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