Without an underlying platform, a CRM software product will crumble

Take any good product and you will notice something - consistency across the board. The interface will be the same across

* User screens,
* Reports
* Alerts
* Help pickers
* Menu structures
* Login and navigation
* Text fonts

Look deeper under the hood and you will see consistency in smaller things like

* How to recognize mandatory fields and document identifiers
* What type of fields default and under what conditions
* How does one delete, modify or view a record
* What referential integrity checks should be done during deletion
* How can one export data or send trigger mails
* How are additional business rules or logic added

Many products are built without an underlying platform. However once customer and industry specific variations occur, it is almost impossible to keep adding to the product without affecting the underlying consistency and architecture. It is like building a house without a foundation. The wise man built his house on a rock - or in today's terms a good foundation. Take any product that has succeeded over a long period of time SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, Siebel - all of them have a good foundation.

The KServe products (www.KServe.net) are all built on the same underlying platform. Take a look at CRM, HCM or our ERP products - they will have consistency and a uniform architecture. This is because we built a strong foundation. The foundation is proven across many customers, and so all our products are proven. You only have to verify if the process covered is relevant to your business and be sure that the application will stand the rigor of rugged usage by enterprise users.

Slowing Economies and CRM

The bubble has burst and economies are slowing down. It is time to cut back to the basics and the essentials. In the sales and marketing function questions different questions will inevitably be asked.

Is the sales team focussing on the right opportunities?
Can we identify the productivity of the good and not so good performers?
Are campaigns analysed for effectiveness and corrected?
Is there a need to redesign the sales organization?
If there is a plan to cut back on operations and build up of inventory, won't the sales pipeline be a better indicator than past operations data?
What are the payments due where efforts on collections can be put?
How can key customers be kept satisfied?

Organizations which had a CRM in place would be in a much better place to get quick answers, act rapidly and weather such storms - may be even gain from it. Such times are also the best times to implement a CRM since there is more leeway to create a team responsible to execute the project.