You’ve decided that now’s the time to integrate a new CRM system into your business. You’ve spent time in countless meetings determining why an investment this big needs to be made, but determining which platform to choose has deemed to be an even larger task at hand. In the market today, there are a lot of contenders for CRM business systems – so how can you choose between them? Well, one determining factor that will play a large role in the selection of new business software is something as simple as answering these questions: What can it do and how easy is it to use? Below we go through three of the enterprise CRMs and what the pros and cons are.
Without a doubt, the HubSpot CRM was built with the user in mind. In a lot of ways, the HubSpot platform is more than a standard CRM and gives you a fully unified sales, marketing and operations platform which can be hooked into many other SaaS providers for enhanced functionality. Within the platform, it's easy for sales representatives to see tasks and contact information, but also raise tickets for operations, send quotes and do a host of other timesaving automations. HubSpot has free starter features that work great for small companies, but it also offers an increasing array of enterprise features that can be added on as your business grows; that way, you're only paying for the features that you actually use.
Of the three platforms, HubSpot has the quickest implementation - generally taking around six to eight weeks - and highest adoption rate among sales teams. Sales teams love HubSpot because, within a few weeks, they can have full visibility over pipelines as well as Sidekick (which allows them to see when prospects are interacting with emails). Marketers love it too, as they get an easy-to-use platform allowing them to do contextual marketing quickly at scale. The best part: the HubSpot CRM is natively integrated with HubSpot's marketing, sales and services hubs, enabling a smooth transition between marketing and sales, as well as a seamless communication of data as a prospect becomes a customer.
From a back-end administration perspective, HubSpot offers less customisation and flexibility. But, the platform can be tailored for specific business needs. While the form fields themselves are customisable, objects within HubSpot, such as contacts, deals, accounts or activity, are fixed. Companies with highly complex sales processes may find the platform too inflexible for their needs. However, HubSpot recently introduced more customisable reporting features that puts it on a par with the more enterprise-facing solutions.
When it comes to cloud-based CRMs, Salesforce is the biggest and most well-known. Many B2B businesses know it well and turn to it first when searching for a CRM solution. Generally better suited for enterprise businesses, Salesforce offers a number of integrations and an interactive database which allows you to shape page layouts for optimal displays for sales representatives. Reports can be tailored, scheduled, and sent to individuals, and there's tons of flexibility when it comes to building automation around workflows and sales management.
The implementation for Salesforce can take around six to eight months, and there are some limitations to how relationships between certain records can be set. Customisations can drive up costs, so that's something to consider when configuring it to meet your unique needs. For some users, there may be a significant learning curve to using Salesforce, and you may need additional technical support. Additionally, while Salesforce may be the front-runner for enterprise companies, it has a lot of features that a small-to-medium business won't need right way. If you are a marketer, Pardot, Salesforce’s marketing automation tool, being frank - it’s a steep learning curve with a complicated and unintuitive interface that requires extensive input resource for basic outputs.
Like Salesforce, Dynamics 365 is generally more enterprise-facing, optimal for companies with more than 100 employees. While Salesforce is great for complexity and HubSpot is great for great a unified CRM experience, Dynamics 365 has more to offer within the business intelligence realm. It also allows you to host your data on-premises or adopt a hybrid cloud strategy for more security. Dynamics 365 takes the lead in familiarity and ease of adoption because of its enormous difference in size and scope. Microsoft’s platform is frequently used by over 1.5 billion people every day, and with that sits Microsoft Dynamics 365. Because most are already familiar with Microsoft applications like Microsoft Office, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote – users already have a level of comfort when using this system as it sits on top of tools already known and readily used.
Dynamics 365 is optimised for integration with other Microsoft products, such as Office 365, SharePoint and Outlook, but its performance may take a hit when integrated with non-Microsoft products. It requires a well-defined sales process for it to function well, so it may not be the right choice for small businesses just starting out. Although Dynamics 365 is less costly than Salesforce upfront, add-ons and special customisations will drive up the price.
Like most things in life, the answer to this isn’t simple and the responsibility is with you to best tailor your CRM to your company’s needs.
Consider the size of your business, the current systems you have in place, your sales process, any specific needs or customisations you might have, the technical acumen of end-users and your budget.
Technology in and of itself will not solve systemic problems and humans are great at using technology to bypass issues without confronting the simpler and larger issues. A well-thought out, well organised CRM could bypass all your issues but without user adoption and buy-in, it will be an expensive paper weight. You need to be self-aware of your company’s needs and your teams' and partners' ability to organise and execute with a new CRM environment.
Regardless of which solution you choose, a CRM isn’t a nice-to-have anymore it’s a necessity in an ever changing business environment. A powerful CRM will be an invaluable addition to your tech stack, offering additional insight into your funnel, alignment between your sales and marketing teams and scalability for your business.