On-Demand Versus On-Premise CRM: Are There Performance Differences?

Call Center/Telesales Effectiveness Insights – 2005 State of the Marketplace Review






On-Demand V ersus On-
Premise CRM
Are There Performance
Differences?

Jim Dickie Barry Trailer Partner, CSO Insights Partner CSO Insights Boulder, Colorado Corte Madera, California
On-Demand Versus On-Premise CRM: Are There Performance Differences?
Copyright © 2006 CSO Insights All Rights Reserved. Terms & Conditions Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be produced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval systems, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the cases of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For additional information, contact CSO Insights, 4524 Northfield Court, Boulder, CO 80301, Phone: (303) 530-6930, e-mail: jim.dickie@csoinsights.com. The reader understands that the information and data used in preparation of this report were as accurate as possible at the time of preparation by the publisher. The publisher assumes no responsibility to update the information or publication. The publisher assumes that the readers will use the information contained in this publication for the purpose of informing themselves on the matters which form the subject of this publication. It is sold with the understanding that neither the authors nor those individuals interviewed are engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal or other expert advice is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any use to which the purchaser puts this information. All views expressed in this report are those of the individuals interviewed and do not necessarily reflect those of the companies or organizations they may be affiliated with CSO Insights, Insight Technology Group, or Sales Mastery. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective companies.
© CSO Insights - 2006 1 No portion of this report may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the authors. On-Demand Versus On-Premise CRM: Are There Performance Differences?
On-Demand vs. On-Premise CRM: 2007 Update The paper you are about to read was produced by CSO Insights in June 2006, and was based on input provided by firms who had implemented a commercial CRM application and/or a combination of a commercial and internally developed applications. As you will read in more detail, the emerging On-Demand contender was the clear winner with higher ratings in projects completing on time, within budget, enjoying higher levels of user adoption and satisfaction. Since the release of the original paper two questions have consistently been raised: 1) Is On-Demand for real? And 2) In addition to core CRM capabilities (contact management, opportunity management, forecasting, etc.) what other functionality are firms looking to enhance their CRM platform? The verdict is in and while not unanimous it is clearly beyond reasonable doubt: On-Demand is for real. In the early years of hosted solutions, arguments could be made about lack of access, speed, security, customizability, uniformity or affordable carriers. Essentially all of these have been addressed by enhancements to the applications and the ubiquity of high-speed, relatively low cost and wireless Internet access. Further, the introduction of disconnected clients, that is, the ability for users of hosted applications to access customer contact information and histories essentially swamped the most frustrating aspect of on-demand applications. And recent purchases (i.e., implemented in the past year) favor on-demand over on-premise by at least 2:1. So the answer to the first question is yes, at least until something bigger than the Internet is invented on-demand applications are for real. The broadly accepted acronym SaaS, for Software as a Service, is now being used to include all on-demand offerings, including those that attach to traditional CRM applications. Which brings us to the second qu... [download for more]