CRM buyers and vendors tend to overlook the current performance of a business before implementing a new CRM system and therefore have no baseline data in which to calculate ROI.

In this blog we will show and monitor ways to identify sales performance.

Sales Performance

In this example, baseline data is taken at the start of the project and is calculated from historical data.  This information will be used and compared throughout the life of a new CRM so that the company can monitor the overall benefits of implementing a new CRM system.

In the following example we are gauging what percentage of sales enquiries actually turn into paying customers. We can see that out of a total of 137 leads provided to a salesperson, 61 became paying customers.

The aim here, over time, is to take snapshots of this gauge to see how the performance improves.

Of course, there will be many factors that affect this gauge (e.g. reducing the number of poor quality leads provided to the sales team in the first place may reduce the number of overall opportunities but will free up the sales team to focus on the better quality opportunities).

Pipeline Management

What you are not able to determine from the gauge above is the health of your sales and marketing pipeline.  For example, the indicator gauge may be all the way into the green section because there are, say, 10 deals that have been won from all 10 sales leads.  A 100% conversion rate!  This is not much use to a business if they need 1000 deals to break even.

This is where sales opportunities need to be qualified and categorised into “sales stages”.  In the following example we are able to check the relative health of the pipeline in order to determine where our efforts are best focussed.

This funnel chart shows a reasonably balanced sales pipeline however the initial segment “Prospecting Stage” is thin relative to the other sections which might mean we need to increase our lead generating activities in order to keep the funnel topped up.

A funnel chart has many other benefits to help the sales team and management focus on increasing sales to closure rates, ensuring deals do not stagnate at any one point in the cycle and ultimately to keep the control of the business.

In our next blog we will look at how to spend a marketing budget wisely using advanced lead source analysis techniques.

We're pleased to announce that SouthwestCRM has become an official Jitterbit Partner in the UK.  Although we have worked with Jitterbit for some time now, making the relationship official proves our commitment to this exciting technology and ensures that our clients remain well supported.

Jitterbit is the glue between different business applications and databases.  It keeps your data in sync or acts as a data migration solution.  The following list is just a few of the projects SouthwestCRM has used Jitterbit on:

• Real time sync of Infor System 21 ERP data on AS400 to SugarCRM Pro system
• Quickbooks to SugarCRM Pro
• IRIS Practice Management system to SugarCRM CE
• vTiger data transfer to SugarCRM Pro
• Multiple SugarCRM instances into one central data warehouse
• Migration over 6 months from a SQL Server bespoke database to SugarCRM Pro

If your organisation has complex data integration or extraction requirements then we would like to hear from you.

Further information on jitterbit can be found here

IRIS is an accomplished practice management system which until recently lacked an effective CRM solution.  Accountants had to manage out of date spreadsheets and ineffective information for their marketing and growth strategies.   Some client communications can also be embarrassing.  For example, if they do not appear to know what client communication has gone on previously, or worse if they send a Christmas card to a client who has died.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is key to avoiding these situations and offers new ways of selling more services to existing clients, drives the marketing activity which produces new clients, creates growth for the firm and ultimately leadership in its sector.

The difficulty for IRIS is that it is not focussed on CRM.  What it does well in practice management, it does not do (or claim to do) in CRM.

Many practices will implement a CRM system or run a mix of technologies that aim to capture information on clients, prospective clients and markets.  The marketing department will use this information to identify what messages might suit a client or market and engage in proactive client-focussed marketing campaigns.  For example, to send a new service offering to existing clients of service A in the hope that the client takes new service B.

Then the challenge begins.  When someone in the practice updates information on a client in IRIS, this update needs to be reflected in the firms CRM.  Or Vise Versa.  Maybe the address has changed or the status of the client has changed from Client to Premier Client.  Or the client just died....  Does all marketing of service A need to change?

Fortunately, there is light at the end of the tunnel for existing IRIS users as SouthwestCRM has completed a development that seamlessly links IRIS to SugarCRM the world's largest and most successful Open Source based CRM solution.

The software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering means that your existing IRIS system and the hardware that it runs upon carry on as normal completely unaffected.  SouthwestCRM connects to it to synchronise Business, Person and Trust data.  Client attributes are passed to SugarCRM so that the practice can easily target clients in new marketing initiatives.  When contact details change in IRIS these changes are updated in SugarCRM.

The investment cost is tiny when compared to the increase in client win rates and additional revenue achieved per client.  For a small annual fee the two systems are kept in sync using SouthwestCRM's custom built integration service and secure dedicated 128bit encrypted server.

For further information please contact the marketing department on 0845 686 2468 or email crm4iris@southwestict.com

With over 30 years’ experience, IRIS Accountancy Solutions is the UK’s leading provider of fully integrated accountancy software and services so it made sense for SouthwestCRM to link SugarCRM, a globally supported CRM solution to IRIS.

Businesses and people stored within IRIS are seamlessly transferred to SugarCRM when new or updated information is added to IRIS.  Once in SugarCRM staff members are able to use the information to build closer client relationships, upsell new services and use social networks to gain more insight into buying habits and new markets.

Some of the main advantages of using SugarCRM are:

• Newsletter management
• Email marketing
• LinkedIn customer profiling
• Communication tracking
• Capture and track new business opportunities

The key to integration is to streamline the day to day management of information.  Without the link, entering data would need to be carried out twice.  For busy staff and partners, SugarCRM offers a straightforward and easy to use system for storing, retrieving and categorising  clients, prospects and networking activities.

One key weakness of SugarCRM is the pretty poor PDF printing. We use JasperReports and the pixel-perfect iReports designer to produce stunning output.  For example, SugarCRM's Quotes module has a "Print PDF" feature which is a fixed layout affair enabling you, the company, to change only the logo.  Yikes!

So, we built a stylish quotation PDF report using iReport designer and changed the "print PDF" button on the SugarCRM quote screen so that our layout is used and not the default layout.

Here's an example....

We have used Jasper to great effect and have gone as far as replicating the HMRC's standard Gift Aid forms.

If you fancy DIY, the software is entirely free of charge but you will need to install iReports designer on your PC, JasperReports Server on a server in the cloud and you'll need to know how to create a few lines of custom code in SugarCRM.  Alternatively, call us and we'll be delighted to do it all for you :)

To say we are excited about Jitterbit is clearly an understatement.  What a great product!

In a nutshell, Jitterbit makes it possible to move data from one place to another in a snip.  Here are some examples of how we have utilised Jitterbit.

• Take SugarCRM Community Edition, add a last activity date custom field and use Jitterbit to populate it with the current date when any related record is added or updated
• Use Jitterbit to extract all invoices and bills out of QuickBooks and insert into a custom module in Sugar linked to related Accounts
• Take donations made in a Joomla site (any donation component will work) and insert into SugarCRM.
• Create one central SugarCRM data warehouse and populate it with all records from many other SugarCRM sites (e.g. Country-specific CRMs).
• Migrate CRM data from your old CRM to your new CRM.  Don't fiddle about with exporting/importing CSV files!

We love it.  Call us or click here for more info

General Guidelines

Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise are designed to scale without needing significant additional resources. Internal tests have shown that a single high power server with eight 86x64CPU cores, 16GB of RAM and enterprise storage running the entire application stack (Sugar application, PHP, web server and database server) can support up to 400 of concurrent Sugar users.

These sizing guidelines are based upon scalability testing performed using routine tasks, such as viewing records and occasional editing of records, with minimal use of the Sugar reporting module. More resource-intensive use of the system may result in a noticeable decrease in system performance.

Under most generally accepted use case scenarios, 400 concurrent users will represent far more named users of the Sugar system, as it is rare that all users will be accessing the system simultaneously. A common use case is to assume 25% concurrency, in which a single server described above can support 1,600 named Sugar users (400 concurrent users x 4).

Storage requirements for any CRM deployment vary greatly depending on the scope and usage of the Sugar application. Specifically, storing large amounts of email attachments, media files or other documents in the system will greatly increase storage requirements. Note that Sugar stores documents on the server file system and not in the database.

For estimating database sizing, a single record stored in Sugar will average approximately 2kB in size. With 10,000 records in the system ranging across common record types such as contacts, accounts, opportunities, a typical Sugar deployment would require at least 20MB of database storage. A pre-deployment assessment of the data to be imported into the system can insure proper storage is provisioned for the system.

Guidelines for Single Server, Virtualized, and Cloud Server Deployments

In low compute power, single server configurations where the web server and database server are deployed on the same physical or virtual machine, the number of concurrent users supported decreases significantly. Machines with less than 4GB of RAM, fewer than four CPU cores, and virtualized or consumer-grade disks will experience sharp performance drops when running both the web server and database server on the same machine.

For Sugar deployments with more than 50 named users, a single server configuration must have four or more CPU cores and eight or more GB of RAM. For more then 100 named users, please refer to the guidelines for large deployments. Please consult the table below to determine a more specific hardware configuration.

Configuration Guidelines for Single Server Deployments

Guidelines for High Availability and Large Scale Deployments

For large scale and high availability (HA) deployments, please refer to the diagram below. In general, the application stack will be partitioned across multiple servers with the web server clustered across multiple application servers and the database server clustered across multiple database servers.

This diagram describes a generic cluster configuration that will scale as more hardware is added. A base guideline of 400 concurrent users per application server will determine the number of application servers needed. The number of database servers needed depends on system usage, however tests have shown that a high-powered database cluster can typically support up to eight application servers. Note that this diagram has been designed around the Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL (LAMP) technologies.

One way to determine if you are focusing on profitable customers is to use a simple matrix where by you categorise each of your customers based on value and effort.  I have attempted to demonstrate how this might look for a business but it can be adapted to suit your own particular business.

In the following chart we have two axis.  The vertical axis showing the amount of EFFORT from low to high.  The horizontal axis showing VALUE low to high.  By plotting your customers in one of the resulting quadrants you can determine which customers are the right kind of target for your business.

In the above example you would want to focus on the bottom right quadrant and seek to attract the type of client that sits here.

You can take this a step further by working out where the customers have orginated from and thereby establish where to focus your marketing effort.  In the following example we can see that 70% of the low value high effort sales (the worst!) came from networking and email marketing whereas only 15% of the high value low effort sales (the best!) were through these routes.  We could conclude that our time and effort is better spent advertising (45% of high value low effort business) and not waste time networking and email marketing (or at least consider the quality and approach of these activities).

You can use this system for many aspects of business including by products and services you sell.  The final chart is by product widget where, in this example, Widget A only accounts for 3% of high value sales and Widget C is a low effort sale.

Finally, if you cannot easily produce the kind of information shown here then maybe you need to review your CRM systems and processes and contact us to help you attract and acquire the right kind of customers!

Go on... I Dare you... Click on the Contact Us button at the top of this page :)

Naturally, the last thing on your mind when you're buying a new CRM system is how the data and associated information can be extracted when you want to move to another CRM system.

Ok, so by and large your decision today is based on a long term implementation that should stay with you for the forseeable future.  Right?  Maybe, but new technologies come along all the time that can steer a business away from its current system.  Notwithstanding change of course.  A change of process, expansion, a merger or acquisition etc.

When we talk about data it is not only about contact names and addresses which, moreorless, can be transfered from CRM system to CRM system as a press of the export/import buttons.  No, the real dilemmas start when transfering the associated information such as all the documents attached to contacts, the history of meetings and actions, attached support incidents, past and present sales opportunities, projects and so on.

A while back we migrated a customers CRM system from their existing Salesforce implementation over to a SugarCRM Professional implementation.  It transpired that all the Microsoft Word documents that were attached to contacts, past meetings and activity records in Salesforce were stored inside the database and were not held as file attachments outside of the database.  More to the point Salesforce provides no automatic extraction process and this meant the customer had to access each document within Salesforce (before their contract expired) and download them individually.  Needless to say the customer was not happy since all these documents were no longer associated to their corresponding CRM record.  Painful.

ETL tools like Jitterbit and Talend help overcome many of these issues but a migration should not be undertaken without considering the full implications upfront.  Including the cost.

Another factor that needs to be considered is the time taken to carry out the data transfer.  For example, will the transfer take place over night so that users can carry on in the new system without interruption.  Or will the data migration take longer and be "phased in"?  If so, how are you going to manage two different systems, with two duplicate data sets, each being updated in parallel? 

Thankfully, there are good CRM providers out there that can take this headache away from you and carry out the data migration on your behalf. It will come at a price but will ensure your most valuable asset, your customer insights, is preserved.  Make sure you include a provision for this in your CRM budget.

The wise move is to ensure the CRM system you choose allows full access to the database tables and data structure not just from within the CRM system but also from external tools such as ETL and Reporting systems.

Whether you are looking to improve your customer service or simply find new customers, SouthwestCRM offers IT-based sales and marketing support to all Devon-based businesses.  We are a CRM company in the Southwest delivering software solutions.  We specialise in CRM and Social Media marketing, email marketing campaigns and customer relationship marketing activity.

What is CRM and "Social CRM"?

CRM is an approach to doing business (It is not a technology).  "CRM technology" is there to support your own particular approach to doing business.  Everyone has some form of CRM methodology in place even if it is not IT-based.

Typically, software can be used to help a CRM approach and SouthwestCRM is the leading CRM software provider to SME's in Devon and Cornwall.

Some of the many benefits of CRM

• Customers keep coming back to You
• Easier to find (and attract) new business
• Greater sales reach
• Consistent branding and messages adds professionalism

Social CRM

Social CRM conbines the practice of 'doing' CRM with the latest Social Media and Social Networking tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn and FaceBook.  Ultimately this means that all your traditional forms of marketing can now co-exist with Social Networking and thereby deliver a consistent message and create new opportunities.

For example:

As a salesperson, when answering the phone to a prospect I am trying to sell to, I want to see the last 5 tweets my prospect has tweeted on screen inside my CRM database without me having to go off and try and find out this information.  This information should be displayed BEFORE I pick up the call.

As a salesperson, I want as much insight into the LinkedIn employees at the prospect company and which ones are in my LinkedIn network.

Call to Action

If you are a Devon-based business and wish to talk to someone about your specific requirements SouthwestCRM is the leading CRM provider in the South West.  Our approach is friendly and professional.  We aim to address your needs before considering which technologies are right for you.

We know the software market inside out so If we can't help you, we're not shy to recommendation others.  But the chances are we can help you. 

We specialise in a range of technologies including SugarCRM, info@hand, KnowledgeTree and Joomla!