Should I Consider a Cloud Based CRM?

A customer relationship management system (CRM) can be the heart of your business. CRMs drive your interactions with customers, manage contacts and provide you with a way to increase sales and expand your customer base. You should consider as an emerging business how the inclusion of a CRM benefits your organization.
What are some of the reasons for considering a move to the cloud as a storage option for your CRM system? Do you lose control or access to the functionality of your CRM when hosted in the cloud? What do you give up moving to the cloud or, what do you gain from a cloud-based solution for managing your valuable customer information?
Here is a look at these questions and why a cloud-based CRM makes sense for you.
The Perception of Cloud-Based CRMs
Cloud-based computing is the buzzword for our time as it relates to all businesses, large and small. The simplest way to think about the way cloud computing works is by considering placing your files online as oppose to maintaining them remotely, through storage servers you own and control. Moving data, particular that containing proprietary customer information essential to building your business and managing customer relationships automatically invokes thoughts and fears about:

• Security and safety – is my information protected in the cloud and subject to loss or hackers?
• Accessibility – what type of access issues are present if I move my valuable business information into the cloud?
• Portability – Can I easily move my cloud-based information between sites, users or strategic partners with little to know disruption to my business and efforts to grow and become profitable?

These concerns are real; however the advantages of a cloud-based solution may more than outweigh the concerns you may have.
The Reality of Cloud-Based CRMs
The perceptions about a cloud-based solution for your CRM should be weighed against these advantages:

• Cost – use of a cloud solution saves you on the hardware and personnel costs associated with maintaining your own servers.
• Scalability – the unlimited potential of the cloud as a storage option means it grows as you grow, again lowering your costs associated with investing in hardware and people power.
• Accessibility – data can be access from any device connected to your business, allowing you to grant remote access to your field associates when interacting with customers.

If you are in the process of considering the power of CRMs to harness your business outreach and improve customer outreach and contact, you should also consider how a move to the cloud not only compliments your system but allows you to scale up quickly, lower your costs, and give you a business advantage that allows you to be competitive at a time as an emerging business such advantages are necessary for survival. This is how we’ve grown our business and how we can help grow yours.
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