to Improve:

• Business value created
• Ease of customization
• Usability and intuitiveness

*Pricing correct as of August 2021. Listed in USD and absent discounts See pricing on vendor’s website for latest information.

“Zendesk’s initial growth was grounded in word-of-mouth advertising, owing to the popularity of its help desk solution’s design and functionality. Zendesk Sell has followed suit, receiving strong feedback for the breadth and quality of its features. Organizations that have already reaped the benefits of Zendesk’s customer service suite will find Zendesk Sell a straightforward fit for their sales teams.

However, it is important to note that Zendesk Sell is predominantly focused on sales. Other key components of a CRM, such as marketing, are less fleshed out. Organizations should ensure they verify what requirements they have for a CRM before choosing Zendesk Sell – if sales process requirements (such as forecasting, call analytics, and so on) are but one part of what the organization needs, Zendesk Sell may not offer the highest ROI for the pricing offered.”

Thomas Randall
Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

Comprehensive software reviews to make better IT decisions

We collect and analyze the most detailed reviews on enterprise software from real users to give you an unprecedented view into the product and vendor before you buy.

Give each vendor 90 to 120 minutes to give a rapid-fire presentation. We suggest the following structure:

• 30 minutes: company introduction and vision
• 60 minutes: walk-through of two or three high-value demo scenarios
• 30 minutes: targeted Q&A from the business stakeholders and procurement team

• Change the visualization/presentation.
• Change the underlying data.
• Add additional data sets to the artifacts.
• Collaboration capabilities.
• Perform an investigation in terms of finding BI objects and identifying previous changes, and examine the audit trail.

Invite vendors to come onsite (or join you via video conference) to demonstrate the product and to answer questions. Use a highly targeted demo script to help identify how a vendor’s solution will fit your organization’s particular business capability needs.

A vendor scoring model provides a clear anchor point for your evaluation of CRM vendors based on a variety of inputs

A vendor scoring model is a systematic method for effectively assessing competing vendors. A weighted-average scoring model is an approach that strikes a strong balance between rigor and evaluation speed.

Info-Tech Insight

Even the best scoring model will still involve some “art” rather than science – scoring categories such as vendor viability always entails a degree of subjective interpretation.

How do I build a scoring model?

• Start by shortlisting the key criteria you will use to evaluate your vendors. Functional capabilities should always be a critical category, but you’ll also want to look at criteria such as affordability, architectural fit, and vendor viability.
• Depending on the complexity of the project, you may break down some criteria into sub-categories to assist with evaluation (for example, breaking down functional capabilities into constituent use cases so you can score each one).
• Once you’ve developed the key criteria for your project, the next step is weighting each criterion. Your weightings should reflect the priorities for the project at hand. For example, some projects may put more emphasis on affordability, others on vendor partnership.
• Using the information collected in the subsequent phases of this blueprint, score each criterion from 1-100, then multiply by the weighting factor. Add up the weighted scores to arrive at the aggregate evaluation score for each vendor on your shortlist.

What are some of the best practices?

• While the criteria for each project may vary, it’s helpful to have an inventory of repeatable criteria that can be used across application selection projects. The next slide contains an example that you can add or subtract from.
• Don’t go overboard on the number of criteria: five to 10 weighted criteria should be the norm for most projects. The more criteria (and sub-criteria) you must score against, the longer it will take to conduct your evaluation. Always remember, link the level of rigor to the size and complexity of your project! It’s possible to create a convoluted scoring model that takes significant time to fill out but yields little additional value.
• Creation of the scoring model should be a consensus-driven activity among IT, procurement, and the key business stakeholders – it should not be built in isolation. Everyone should agree on the fundamental criteria and weights that are employed.
• Consider using not just the outputs of investigative interviews and RFP responses to score vendors, but also third-party review services like SoftwareReviews.

Criteria

Description

Establish and execute an end-to-end, agile framework to succeed with the implementation of a major enterprise application.

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When contemplating a resourcing structure, consider:

• Availability of in-house implementation competencies and resources.
• Timeline and constraints.
• Integration environment complexity.

Consider the following:

Clearly delineate between internal and external team responsibilities and accountabilities, and communicate this to your technology partner up front.

Accountability is different than responsibility. Your vendor or SI partner may be responsible for completing certain tasks, but be careful not to outsource accountability for the implementation – ultimately, the internal team will be accountable.

Often vendors and/or SIs will have their own preferred implementation methodology. Consider the use of your partner's implementation methodology; however, you know what will work for your organization.

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Communication

• Regularity: Having a set time each day to communicate progress and a set day to conduct retrospectives.
• Ceremonies: Injecting awards and continually emphasizing delivery of value can encourage relationship-building and constructive motivation.
• Escalation: Voicing any concerns and having someone responsible for addressing those concerns.

Proximity

• Location: Placing teams in proximity can close the barrier of geographical distance and time zone differences.
• Inclusion: Making a deliberate attempt to pull remote team members into discussions and ceremonies.
• Communication tools: Having the right technology (e.g. video conference) can help bring teams closer together virtually.

Trust

• Accountability: Having frequent quality reviews and feedback sessions. As work becomes more transparent, people become more accountable.
• Role clarity: Having a clear definition of what everyone’s role is.

On-Premises

1. Identify custom features and configuration items
2. Train developers and IT staff on new software investment
3. Install software
4. Configure software
5. Test installation and configuration
6. Test functionality

SaaS-based

1. Train developers and IT staff on new software investment
2. Set up connectivity
3. Identify VPN or internal solution
4. Check firewalls
5. Validate bandwidth regulations

Data interchange between the CRM solution and other data sources is necessary

Pay attention to legacy apps and databases

CRM data flow

Be sure to include enterprise applications that are not included in the CRM application portfolio. Popular systems to consider for POIs include billing, directory services, content management, and collaboration tools.

• CRM suites are one of the leading offenders for generating poor-quality data. As such, it’s important to have a plan in place for structuring your data architecture in such a way the poor data quality is minimized from the get-go.
• Having a plan for data quality should precede data migration efforts; some types of poor data quality can be mitigated prior to migration.
• There are five main types of poor-quality data found in CRM platforms.
  • Duplicate data: Duplicate records can be a major issue. Leverage dedicated deduplication tools to eliminate them.
  • Stale data: Out-of-date customer information can reduce the usefulness of the platform. Use automated social listening tools to help keep data fresh.
  • Incomplete data: Records with missing info limit platform value. Specify data validation parameters to mandate that all fields are filled in.
  • Invalid and conflicting data: These can create cascading errors. Establishing conflict resolution rules in ETL tools for data integration can lessen issues.

Identify and eliminate dead weight

Loose rules in the CRM system may lead to records of no significant value in the database. Those rules need to be fixed, but if changes are made before the data is fixed, users could encounter database or application errors, which will reduce user confidence in the system.

• Conduct a data flow analysis: map the path that data takes through the organization.
• Use a mass cleanup to identify and destroy dead weight data. Merge duplicates either manually or with the aid of software tools. Delete incomplete data, taking care to reassign related data.
• COTS packages typically allow power users to merge records without creating orphaned records in related tables, but custom-built applications typically require IT expertise.

Create and enforce standards and policies

Work with business users to find out what types of data require validation and which fields should have changes audited. Whenever possible, implement drop-down lists to standardize values and make programming changes to ensure that truncation ceases.

• Truncated data is usually caused by mismatches in data structures during either one-time data loads or ongoing data integrations.
• Don’t go overboard on assigning required fields; users will just put key data in note fields.
• Discourage the use of unstructured note fields: the data is effectively lost except if it gets subpoenaed.

The kick-off process will significantly improve internal communications by inviting all affected internal IT groups, including business units, to work together to address significant issues before the application process is formally activated.

Department groups or designated trainers should take the lead and implement a process for:

• Scheduling CRM platform roll-out/kick-off meetings.
• Soliciting preliminary input from the attending groups to develop further training plans.
• Establishing communication paths and the key communication agents from each department who are responsible for keeping lines open moving forward.

Five Secrets of UAT Success

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Build a business case

An effective business case isn’t a single-purpose document for obtaining funding. It can also be used to drive your approach to product selection, requirements gathering, and ultimately evaluating stakeholder and user satisfaction.

Balance process with technology

A new solution with old processes will result in incremental increased value. Evaluate existing processes and identify opportunities to improve and remove workarounds. Then define requirements.

• Any CRM project needs to be guided by the broader strategy around customer engagement. This blueprint explores how to create a strong technology enablement approach for CXM using voice of the customer analysis.

• 70% of projects that fail do so because of poor requirements. If you need to double-click on best practices for eliciting, analyzing, and validating requirements as you build up your CRM picklist and RFP, this blueprint will equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to hit the ground running.

• Managing a complex RFP process for an enterprise application like a CRM platform can be a challenging undertaking. This blueprint zooms into how to build, run, administer, and evaluate RFP responses effectively.