Hosted Microsoft CRM Takes Off in Small Businesses
16th Dec 2009
UK independent Customer Relationship Management (CRM) specialist Concentrix is reporting strong support among small businesses for its hosted version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Concentrix, which also offers Microsoft Dynamics CRM an on-premise solution, is finding a clear bias towards the hosted option in organisations with less than twenty users.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is Microsoft's flagship CRM application, used by a wide range of organisations throughout the world. Concentrix began offering a hosted option (often referred to as 'Software as a Service', 'on-demand' or CRM 'in the cloud') in early 2009. Since then, nearly all Concentrix's implementations of Microsoft Dynamics CRM in businesses with between one and twenty users have been of the hosted product.
John Odell, Senior CRM Consultant at Concentrix said “Over the last couple of years the idea of CRM has really taken off with smaller businesses. We're finding they prefer hosted CRM because Concentrix can get them up and running extremely quickly, and there's usually less financial outlay in terms of hardware and IT infrastructure.”
With hosted CRM, Concentrix holds the application and data on their computers (servers), which are housed in an advanced data-centre. This means Concentrix IT experts take responsibility for the running and maintenance of the software and servers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Although Concentrix is finding hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM increasingly popular with its smaller clients, it's a different story with larger customers. Odell explains “While nearly all our smaller customers that choose Microsoft Dynamics CRM go down the hosted route, our larger clients tend to prefer on-premise CRM. This is generally because they have their own IT staff and internal resources, their requirements can be more complex, and they prefer to keep their business systems fully under their control.”
Odell continues “Hosted CRM is great for smaller businesses, for organisations that are trying out CRM for the first time and those with limited internal IT resource, which is why it's so popular. However we're also just starting to see some businesses move from hosted to on-premise, simply because they've used hosted CRM to establish the benefits and can see that on-premise will deliver even better ROI in the long term.”
So how does a business choose between hosted CRM and an on-premise solution? Odell concludes “It really depends on your business requirements and the objectives of your CRM strategy. If you contact an independent CRM specialist such as Concentrix, they will discuss the various options with you and provide unbiased advice and guidance.”