27 April 2014
I’m a big fan of the open source software movement. I’m so proud to be a supporter of what open source software stand for - freedom, flexibility and security. In fact, we’ve built ClinchPad on top of best in the class open source frameworks and libraries.
I’m so biased, I could sing the laurels of open source all day long and then some. However, when I have to evaluate the merits and demerits objectively, there are some drawbacks to blindly embracing open source software.
In many cases, open source applications aren’t “fit it and forget it” solutions. It requires a lot of technical expertise to get them up and running. Be it open source CRM, ERP, help desk system or a CMS, a business has to employ a system admin or have a consultant on speed dial.
Let us take for instance the curious case of choosing an open source CRM for small businesses. Picking one that might be right for your business is a chore in itself.
To make things easier (!), you’ll have to hire a consultant to help you select the one that’ll fit your business processes and then hire a couple of developers to customize it to your workflow.
The custom development will go for a few weeks, if you’re lucky. Then there will a truck load of bugs that the dev team will take their own sweet time to fix for a hefty, recurring maintenance fee. So much for no barriers to entry!
Yes, I’m a product evangelist for a dynamic online Sales CRM and I do have vested interests to pull people away from choosing open source CRM software. However, it shouldn’t stop us from discussing the downsides objectively. Here are our arguments:
Now that you’ve made up your mind to turbocharge your sales process with sales software, here comes the big question - which small business CRM is the right fit for your business? There are just so many of them.
Without beating around the bush, I’ll come straight to the point. Effective sales pipeline management is simply impossible just because you use a CRM system. So, visiting Source Forge and deploying the most downloaded one is definitely not a smart idea.
It’s such an unproductive and disorganized way of doing things. Most CRM software available in the market is either bloated or under featured. Finding a right solution to keep your lead management and customer relationship outreach efforts streamlined is no easy task.
Do you have the time to go through poorly written and outdated documentation? Or to read through a few dozen forum threads to see what others are saying? Are you ready to deploy a handful of solutions and take them all for a spin?
You’d be better off shooting an email to a friendly sales team like ours for a quick product walk through!
Adding features to a product isn’t hard. But, getting rid of feature creep is. If in doubt, ask the legendary Leo Babauta himself. Find out how much information is presented to your team and how easy it is for them to track a lead throughout the sales cycle.
See if they have access to a centralized communication command centre that syncs with your email and compliments it with a powerful commenting system for internal communication.
Look at how comprehensive the sales dashboard is and check if you are presented with a bird’s eye view of the entire sales process.
Try pulling sales reports and find out if the sales tracking software assists you in efficient mining and representation of data. Ascertain if the stuff that matters the most is rolled into one intuitive and effortless package.
Let’s face it. However impressive a software product or service is, there is going to be a decent number of people who would like to tweak it a bit more to their requirements. Don’t get carried away by the immense customization possibilities of open source code.
The bloated nature of open source and traditional CRM systems ensures that their massive codebase is riddled with spaghetti code that makes it impossible for many developers to make any sense out of them.
Finding and hiring freelance/contract developers to customize the CRM solution is going to be a costly, time consuming task. Hiring a developer full time isn’t an option for many small and medium businesses either. So, the advertised 100% flexibility is a mirage and there is a good chance you’ll burn your pocket chasing that!
Sales processes evolve over time. You might start with a couple of sales pipelines, few leads and a small team. As your business grows, the sales process will mature and there will be a need to add a few more layers to it.
The customer relationship system should be flexible enough for a toss and turn as you scale up your sales operations.
In a moment’s notice, you might want to change sales pipeline stages, add new team members or to try cloud based data storage for document sharing. The small business CRM solution you are planning to embrace should be flexible enough to adapt to your workflow.
Your team should be working on closing deals. Period. Beyond that, the CRM system solution should be resilient enough to handle all the grunt work. It should be as invisible as possible from usability point of view.
With an UI that was designed decades ago and with no revamp planned for the next couple of decades, most open source CRM solutions flunk the usability test. Would you be productive jumping between a dozen tabs or on an intuitive cards and columns layout?
You and your sales team are going to collaborate day in and day out. Pay a lot of attention to the usability of the app. Interface design and usability play a critical role in keeping the sales funnel streamlined. Make sure the oft used features and options are readily accessible.
The number of jumps it takes to perform lead tracking operations is another major benchmark. Integrations with major third party web app solutions that compliment your sales operations is a major feature that many open source solutions lack.
Ideally, look if the CRM software offers a fairly quick setup. Ascertain if you can create multiple sales pipelines, support multiple products and locations and if there is a painless way to filter your massive database of customer information.
As I noted earlier, it takes a huge amount of time upfront, if not money, to deploy and evaluate CRM for small businesses. Some run on a LAMP stack, some need Java or Ruby. The point is, it’s not as easy as installing from an EXE file.
On the other hand, freemium is a widely accepted business model when it comes to online Sales CRM software and you should take advantage of this opportunity. Use the free tier to understand how good the sales tracking software is over an extended period of time.
As a rule of the thumb, there should be a fairly generous free tier available for you to evaluate as well as use it in production for a reasonable period of time before you start paying up.
When it comes to evaluating features that are exclusive to paid subscription plans, use the free trial period to get a hang of it. A 14 day free trial is the standard, but, more the merrier!
Cloud apps are cheaper than the on premise version of their counterparts and you don’t have to lock up your capital upfront. Be mindful of your IT budget and the monthly burn rate when picking up a customer relationship management solution.
Besides monthly subscriptions, annual subscription discounts and the cost over the next couple of years when you plan to scale your sales operations should factor into your decision making.
They won’t advertise about it, but SaaS companies usually offer a discount on the standard rates or create a tailor made plan just for you, if you reach out to them. Just shoot the sales team a mail and see how forthcoming they are before making up your mind.
The ability to run an open source solution behind your own firewall on your premises is a major selling point. Hackers can’t get hold of your valuable business information, right? Not really.
Almost all CRM deployments have an Internet facing deployment, fancily known as the private cloud. They are accessible to people who know what the URL is. These installations have to be encrypted using SSL certificates and software patches have to be regularly applied to fix critical bugs.
Find out how well the open source sales CRM software is secured against CSRF, Cross Site Scripting, SQL Injection and other attack vectors. Remember the Heart Bleed vulnerability? Just ask yourself who will race against time to get it fixed in the production server? You, or an online sales CRM company?
Yep! Even with intuitive sales CRM solutions with a flat learning curve, it’s often necessary to seek help. Email support is good enough in most scenarios, but a dedicated support line could make a lot of difference when things get awry.
A lot of factors have to be taken into account - available modes of contact, response time, SLA, resolution time and so on.
Do remember that the community edition of your open source CRM offers nothing but a message board to get your questions answered by volunteers and open source enthusiasts.
If you are good at holding your breath for days at a stretch waiting for an answer, then you should definitely go with a community CRM solution!
Do you think I’m just being mean? Or, are my arguments something that you have experienced on your own?
