Cloud Computing Is Revolutionising CRM

As business conditions have toughened, sales cycles have elongated and margins have come under pressure, intelligent businesses are seeking out opportunities to innovate in order to improve competitive advantage.
One of the fastest growing areas is the cloud computing sector, which is forecast to grow to £4.6 billion this year. (Source: Gartner IT research). One of the reasons for this explosion of cloud computing is the ability for smaller firms to access the sophisticated and complex analytical tools previously only afforded by much larger businesses. Another reason being the additional benefits offered by cloud computing solutions such as, delivering critical software applications to businesses for a predictable monthly fee whilst removing the need for initial investment in servers, software and licenses and eliminating the on-going need for management and maintenance.

Within this cloud space, one of the most accountable areas for smaller and medium sized businesses to tap into is hosted CRM. The reasons for this are clear, as investment into hosted CRM has a proven link to the bottom line, and is fast becoming a standard for growth businesses across all sectors.

Why is this? One of the main reasons is that in a challenging economy, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 performs the function of an enabling technology.

In order for businesses to maximize the value of their customer relationships in today’s economy they need enabling technologies and tools.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is a technology that allows intelligent businesses to track and leverage every customer interaction to maximize revenue opportunities and improve customer loyalty. But CRM 2011 does much more than just track customer interactions.  It also helps businesses optimise their operations by automating routine tasks and standardising best practices. Ultimately, Dynamics CRM 2011 allows businesses to better acquire, manage, serve, and extract value from their customers while improving operational efficiency—something that is critical in today’s economy. In recent research, customer relationship management was noted as a leading priority of business executives, with Forrester Research showing that more than a third of enterprises plan for Dynamics CRM in the next twelve months.

By hosting CRM 2011 in the Cloud can present additional benefit that it is run and managed on a hosted platform by a third party provider; consequently enabling businesses to utilise the customer management, marketing monitoring and sales aspects of Dynamics CRM without having to incur the expense and labour of installing and running the system themselves.

Therefore, compared with other more capital intensive options for sales growth, hosted CRM 2011 is the smart choice, as it is a technology that can be implemented rapidly for relatively limited costs and kept running by a third party provider for a low fixed monthly fee, thereby helping to ensure success, even in challenging times.