CRM for Small Business has now moved to its new domain name: crmartist.com.

The original URL will still work, but all links will now point the new site. If you notice that anything is not working, please email me at - crm at danharper.org

If you’ve bookmarked or linked to the site, please update your links.

Ricoh, an office equipment supplier, has implemented a new Crossware CRM solution in their New Zealand office. They’ve outgrown their previous CRM solution, which was web based, since expanding to 45 sales representatives and additional support staff. (There’s no mention of what they used to use, but I couldn’t imagine that a system would struggle with 45 users. Maybe it was based on Microsoft Access!)

Some interesting points from this case study is the mention of mobile users on laptops. Since they used to have a web based CRM solution, this would make on the road use of the system fairly difficult if not designed properly. The new CRM solution gives them the ability to use a fully featured system off-line as well as “invisible” replication and syncronisation features.

Security measures are also a concern with this type of implementation as their entire set of customer data is fully mobile. If this data should fall into the wrong hands, it would have serious repercussions to the company. There is not much of a mention of exactly what steps were taken to prevent this data being viewed by unauthorised persons, but they’ve covered some of the holes. Unfortunately, the data is not necessarily safe because the application prevents access. Anyone with a small amount of technical knowledge can just access the database directly. Let’s hope that this issue was considered in the solution.

Read more at iStart.co.nz

Visit Crossware’s website | Visit Ricoh.co.nz

A very well written article over at ZDNet titled NAB pins turnaround on improved CRM gives great insight into the value of CRM to a business. What is especially interesting is the strategy of the National Australia Bank in light of it’s recent problems.

I really like the way that the article points out that focusing on cost cutting can really hurt your business in the long term. Whereas, focusing on customers and what you’re offering them is the best focus for your business. This focus not only improves customer satisfaction, but this in turn will always improve your bottom line in the long term. Note, “long term”, it can take a while for this direction to pay off, but eventually, it does.

Shenkel believes the changes will enable the bank’s customer relationship managers to more accurately predict when and how to offer new loans or investment packages to its existing customer base. More importantly perhaps, the CRM package is also designed to indicate when such an offer should be avoided.

This is a great example of the power of CRM and the advantages it can give your business. Information like this can mean improved efficiency for your sales and marketing teams. They would spend less time targeting customers who are unlikely to buy, which improves your conversion rate, which in turn, improves the bottom line!

Beautiful, isn’t it?

CRM Magazine are going to release the results of their 2005 CRM leader awards in the October issue of CRM Magazine. There’s no word on their website, but a press release seems to include all the interesting info.

The types of awards include an “Influential Leader” award for individuals, a CRM Hall of Fame entry (!), a CRM elite award, and the best one of the bunch, the CRM Market Leader award.

The winner of the Small Business Market Leader award is Salesforce.com with honourable mentions to FrontRange Solutions, Maximizer Software, NetSuite and Sage Software. In this category, the company announced as the one to watch is Microsoft.

Hopefully there will be more information available on the CRM Magazine website some time soon. Otherwise, you may have to pick up the October copy in print to get all the details.

I was just thinking to myself, it’s a shame that the is no awards given to small software companies who innovate and provide helpful CRM solutions to plenty of small businesses around the world. Wouldn’t it be good to have some awards given to these guys?

Please tell us your thoughts on this by leaving a comment below.

I just stumbled across a very good blog post that poses the question CRM: Is the Problem the Technology or the Culture?. It basically covers the saying “Garbage In / Garbage Out”, meaning that you may have the greatest CRM system available, but it won’t help much if it is not wisely used. Your CRM system is only as effective as the quality of your data.

Considering the cultural changes needed to embrace a CRM strategy is an important issue that all businesses wanting to introduce a CRM system should be aware of.