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Although hosted CRM companies are mushrooming by the day and the march of SaaS seems to keep moving forward onerously, helped now by the promise of Storage-as-a-Service, the jury is still out on whether SaaS CRM is a good fit for all or can hosted CRM harm your business.

Perhaps the question can be answered better if we have clarity on what CRM offers the best business value.  The type of CRM activity, whether operational, collaborative, or analytical, often decides whether the particular CRM modules should be in-house or hosted. The company approach to data security is another contributing factor.

Hosted CRM offers the following benefits -

• Faster time to value.
•  Easy deployment.
• Frequent updates.
• Cost-effective.
• Often the only alternative for SMBs.

On the flip side -

• You need regular high-speed internet connectivity.
• Over time, the TCO can shoot up.
• Shifting to another vendor may not be easy.
• Data security is always a nagging worry because its not in your control.
• Customization and integration is not always easy.

A nation-wide survey conducted in England conducted on behalf of HTK as revealed that a huge 66% of SMEs are not happy with the procedures that they have in place for dealing with customers. The survey covered more than 200 SMBs. According to Cambridge-based research specialist, Analysys that carried out the survey a lot of SMBs were pretty open to the idea of hosted technology. Almost all SMEs considered were technologically aware and over two-thirds had a broadband connection.

A significant proportion, more than half in fact stated that it intended to deploy hosted software within the next twelve months. The survey covered businesses across a spectrum of technologies and industries. Capital cost, understandably was the main concern and stumbling block in implementing CRM. Traditional CRM is an expensive proposition and inspite of problems with marketing and customer management, many SMEs simply do not entertain thoughts of CRM. SaaS has offered a ray of hope as it’s a much cheaper software alternative.