CRM is a software used by almost every company for Customer Relationship Management. It helps you reach exactly where your customers are and helps maintain a healthy sales pipeline by keeping a 360-degree view of your sales cycle. While a CRM software in itself can make your processes easier, selecting one that fits your requirement can be a daunting task. The process of selecting and implementing a CRM requires in itself ample amount of research, time and effort. Before we start with what you should keep in mind while selecting the perfect match for your company, we need to understand the two basic CRM software categories in the existing:
1: On-premise CRM- This type of a CRM software is licensed and purchased for each user. The installation and implementation are done on the company’s server. Usually, this is a one-time purchase, but for additional modules, additional costs must be needed.
2: Cloud CRM- Cloud CRM is not a new concept today. As opposed to on-premise CRM, CRM modules are not purchased but subscribed from a cloud server or the vendor’s server. It is a web and mobile based. These usually have standard modules available and can be upgraded from the available pricing options.
On-premise or Cloud CRM? How to know which is best for you?
Although there are many new models existing that give the user the benefit of both on-premise and cloud, we will be looking strictly at the above mentioned CRM class. Cloud and on-premise are both advantageous to the enterprise in unique ways. Each model has its own benefits and drawbacks. The first step in all decision making is to first know your enterprise’s goals and needs. The volume of transactions, departmental workflow, the end objective of the software, etc. identifying your need for a software makes your decision process faster and simpler. The following explains the advantages and disadvantages of both the models:
Security:
Data security is one of the most important factors for an enterprise to pay attention to. This is a non-negotiable and highly sensitive factor especially for larger reputed companies, in order to run a business smoothly. In On-premise, software is installed on your server. So you can control the data and attend immediately if there is an issue. Data security and management is completely in your hands. However, in case of Cloud CRM, since the solution is on a virtual or third party server rather on your server, data security is the responsibility of the vendors hosting them. Hence, you need to rely heavily on the cloud providers while taking regular backups to avoid and security issue.
Mobility:
Cloud CRM is more flexible by being mobile than on-premise ones. Although hybrid and two-tier CRMs allow you to access some part of your data remotely, it will not be sufficient if you want to have a complete mobile solution. Cloud CRM is a perfect fit if your focus is more on mobility and data accessibility for your sales, marketing and other departments.
Configurability:
Configuring and customizing your CRM software helps to fit the software with your business needs. Cloud CRM does not support such configuration as it is pre-designed and has a standard architecture by the vendor. If there is a need for configurations in the software, on-premise CRM is best for you. It will support customization as per the needs of your business. You must check out the best CRM for startups in 2018.
IT support:
Cloud and on-premise CRM software support different infrastructure in which on-premise CRM provides data control and visibility on the same to the IT team of the company. The cost involved in having your dedicated IT team is a lot but the total data control is in the hand of your own team, leaving you to focus on other business operations. On the other hand, in a cloud CRM software, you will need to depend on the provider’s IT team. This saves you the cost of having your own dedicated team but the costs involved in every ticket raised, if not covered in the AMC, can be huge.
Scalability:
Cloud CRM software provides scalability, which matches up with the business’s growth. For a startup, this is a perfect fit since the CRM grows along with your company and you do not need to shell out a lot of money in the start. Whilst On-premise CRM, if being purchased from a local vendor will not provide scalability and the rigid architecture consumes much time to update with respect to the growth which later results in greater costs incurred just to maintain the software.
Comparatively, on-premise CRM is much more costly than Cloud CRM but both have their respective pros and cons that help a company to run smoothly and result in effective growth as the company grows. For those just starting with CRM, can opt for Cloud CRM to avoid burning money and knowing better what they want in the future.
