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A sweet deal for SugarCRM

May 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

SugarCRM has long been a contender for a CRM shortlist. Industry commentators have had it as a potential winner for some time. Recent market movements have made it a heavyweight contender and not a challenger.

IBM is leaving Siebel behind for a new CRM system based on Sugar. IBM had the largest Siebel implementation in the world and now appears to be replacing it with SugarCRM.

An IBM executive was asked why IBM decided to go with SugarCRM. He responded that there were three factors: 1) the open source nature of SugarCRM was compelling, 2) IBM liked the user interface and look and feel of SugarCRM and 3) IBM liked the flexibility of an offering that could be run on premise — providing “flexibility in where and how we run it.” IBM obviously has a strong technology expertise and might want to control its application in ways that wouldn’t be possible with salesforce.com.

IBM needed a CRM system that played well with its own forecasting tools—Cognos, SPSS—and plug into its collaboration software suite.

With this decision, the achilles heel of SUgar ( it being Open Source) has become its biggest ally. AT the same time, Salesforce’s greatest strength ( cloud deployment) has become its weakness in large deployments.

Salesforce has responded with a strategic alliance with HP. HP currently sells Microsoft Dynamics CRM but will be adding Salesforce.com to the kit bag. Let the fun begin!

Put SugarCRM into your shortlist here.

 

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Choosing a CRM vendor

June 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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SugarCRM moves into Australia/New Zealand

March 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Arguably the No. 2 CRM vendor, SugarCRM is coming into Australia and setting up an office in Sydney. Historically served by 14 resellers, Sugar CRM has announced long time employee Liz Smith as Vice-President of ANZ.

SugarCRM added about 600 customers in Australia in 2010 – not far behind Salesforce.com with around 850. They claim to be ahead of Microsoft in the local market in this respect, who sit in 3rd position. On a global basis it seems that the positions are switched with Microsoft Dynamics taking second spot.

Why are they entering the local market?  It seems that ANZ is the 3rd largest market for SugarCRM after the US and UK. Smith will open up an office over the next few months and will re-locate from her current European base.

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Choose the Right Solution

June 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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Your need – new system or replacement

June 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

What is your experience with a CRM system? If you have never had a CRM system installed then look at the section in CRM Guidebooks on choosing the right solution and vendor. Both have downloads to help you look into and define your requirements. In simple terms you need to

  • look at what you do today
  • honestly judge whether have:
    • good processes in place today (that you want to automate)
    • limited processes or structure
    • or bad processes in place ( that the CRM will ‘fix’ if you implement well)

If you are replacing a CRM system then you need to consider why it is being replaced? Is it a system that is not viable for the long term because it won’t grow with your business or have you lost confidence in it.

Similarly, if the solution did not work as well as you expected – what were the reasons – were they in the solution or were they due to commitment from your firm?

Download the  Choosing a Solution and  Choosing a Vendor Guidebooks for your business today!

Filed Under: CRM for Your Business, Your need – new system or replacement Tagged With: , , , ,