Supplier Survey: CRM to SMBs

By Brendan B. Read
Senior Contributing Editor

This month’s Supplier Survey is focusing on CRM solutions to small-midsized businesses (SMBs). After reviewing the responses to questions on market, product, and vendor trends, including in this instance about mobile commerce and social networking, one firm’s remarks have been selected to be published here. All of the replies will be appearing on TMCnet.com.

The featured company is Maximizer Software (www.maximizer.com). Replying for the firm is Angie Hirata, Worldwide Director, Marketing & Business Development:

Because of its sheer size, the SMB marketplace is extremely fragmented and, therefore, not as easy to reach as the enterprise market. SMBs don’t travel as much or gather in the same online places as large enterprises. SMBs really don't use CRM terminology, something you might find in a larger enterprise with a fully dedicated IT staff, but inherently do understand that they need to manage their sales prospects and customer databases better.

SMBs are more nimble than the giants, yet because they have smaller budgets, are very thorough in their purchase decisions. What drives them is the desire to grow, to service their customers better than their large enterprise counterparts. What’s driving them right now is the need to stay afloat. In this down economy, they desperately need to increase sales. If there’s a simple technology that enables them achieve these things without a lot of hassle, that’s what they want.

SMBs have many choices when it comes to CRM vendors to help them grow their businesses. The market has already consolidated a bit, and there will continue to be some niche players that service specific verticals or holes that the traditional vendors don’t fill. However, there is still a large market opportunity for the vendors because not all SMBs ‘get’ CRM yet. Pricing is quite competitive because SMBs don’t have large budgets and there are enough competitors where some have dropped prices.

Any business regardless of size want the same things with CRM: enable staff to do their job better whether selling to or servicing customers, build stronger and more profitable relationships with customers, and give managers the insight they need to monitor and manage their business and staff. The difference is in the bells and whistles and how that’s delivered. SMBs have always, and will continue to need a tool that’s simple for their staff to manage and use, as they don’t have the resources or luxury of time of large enterprises.

The downturn has made businesses more cautious in how much they are spending. Even if their business is doing OK financially, they are scrutinizing purchases ‘just in case’ something happens. The economic downturn has also caused some SMBs to outsource support functions that aren’t core to their business. They also are more bullish on solutions that will give them greater or faster ROI. For example, some SMBs that already have CRM now want more benefits out of it and are implementing features like lead and case alerts, sales dashboards, and mobile CRM applications that leverage the software and data they already have.

Greater wireless networks and more online social networks are creating an environment of always-on information and significantly more available information for CRM systems. With mobile CRM, SMBs are quickly seeing the benefits of taking their client information on the road and not just their contact details and maps, but history of sales calls, cases, and e-mails. Social networks are giving SMBs access to more information on people than we ever imagined. If you’re on LinkedIn or Facebook (News - Alert) , you’d better bet that anyone trying to sell something to you or partner with you, is searching for you on those sites to see where you formerly worked, who you’re connected to, and what you look like!

SMBs don’t have the time or resources of large enterprises but want the same positive results from an investment in CRM. They also want great value – not just with competitive license prices – as they look at the overall cost including support, services, training, and other related software. So we provide a solution that is easy for SMB staff to deploy and use and which we provide the best value with the lowest total cost of ownership.

We also know that SMBs want a trusted advisor to help solve problems or give advice on how to best use CRM in their business. So we have a strong channel network that will service SMBs in their locations, as well as phone and email support directly from our experts.

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