Historically, sales and marketing departments weren’t as complex operationally. They could manage their workflows through ad-hoc tools such as spreadsheets or siloed software. However, this is no longer enough for today’s sales and marketing departments. Now they require several systems that can offer deep analytics about customer behaviors and personalized journeys. These analytical needs, therefore, drive the need for system integration for the insights to be meaningful and actionable for marketers to drive revenue.
Additionally, CRM workflows vary substantially across industries and business models. So unless your CRM supports the data model needed for your industry, the experience may not feel natural. In general, CRM is powerful when it can gather quality data from other systems and put it at salespeople’s fingertips. But getting this data could be trickier if the CRM’s data model deviates significantly from your customer hierarchies and transactions.
Moreover, the lines between CRM, e-commerce, and ERP keep blurring. These days, CRM houses functionality traditionally resided in the ERP or eCommerce. So unless you have a streamlined architecture in place with clear roles and responsibilities identified for each system with a source of authority for each dataset, you might have adoption and data integrity issues.
Consequently, these challenges make CRM selection extremely difficult. So you need to understand the pros and cons of different options available to you. And this list does just that.
To finalize this list, we have analyzed hundreds of enterprise software vendors and their capabilities through publicly available information and our teams’ experience evaluating these systems for our customers.
To be clear, the purpose of this article is not to recommend these CRM systems. Instead, you must carefully analyze your requirements and find a suitable product from this list or a list from your industry/market segment.
SAP C/4 HANA is part of the S/4 suite with several best-of-breed CRM options in the CX portfolio, such as sales, marketing, and service cloud. Primarily, it targets large utility, finance, and public sector companies. In general, the solution would fit companies that require deeper regulatory workflow as part of the CRM processes and might already utilize other SAP offerings. However, it would not be a fit for smaller companies or the companies not on SAP.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Oracle CX Cloud contains several best-of-breed CRM offerings such as sales, marketing, service, content management, and advertising cloud. Primarily, it targets large B2C companies such as communications, media, and financial services, where they have a more profound need for content collaboration and centralized advertising management. However, it’s not as strong for large enterprises that require regulated controls as part of their CRM workflow.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Zendesk Sell is a new entrant in the market after Zendesk’s acquisition of Base CRM. And it targets smaller companies with under 10-15 employees that might already be on Zendesk for customer support. However, it’s not an excellent fit for companies mature in their sales and marketing organization and seeking robust CRM with sales ops planning, marketing automation, and territory management.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Monday.com is another new entrant in the CRM market and targets small companies that might already be on it for project management. It also targets companies with unique CRM workflow needs, such as real estate and non-profits. However, it’s not an excellent fit for larger companies that need tight data integrity and standardized workflows for their CRM processes.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
SugarCRM targets smaller companies that might need free or open-source software. It also targets companies with unique CRM workflows, as having access to the code will allow them to tailor the experience for their needs. However, it’s not suitable for large companies looking for a robust CRM solution.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Pipedrive CRM targets smaller companies and solo founders with limited budgets that need an entry-level CRM to manage customer interactions. However, it’s not suitable for larger companies with mature CRM processes with the need for territory planning, quoting, and sales compensation management.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Zoho CRM targets smaller professional services companies such as marketing agencies, tech startups, and software development companies. It is especially suitable for companies that might already use Zoho for HCM or accounting. However, it’s not an excellent fit for product-centric organizations that need advanced CRM capabilities.
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HubSpot CRM offers a free option for companies that might already use it for marketing automation. In general, it could be an excellent fit for companies with simpler customer master and data model needs. However, it’s not suitable for large companies with complex customer masters such as buying groups or associations as their customers.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM targets mid-to-large-sized companies. In general, it’s especially suitable for companies that might use other Microsoft products such as Dynamics 365 ERP products. However, it’s not suitable for smaller companies that find the fluidity of the data model of other smaller systems such as Zendesk or HubSpot attractive.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Salesforce targets companies of all sizes, including an extremely friendly version for startups. It’s especially suitable for companies with complex CRM workflows. However, it’s not suitable for companies with custom CRM processes, such as real estate or non-profit, as the out-of-the-box options for these industries are likely to be limited.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
As customer experience becomes crucial in winning deals, sales and marketing departments will likely need deeper CRM capabilities. They will also need a centralized view of their customers at each step of their journey, whether in the pre-sales phase or post-sales.
And unless you have a CRM that provides a centralized workflow and interaction management platform, it might be more challenging for your business to compete in today’s market conditions. So if you are in the market to evaluate your next CRM system, pay attention to the points mentioned above. And hopefully, this list can help narrow down some options for you.
Generally, the CRM module offered as part of the ERP system is pre-integrated with the ERP. But the standalone CRM will have richer pre-sales process and marketing automation capabilities that might not be possible through the CRM module provided as part of your ERP system.
Typically, the campaign management functionality provided as part of the ERP system doesn’t offer the capabilities marketing teams need to create the email experience they would need to get results from their marketing campaigns.
For the most part, CRM systems would need to be connected to the ERP system to get the pricing information, send sales orders to the ERP, and get customer information from the ERP. And if the data model is aligned with these two systems, there might be integration challenges in keeping the information in the appropriate hierarchy.
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