The Power Of Flexible CRM

THE POWER OF
FLEXIBLE CRM
PUBLISHED BY

YOUR BUSINESS. YOUR INDUSTRY. YOUR CRM.
Your company is unique. You have unique
processes and unique customers who have their
own preferences and demands. You exist in an
industry that has its own challenges.

KEYS TO FLEXIBILITY

1

Increasingly Flexible Deployment

2

Easy, Secure CRM Mobility

3

Moving Beyond Generic Sales Automation

4

Matches Your Unique Business

And all of this is constantly changing.
Your CRM software should be flexible enough
to handle the way you do business and keep up
with change. It’s not just about choosing the best
CRM technology for now, but the best solution for
the future.
In this ebook you’ll see how a flexible CRM is the
key to handling customers in the present and as
your business progresses forward.

2

THE POWER OF FLEXIBLE CRM

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KEYS TO FLEXIBILITY:

INCREASINGLY FLEXIBLE
DEPLOYMENT

CHOOSE YOUR OWN DEPLOYMENT
Flexible CRM solutions can be deployed in a way
that best suits your company.
What does this mean? Basically it all boils down
to one core idea: Who will host your CRM?
Colloquially referred to as “you host or we host,”
a flexible CRM lets you make the choice.
We’ll spend a couple minutes talking about
the merits of each method but before we do
look over to the right. There you’ll see the four
possible CRM deployment options, two that can
be hosted internally by yourself and two that can
be hosted externally.

70%
FLEXIBLE FACT
Nearly 70% of
organizations are using or
want to use Cloud Services

There is a lot of attention on the cloud right
now and for good reason. As the chart
shows, there are many benefits to hosting your
software remotely.
With no hardware or software maintenance costs
and the freedom to pay on a per user account
basis the cloud is very attractive.

This is especially true for companies without a
lot of IT support. In the cloud, software updates
are applied automatically and you’ll never have to
worry about managing servers.
On Premise is the “classical solution” that
has been used for years and years as an
established and highly customizable way of
deploying software.

DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS
ON PREMISE
Your CRM is hosted in-house on your
own servers. This is the classical way of
deploying a CRM.

ON PREMISE SECURE WEB

The beauty of hosting software yourself is the
ease and amount of integrations your company
can perform. Making your CRM talk with your
accounting software and ERP is much easier
when you have access to the code.

Like the above but allows for access
via a browser. Remote access is easily
permissible.

With established IT support, On Premise can be
extraordinarily powerful because your data lives
inside your company for maximum security.

Your CRM is hosted off-site in the public
cloud via a service like Microsoft Azure.

The most Flexible CRM providers will provide
options - including combining an On Premise
and Secure Web Access solution.

HOSTED CLOUD

PRIVATE CLOUD
Your CRM is hosted off-site in a private
data center. A highly secure cloud
solution, access is typically very limited
and servers are not shared.

(http://www.forrester.com/pimages/rws/
reprints/document/61581/oid/1-M28JF9)

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COMPARING YOUR OPTIONS
HOSTED CLOUD

ON PREMISE

SECURE ON
PREMISE WEB

PRIVATE HOSTED
(CLOUD)

Up-front capital costs for hardware, software
licensing, air conditioning, etc.

Pay as you go, per user, per month. Depending on if
the hardware is owned or rented – hardware rental
costs may apply

COST

Pay as you go, per user, per month, etc.

Up-front capital costs for hardware, software
licensing, air conditioning, etc.

CUSTOMIZATION

Limited customization

Somewhat customizable depending on
software vendor

Somewhat customizable depending on
software vendor

More customizable than Public Cloud but still
customizable depending on software vendor

UPGRADES

Application accessed through a web browser. All
upgrades/updates are done at the server

Upgrades/updates done on server and desktop.
Windows client needs to be deployed on each
desktop which can be time consuming

Application accessed through a web browser. Most
upgrades/updates are typically done at the server

Application accessed through a web browser. All
upgrades/updates are done at the server

HARDWARE

Hardware and software owned reside at
provider’s site

Customer must provide hardware and system
platforms to run apps

Customer must provide hardware and system
platforms to run apps

Customer has the choice to either provide hardware
and system platforms to run apps or “rent” from the
Data Center vendor

SECURITY

Access to SaaS apps is via the Internet, creating
security risks

Less risky because of on premise location

Less risky because of on premise location, however
access from outside is available. Entails risks that
need to be managed

Access to SaaS apps is via the Internet which
comes with security risks that need to be managed

MOBILE ACCESS

Accessible via browsers running on mobile devices

Limited access to business applications browsers
running on mobile devices



INTEGRATION

Limited integration

Integration with existing software is commonplace

Integration with existing software is commonplace


CONTROL

SaaS provider controls systems and is entrusted
with customer data

Control of systems and data

Control of systems and data

SaaS provider controls systems and is entrusted
with customer data

http://searchcloudapplications.techtarget.com/tutorial/On-premises-vs-SaaS-Making-the-choice

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MAKING THE DECISION
Let’s say that your company is using an On
Premise, local access solution and your company
decides to open up a regional office. You want to
continue with an On Premise solution – what
to do?
If you have a flexible CRM you’ll be able to flip
the switch and turn on Web Access so individuals
in the remote office can access the CRM through
a browser. No additional costs are associated and
the flexibility of your CRM makes the
procedure painless.

Even still, some companies get queasy when it
comes to the thought of any data exists outside
their servers. In these cases an On Premise
solution with Secure Web Access is the way
to go.

6


ON PREMISE
WEB ACCESS

Security is also an important concern, especially
with cloud deployments. This is why some CRM
providers offer secure cloud solutions where your
data is stored in a private data center.

TE
VA ED
I
PR ST
HO

PU
CL B
O LIC
UD

When deciding between an On Premise and a
Cloud solution it generally boils down to how
much your company wants to pay up-front,
whether you have in-house IT support, and what
kind of customization and integration you need.

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EASY, SECURE
CRM MOBILITY

DECIDING TO GO MOBILE
It wasn’t too long ago that being a mobile
salesperson was a notoriously lonely job.
Constant travel and disconnect from both the
home and office created a rather
companionless existence.
Fortunately as the Internet and cellular
technology matured it became easier for a mobile
salesperson to stay in touch via any smartphone
or tablet. Access to mobile CRM allows constant
contact with the office.

+14.6%

FLEXIBLE FACT

If you want to blow your competition out of
the water Mobile CRM will make this happen.
Walk into every meeting fully prepared, check
inventory and place orders instantly, review and
set tasks remotely.
This is a game changer in the CRM space.

Mobile CRM frees your sales team from a
computer and enables them to get updates on
your customers and prospects remotely and
on demand.

A simple and easy to use mobile solution will
boost productivity and help your sales team close
more deals.
You should expect your CRM provider to
provide access via any smart phone or tablet
as a standard feature at no additional cost.

It’s essential that employees can access email
offsite – why not your CRM as well? This is
especially valuable when your salespeople take
meetings in person.

Mobile access increases
sales force productivity by
14.6 percent.

(https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/itanalyst/
docs/03-01-12CRM.PDF)

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NATIVE APPS OR HTML5?
Nearly every company has implemented a Bring
Your Own Device (BYOD) policy where
employees are responsible for providing their
own mobile phone.
This policy is excellent for your employees
because it allows them to use their preferred
device with typically fewer restrictions. When it
comes to development of mobile applications
however, BYOD complicates things.
The major mobile operating systems at present
are iOS and Android, though BlackBerry still
has considerable usage among businesses and
Windows has their own OS which takes up a
small but considerable part of the market.
With such fragmentation in the mobile space, for
maximum flexibility your CRM should be built in
HTML5. No matter what phone a given employee
uses, as long as it has a modern mobile browser
it can run the HTML5.
This frees you from having to worry about
updates across multiple operating systems,
making HTML5 more reliable when it comes to
updates and maintenance.
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A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A MODERN MOBILE SALESPERSON

07:00AM

10:00AM

MANAGE TASKS
ON THE GO
At breakfast the salesperson
checks his tasks and preps
for the first meeting of the
day by referencing his CRM

10

VIEW REAL-TIME
UPDATES
A deal is struck after a
quick inventory check and
the promise of meeting
delivery schedule


12:30PM

STAY ORGANIZED
At lunch the salesperson
quickly finds the location
of the next meeting while
updating their calendar

02:00PM

05:00PM

OPTIMIZE
PRODUCTIVITY

EASILY MONITOR
KEY METRICS

After a second meeting, the
salesperson moves the lead
to opportunity status and
posts follow-up information

On the flight home the
salesperson checks their
progress toward this
quarter’s goals via reports in
the CRM

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MOVING BEYOND GENERIC
SALES AUTOMATION

DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE
Your company has established unique ways of
doing things. Your CRM processes have been
refined and your products have features that
keep you distinct from the market.
Your business isn’t generic and that’s precisely
the reason why generic sales force automation
(SFA) isn’t for you.

15%

Even if you purchase a CRM that has been
customized for your industry the “out-of-thebox” solution will never completely match your
company’s unique requirements.
It’s critical that your company steers away from
generic SFA. Why is this so important? It’s all
about process alignment…

FLEXIBLE FACT

The CRM industry has a staggering statistic:
ADOPTION RATE IS ONLY 50%
Why is this number so terrible? It’s largely due to
a lack of process alignment. If the sales process
in your CRM does not match the process laid out
by your sales leaders you can’t expect your sales
team to want to use it.
When your sales team is using Excel and Word
instead of CRM software, this generally indicates
that the SFA rules are not aligned to the way your
company does business – it’s easier to stick with
Office tools than it is to fight against the CRM.

When deciding what CRM to purchase be
sure the software can adapt to your needs. If
your CRM can’t easily be adapted you have
the wrong solution.

!

WARNING SIGNS FOR
GENERIC CRM
You cannot adapt how leads or enquires
are routed.
You need to use the ‘out of box’ lead
management process
You need to change the way you do business
to ‘make it work’
Reports and dashboards cannot show your
real business performance
Your account management group is working
in a silo with no visibility or usefulness to the
rest of your business

Only 15% of SFA users are
“very satisfied” with their
CRM.

(http://nucleusresearch.com/research/research/fivestrategies-for-successful-crm-adoption/)

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FLEXIBLE CRM IN ACTION
Companies that successfully deploy CRM do so
with flexible systems that are tailored to the way
they do business.
These companies operate within a variety of
industries including manufacturing, finance,
urban development, publishing, wealth
management, and virtually every other industry.
Think of out of the box CRM as being the
foundation. It includes your core SFA rules
however these are generic and not unique to
your company.
Customizing your CRM boosts adoption and
therefore ROI. Without customization your
CRM investment can never be realized to its
full potential.
Companies that successfully deploy CRM are
aware of this fact and take the time to customize
their solution to their needs.

13


Companies with flexible CRM
ORLANDO EDC
Economic development
commission with extensive
customization of existing data

MAYFIELD
Streamlined sales process,
shared view of client production
requirements within the
manufacturing industry

BIC
CRM customized to the
business requirements of a
large publishing company,
customized dashboards

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MATCHES YOUR
UNIQUE BUSINESS

WHAT MAKES YOUR BUSINESS UNIQUE?
A flexible CRM allows you to customize much
deeper than generic sales force automation.
Not only can you capture standard sales
information, you’ll also be able to log and
organize industry and customer data in a manner
that best suits your company.
This industry and customer specific data is
invaluable to your sales team. In this chapter
we’ll talk about some of the customizations you
can do with a flexible CRM and see how that data
can be utilized to better service the customer.
The sales potential of a fully customized CRM
is massive. When you have complete customer
information stored in one central place
opportunities for superior service and sales
open up.

Many companies store this information externally
to their CRM (if they record it at all). A better
alternative – which still isn’t great – is to put the
information in your CRM in note form.
For example, putting the birthday in a client
profile note will log the information but you’ll
be unable to search for all clients who have
birthdays in the next 30 days. By taking the
time to customize your CRM you’ll have a field
available for data entry and will be able to pull up
this list at a moment’s notice.
At Maximizer we encourage our clients to
formally lay out the data they want to log and
take the time to customize their CRM and
process rules to ensure this info gets captured.

The goal is to reveal your customers
as individuals.

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BASIC VS. FLEXIBLE CRM
BASIC PROFILE

FLEXIBLE CRM PROFILE

Name

Name

Address

Address

Phone number

Phone number

Company

Company

Job title

Job title
Lunch at Rogue every Wednesday
Favorite sports team: Vancouver Canucks
Last purchase date
Usage rate
Estimated repurchase date
Very satisfied
NPS: 8

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DOES YOUR CRM SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE?
With a high level of customization you can
also log data that is highly useful to marketing
and customer service teams, allowing them to
improve the effectiveness of your campaigns
and support.

When it does your employees will embrace the
system as they see just how useful it is. Sales,
marketing, customer service, executives, and
more will be able to use this valuable information
to better service your customers.

At Maximizer we recently had a client in
commercial real estate customize our CRM to
include tenant tracking, landlords for commercial
properties, and custom reports. The next time
marketing needs to send an email to landlords
with occupancy rates over 95% well, that won’t
be a problem for them.

For perfect alignment to your company’s DNA,
you can always build your own CRM and some
companies with a lot of cash on hand do
exactly this.

No doubt your industry has at least several
unique points of data that can be collected in a
CRM which will help departments beyond sales.
Perks include better service, superior client
retention, and a more accurate overview.
Every customer is unique – your CRM should
reflect this but it needs flexibility in order to
do so.

17


Thing is, at Maximizer we’ve been at the CRM
game for over 20 years. We’ve put tons of
resources into R&D, optimization, and
our technology.
Can you build your own CRM in a couple years?
Sure. Will it work as good as any of the other top
CRMs? Probably not - and it’s going to cost you a
ton of cash.
Thing is, you still need your platform to be
customized. Enter the flexible CRM.

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THE FLEXIBLE CRM AND CUSTOMIZATION…
If making your own CRM isn’t the best idea and
you certainly don’t want to stick with a generic
solution, the best bet is in the middle.
Your business should drive CRM process, not the
other way around. It’s important to select a CRM
that can…
• Easily create data entry rules and
custom fields

VALUE

• Intelligently adapt a specific process through
SMART information capture
• Create repeatable workflows specific to your
business to automate common tasks

18


GENERIC CRM

FLEXIBLE CRM

CUSTOM CRM

• One size fits all
• Costly to adapt
• Standard data capture

• Adaptable over time
• Customize to industry needs
• No change to processes

• Increased costs
• Expensive to maintain
• Increased complexity

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FLEXIBLE CRM CHECKLIST
YES

Your CRM software should be flexible
enough to handle the way you do
business and keep up with change.
It’s not just about choosing the best
CRM technology for now, but the best
solution for the future.
Use this easily checklist to evaluate
your current CRM software and guide
any future CRM decision.

Do you have multiple CRM deployment options?
Will the CRM deployment option meet data security requirements?
Is mobile CRM a standard option of the solution at no additional costs?
Is mobile CRM available across any smart phone or tablet?
Can your sales lead distribution process be easily adapted?
Can you easily adapt reports and dashboards to track crucial metrics?
Does your CRM enable you to keep current business processes?
Will you be able to easily adapt your CRM if your business changes?
Are you limited by the number of custom fields you can create?
Can you capture all the customer data you need?
Will your CRM be easily adapted to match your specific industry?

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NO

Ready To Learn More About
How Flexible CRM Can Impact Your Business?

GIVE US A CALL, WE’D LOVE TO CHAT
1-800-804-6299

CONNECT WITH US

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HEAD OFFICE - AMERICAS
Maximizer Software Inc.
208 W. 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC,
V5Y 3T2, Canada

EMEA
Sales +1 800 804 6299
Phone +1 604 601 8000
Email info@maximizer.com
Website www.maximizer.com

Maximizer Software Ltd.
2nd Floor, Apex House, London Road,
Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 2XH, UK

AUSTRALIA / NEW ZEALAND
Phone +44 (0) 845 555 99 55
Email info@max.co.uk
Website www.max.co.uk

Maximizer Software Solutions Pty. Ltd.
Phone +61 (0) 2 9957 2011
Level 10, 815 Pacific Highway, Chatswood, Email info@maximizer.com.au
New South Wales, 2067 Australia
Website www.maximizer.com.au

Copyright © 2013 Maximizer Software Inc. All rights reserved. Maximizer® CRM is a registered trademark of Maximizer Software Inc. Maximizer CRM, Maximizer CRM Live, Maximizer Contact Management, and other product names may be trademarks of their respective holders.
This is for information purposes only. MAXIMIZER SOFTWARE INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
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The Power Of Flexible CRM

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