How, then, can you make your company even more competitive? According to the current buzz in the small business industry magazines, to be more competitive in today’s market, you need to continue to do what you do best—but you also need to do it better and reduce the cost of doing it. A great theory, but how are you going to accomplish the impossible? The simple answer is to get smarter about how you do business.
Do it Smarter
Do it smarter—what does it mean? It means to add value, reduce waste, and continuously improve by:
- Identifying and implementing business changes that will have the maximum positive impact on both customers and users
- Automating basic labor-intensive business processes
- Consolidating corporate data to deliver consistent, accurate, and real time information through out the organization
- Analyzing the market to more effectively focus sales efforts
- Facilitating team collaboration
- Increasing responsiveness to customers
- Providing excellent post-sales service and support
- Making full use of available technologies
According to the Harvard Business Review, “some companies can boost profits by almost 100% by retaining 5% more of their customers.” Because small business success depends so heavily on maintaining customer relationships, your business philosophy needs to be customer-centric. Simply managing your customers adds value to your business, but evaluating your customers’ experiences and tailoring your business processes to accommodate what you’ve learned from them adds value to your customer relationships—a subtle but critical distinction. To facilitate this crucial customer-centric business philosophy, consider investing in a Contact Management or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solution.
Software Solutions
A Contact Management software solution facilitates the interactions between you and your customer because it allows the user to:
- Organize and centralize customer contact information
- Improve communications with customers using mail merge and email
- Prioritize tasks and appointments
- Forecast and track sales opportunities
- Export customer information to handheld devices and laptops
- Coordinate with other team members for meetings and actions
The basis of successful CRM is to manage your people and processes more effectively through user-friendly technology to:
- Streamline and automate the sales process
- Streamline and automate the marketing process
- Improve the responsiveness of the customer service center
- Analyze and predict customer behavior to improve sales and target marketing efforts
- Productively manage relationships with partners and suppliers
Benefits and Drawbacks
One very important selection criterion is which solution—on-premises or on-demand (Web-hosted)—best meets your specific business needs. Traditional on-premises software solutions, which have been available for some time, are the perfect fit for certain segments of the small business marketplace. Because of implementation and maintenance costs, or specific business infrastructure issues, however, traditional solutions are not always the best choice. A more recent addition to the marketplace, on-demand solutions offer the following alternatives for a small business:
- Purchase a license and allow the service provider to run the software
- Rent the software, with the option to purchase at a later date
- Purchase the right to use a license, and install and host the software on-premises
There are benefits and drawbacks to both on-premises and on-demand software solutions. The final decision depends on the circumstances specific to your business.
Benefits to an in-house solution include:
- Easier integration for highly customized businesses with legacy systems
- Data resides locally and is readily available
- Customization is easier to implement for businesses with a complex infrastructure
- Lower fees
Drawbacks to an in-house solution are:
- High capital investment
- Charges for software upgrades
- IT department responsible for system upkeep, maintenance, security, and backup
- Implementation can be lengthy
- Generally longer period for ROI
Benefits to an on-demand solution include:
- Low capital investment
- No in-house IT support required
- Short implementation period
- Upgrades and maintenance are usually included in subscription
- Access to information anywhere there is an Internet
- Generally shorter period for ROI
Drawbacks to an on-demand solution are:
- Monthly charges can be greater, over time, than the purchase of an on-premises application
- Information resides outside the company—uptime and data security may be an issue
On-demand solutions offer a welcome alternative to some small businesses, but companies that are highly integrated or have a complex infrastructure may fare better with a traditional in-house software solution.
