CRM Roundup
Monday, February 5th 2007 | Ismael Ghalimi
Here is the fourth edition of our Weekly Office 2.0 Roundup. Today, we will review 9 CRM applications, from Free CRM to Zoho CRM. We will identify some unique features that might help your own selection process, and you will get a chance to cast your vote for the best CRM application.
With the help of many contributors, we completed the CRM section of the Office 2.0 Database. From the 9 players we identified, 5 the top 5 can be considered as enterprise solutions, while the next 4 are significantly more limited in terms of functionality. All 9 applications are actively developed and supported by legitimate companies.
Functionality
From a functionality standpoint, most CRM applications revolve around a common set of business objects such as Contact, Account, Lead, Activity, Opportunity, Product, or Quote. They are usually developed on top of a relational database management system, and provide basic reporting capabilities. The more advanced solutions add case management, document management, and project management modules, as well as full fledge ERP functionality in the case of Netsuite and Salesboom. All the applications we reviewed support data sharing across team members, as well as data import and export, but only a handful provides support for publishing and syndication. All top 5 solutions provide a complete API for integration with external systems.
Ease of Migration
Migration from an email client such as Microsoft Outlook to a CRM system is fairly easy, and can be done by exporting contacts and events into CSV files, then importing them back into the CRM system. Nevertheless, relationships between contacts and events are usually lost in the process, unless your CRM application supports advanced integration with Microsoft Outlook, as is the case for Salesforce.com for example. Migration from one CRM system to another is a lot more complex, for their respective data models usually do not match. In such a case, the professional services offered by the CRM vendor will usually be required, and migration will take anywhere from one day to a week. One thing to keep in mind when planning such a migration is that some CRM vendors will not allow you to export your entire datasets with all relationships between objects. Some other vendors will allow you to do it only once, giving you only one shot at it.
Price
All the applications we reviewed provide free evaluation, but none of the top 5 applications offer a free version, unless you install them on premise, as can be the case with SugarCRM and vtiger. Price per user and per month varies from $5.95 to $125, and possibly more if we include NetSuite for which pricing is not publicly disclosed. Of all the services you might want to use for building your Office 2.0 setup, CRM will certainly be the most expensive, but it can be worth every penny you spend for it if you use it to the full extent of its capabilities.
Alternatives
If you are planning to use a CRM system for automating your sales process, not very many alternatives are worth considering. But if you only have a need for contact management and advanced calendaring, a good contact manager such as Big Contacts might be plenty enough. Nevertheless, the strength of a CRM system comes in the integration of multiple business objects such as Account, Lead, and Opportunity, and the ability to create new business objects. From this viewpoint, a modern CRM system is akin to a powerful relational database management system extended with easy-to-use configuration and development tools that non-technical users can leverage for building complete applications, and online databases currently available have not yet reached a level of maturity that would make them suitable alternatives, even though this might happen toward the later end of this year.
Top Players
Several CRM applications do make use of HTTPS, therefore the Alexa ranking is not as reliable as we would like it to be. Nevertheless, and according to this ranking, we can extrapolate a list of top players in the space, which is somehow corroborated by their respective Google PageRanks.
- 1. Salesforce.com [Alexa Rank: 1,534 | Google PageRank: 8]
- 2. NetSuite [Alexa Rank: 6,881 | Google PageRank: 7]
- 3. SugarCRM [Alexa Rank: 7,034 | Google PageRank: 7]
- 4. Zoho CRM [Alexa Rank: 9,039 | Google PageRank: 6]
- 5. vtiger [Alexa Rank: 16,510 | Google PageRank: 5]
- 6. Salesboom [Alexa Rank: 83,554 | Google PageRank: 5]
- 7. Free CRM [Alexa Rank: 103,250 | Google PageRank: 6]
- 8. Relenta CRM [Alexa Rank: 157,784 | Google PageRank: 5]
- 9. Solve360 [Alexa Rank: 735,130 | Google PageRank: 5]
Quick Reviews
There are only 9 applications in our database, so all of them got a review.
Free CRM: If you can cope with advertisement banners and no SSL encryption, Free CRM is a pretty good solution for small groups. It provides all standard CRM objects, plus case management and document management. The user interface is not the most sexy out there, but $14.95 per user per month remove the advertisement banners and gives you SSL encryption.
NetSuite: This CRM package offered by NetSuite is one of the most advanced out there, and includes order management, incentive management, partner management, project tracking, advanced analytics, and a complete customer portal. Furthermore, it is tightly integrated with NetERP and NetCommerce, making it a good option for small business looking for an all-in-one solution. Unfortunately, the application is fairly expensive (pricing not publicly available), and does not provide an ecosystem of partners and solution providers as rich as the one developed by Salesforce.com.
Relenta CRM: This little application is less about salesforce automation, and more about group productivity, with a strong influence from David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. Nevertheless, it’s very well though out, quite affordable, and might be less intimadating to less sophisticated users who could be scared by the flury of tabs and buttons usually displayed by the more advanced CRM applications out there. Definitely worth considering as an upgrade to Big Contacts.
Salesboom: This application is similar to NetSuite in the sense that it also provides ERP capabilities. With 23,000 subscribers, 3000 customers in over 148 countries around the world, it’s definitely one of the most active players in the field, even though it does not have anywhere near the mindshare of a Salesforce.com. Among the most advanced features offered by Salesboom are CTI, IVR, and VOIP support for contact centers, advanced workflow and process automation, project management, mail merge into Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, and EDI services. Pricing goes from $18 to $75 per user per month, making it a lot less expensive than NetSuite or Salesforce.com.
Salesforce.com: Here is the godfather of CRM as a service. Salesforce.com offers one of the most advanced feature sets for pure salesforce automation, and its new Service & Support module for customer support is one of the best in the industry. AppExchange provides integration with a host of third-party components, including the Intacct ERP, and is what puts Salesforce.com in a category of its own. Of all the solutions we reviewed, Salesforce.com is the only one that can make credible claims at becoming a true platform, and if you place your CRM system at the center of your Office 2.0 setup, it is something worth considering.
Solve360: This application is similar in spirit to Relenta CRM, with a stronger focus on email, making it a good alternative to group management applications. It provides advanced synchronization with Microsoft Outlook, and a very affordable price of $5.95 to $9.95 per user per month.
SugarCRM: Here is the leader in the open-source CRM space. With over a million downloads, 100,000 users, 800 paying customers, and 15,000 community members, it’s a force to reckon with. From a functionality standpoint, it’s almost on par with NetSuite or Salesforce.com, but is priced at a more affordable $75 per user per month for Sugar Enterprise On-Demand. Also, it provides four deployment options, on-demand, appliance, on-site, and a new FastStack, which is an easier-to-install version of on-site. It is also aggressively moving toward the project management space, which should further distinguish it from its competition later in the year.
vtiger: This one started as a fork of SugarCRM, then was re-written from scratch and can be considered as sugar free today. It competes with SugarCRM by offering a slightly more liberal license, and is enjoying spectacular growth, witnessed by an Alexa ranking of 16,510. It is not yet on par with SugarCRM from a functionality standpoint, and is not available on-demand directly from its parent company, AdventNet. Nevertheless, its support contracts are very aggressively priced, and its growing community of developers makes it a very attractive alternative to budget-constrained buyers.
Zoho CRM: This last one is one of the most intriguing we have had to review for this article. Zoho CRM was originally built as a proof-of-concept to demonstrate the capabilities offered by other Zoho tools, especially Zoho Creator. Even though it’s also developed by AdventNet, it does not share any code with vtiger, and is only available as an on-demand solution. What makes it interesting is its pricing — free for up to 3 users, then $12 per user per month — and the promise of integration with other components of the Zoho family of applications, especially Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Virtual Office. If you’re planning to build a Zoho-centric Office 2.0 setup, this one is definitely worth taking a look at.
Personal Favorite
I originally started using Salesforce.com two years ago, and enjoyed it very much. Later on, I migrated to SugarCRM, mainly as a way to learn what is available out there. I have been using it extensively for the past three months, and I am very impressed so far. I am using Sugar Enterprise On-Demand Version 4.5.0f (Build 1202), and found it very stable. Over the past three months, I have not experienced any interruption of service, and found the application very responsive. I use it to support my own GTD process, as described in this previous article, and it’s working as well as when I was using Salesforce.com for it. My only requests would be for improvement of Calendar views by displaying Contacts and Accounts that are related to Calls and Meetings, as well as the addition of a wizard that would allow the creation of custom objects without having to develop a separate PHP module.
What’s Missing
From all the applications reviewed, the most critical feature that is currently missing is synchronization with a good web-based calendar such as Google Calendar. It will become available for Salesforce.com with Spanning Sync, and I must hope that SugarCRM will add support for ICAL so that I could take advantage of it for my Office 2.0 setup. Down the road, integration of advanced project management capabilities would be a great addition, and I expect SugarCRM to lead the pack this year. A recent survey conducted by Nucleus Research with 198 organizations across numerous industries concluded that the top two categories for SaaS solutions are CRM and Project Management, and that “Project Management overtakes CRM in future buying intentions.” It will be interesting to see how the two markets eventually overlap and possibly merge within certain industry verticals or business functions.
Best CRM Application
Now that we know what’s out there, it’s time for a vote:
Note: if you cannot see the voting form, please follow this link.
Final results will be announced next week as an update to this post. In the meantime, please help me build next week’s roundup on Databases. You can use this form courtesy of Wufoo for suggesting new applications, or providing additional information about existing ones. I would also welcome ideas for domain-specific criteria that could be used for evaluating the players on our list.
See you next week!
Entry filed under: Office 2.0
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[…] The IT|Redux blog has a nice post comparing 9 on-demand CRM applications. […]
Your comments regarding the cost of salesforce.com are not entirely correct. Custom Objects can be created in all editions of Salesforce, starting with the entry level Team Edition.
Ismael,
One note on Zoho’s Alexa ranking: we used to have zohocrm.com as a separate domain early on, but more recently we have consolidated all Zoho services under the zoho.com domain. Hence zohocrm.com domain ranking is not a meaningful indicator, and Alexa doesn’t produce rankings for subdomains. But you can see the Alexa page for zoho.com there. You can see that crm.zoho.com is one of the most popular within Zoho, which is not surprising since it was one of the earliest Zoho offerings.
Coming to the rest of the Zoho suite, we do have a well received project management service at Zoho Projects, which we are enhancing constantly. We are also working on integrating other Zoho services with CRM over time. The goal of Zoho is to offer a comprehensive suite of services, very affordably priced. Pricing is personally very important to me, coming from a country where $65 a month about equals the monthly per-capita GDP.
Finally, on vtiger, it is a completely different codebase from Zoho, and it is an open source project and entity backed by AdventNet. It is the only completely open-source CRM system—SugarCRM’s Enterprise offering is not open-source at all. The exploding popularity of vtiger indicates how the market is smart enough to see the difference. vtiger’s mission is to offer a clean, healthful open-source alternative that is sugar-free!
-Sridhar
How can you ignore Oracle CRM OnDemand?
Andrew,
You’re absolutely right. I just checked, and they seem to have changed their pricing model since the last time I reviewed it. Now, you can get 50 custom objects with the Team Edition. Plenty enough to build some nice applications. I updated the post accordingly.
Thanks for the heads up!
Best regards
-Ismael
Sridhar,
You’re right regarding Zoho CRM’s ranking on Alexa. I updated the post accordingly.
-Ismael
David,
Very simple: I only cover applications that are added to the Office 2.0 Database, and Oracle CRM OnDemand was not. I also forgot to include Entellium, Pipeline Deals, and RightNow, as Scott Hemmeter pointed out. I will update the post accordingly once I gather all the required information. In the meantime, I would very much appreciated your help in completing the database using this form.
I would like to point out that Salesboom.com Enterprise Edition includes Project Management on-demand, integrated with the on-demand CRM product. Project Management is not offered by Salesforce.com nor NetSuite.com, but Salesboom.com has offered it for years. As you know, it is the second most required on-demand functionality next to CRM.
Jim,
Thanks for the information. I updated the post accordingly.
Best regards
-Ismael
Ismael,
Great writeup. I think another key item in the “what’s missing” section is remote access. Having been in the CRM space for years myself, it is the one feature that has been overlooked by most of the big guys, as well as the new comers. When I say remote access, I mean the ability to get to critical parts of the CRM application via a smartphone or some over-the-air device. Many of the players you’ve mentioned have some sort of PIM synchronization, but that requires connectivity through a PC.
I’m a big fan of SugarCRM, and have noticed several attempts to deal with this over the years. Sugar’s own lite PDA browser interface seems ok, but unfortunately they do not provide it for users of the open-source version. SugarForge also has several projects that are developing solutions for BlackBerry users, but I’m a Palm Treo user. I don’t think this is technically that difficult to do, so I remain hopeful that we’ll see a workable solution some time soon.
Nitin,
I agree with you, mobile access is usually fairly poor.
Best regards
-Ismael
Give bConnections a try. It is the latest one to join the product family.
Let me know what you think.
[…] From a functionality standpoint, the range of solutions currently available is fairly broad, from the simplest record keeping applications, to the most advanced application development environments. Some applications, such as QuickBase for example, also provide complete business solutions for project management, issue management, and sales management. Nevertheless, we will focus this article on core database features. Users interested by business solutions should consider the use of a CRM application as an alternative to an online database. When comparing online databases to their offline counterparts, such as Microsoft Access or FileMaker, the most significant feature gap is around development tools for building highly-customized forms and reports. This is an area where some progress needs to be made, even through Zoho Creator, with its proprietary scripting language, or QuickBase, with its advanced reporting capabilities, are demonstrating some very impressive capabilities. […]
[…] 1. Salesforce.com (42 votes out of 68) [Roundup] […]
I would point out that there are a couple of great CRM options that are just slightly more vertically focused, but could be used in general business:
1. eTapestry
eTapestry is focused on not-for-profit organizations, and offers an impressive range of services for these organizations. A non-profit isn’t that different than a for-profit in many ways, however.
2. Creative Manager
Creative Manager is focused on advertising agencies, but is very good for general purposes as well—in fact, I currently use it to help run a consulting company.
-Scott
Scott,
Thanks for the links. I added them to the database.
Best regards
-Ismael
Last year we tried Salesboom—it was by far the worst experience I have had in nearly 30 years in the software business. Still trying to get them to refund our fee. How this company can call themselves a CRM vendor is beyond me. They absolutely refuse to return calls, e-mails, and letters. Will be posting complete details of our experience shortly on a web site, and will post a link here when its ready. But if anyone is interested, please e-mail me directly. Please beware of Salesboom—the person writing the review up top has really swallowed there promo pitch—the delivery was shocking.
Also, we evaluated Salesforce.com, but ended up with a product called SalesJunction, a small outfit but excellent value, strong features, and decent support that responds promptly. They do not seem to promote themselves too much, but they are worth a look if you are looking for a CRM solution.
By the way, the new version of Skype looks like it will integrate with any CRM—get the Internet Explorer add on for Skype 3.0—outstanding time saver.
Doug,
Thanks for the tip. I added SalesJunction to the database.
Best regards
-Ismael
[…] Three months ago, I made the transition from Salesforce.com to SugarCRM, mainly as a way to learn what was available out there. I was extremely impressed by this open-source alternative, and described what I liked about it in details in last week’s CRM Roundup. Nevertheless, I decided to revert back to Salesforce.com, and completed my reverse migration today. Here is why. […]
[…] Alternatives The most basic alternative to an online desktop is simply to use browser tabs, which allows you to open multiple applications all at once. Now that tabs are supported by Internet Explorer, this alternative is available to almost everybody. Another approach is to use what some call a web operating system, suchy as goowy or Zoho Virtual Office. Yet another is to use an online CRM application. As suggested in this previous article, a good CRM application such as Salesforce.com is a very powerful platform that can be used to integrate multiple online services in a data-oriented and workflow-driven way. Finally, if you’re looking for a simple way to aggregate multiple types of content, such as emails and feeds, a simple configuration of your email reader might do the trick—many Gmail users read their feeds directly from Gmail, instead of using a feed reader like Google Reader. […]
[…] Alternatives The main alternative to a storage-centric document management application is an online file manager. One would go for the former rather than the later in order to get better indexing and searching, pre-viewing and editing, as well as integration with a CRM system such as Salesforce.com. Finding alternatives to workflow-centric document management applications is a little bit more difficult. One could use online faxing applications for example, but it is not clear that there would be any benefits in doing so. More often than not, the alternative is to carry ad hoc workflow processes by attaching documents to emails, which is about as inefficient as it gets. […]
[…] Ease of Migration Migrating from an offline email client to an online alternative is virtually impossible if you want to preserve your email archives, unless you have been using IMAP. If all your emails came from a POP account and were removed from the server once downloaded to your email client, you’re pretty much out of luck. Other than that, migrating is fairly straightforward, especially if your online email client supports third-party IMAP and POP accounts. Migration of contacts is usually pretty simple, and can be achieved by exporting contacts into CSV or vCard formats from your offline email client, then importing them into your online account. Nevertheless, most online email applications offer a limited set of data fields for managing contacts, and most fields provided by offline applications such as Microsoft Outlook will be lost. The best solution would consist in using a third-party Contact Manager or a CRM application, but none of the applications we reviewed supported such a level of integration at the time of writing. […]
[…] CRM Roundup […]
Unbelievable! This is one of the best comparisons I have ever seen. Although some companies on this list should not be here for lack of features, such as Free CRM!
Tom,
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.
Best regards
-Ismael
What about insidesales.com? Do you know it? And what do you think about it?
Chris,
I did not know about them. I added them to the Office 2.0 Database.
Best regards
-Ismael
My dilemna is trying to find a small-biz solution that directly integrates a web-based email client, but still synchronizes or has a mobile solution for my Treo. Do any of these have that capability? Are any heading in that direction?
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