Outsourcing CRM Development Services allows you to get high-quality CRM solutions fast. Find out more about outsourcing CRM development and its pros and cons.
First of all, you may have a question: what is a CRM system?
What is CRM? CRM software is a modular technology system that includes sales automation, analytics, and marketing automation tools to gather customer data and empower sales teams to work at peak efficiency.
Customer relationship management solutions have become a mainstream part of the business world. CRM systems let organizations track customer data across channels, keep team members informed of user activities, and eliminate excessive manual work gathering information from clients.
With the rise of cloud-based CRM software, the technology has become more accessible, even for small businesses, and advanced functionality is becoming the new normal across a wide range of industries.
Digital transformation is the big buzzword for businesses today. The term refers to the process of moving from the use of disparate digital technologies to embracing a digital identity that optimizes data, processes, and human interactions around digital capabilities.
To a great extent, this transition is taking place because consumers have embraced digital solutions as a major part of their day-to-day lives. As consumers interact with brands across digital channels, businesses need to respond quickly and efficiently. CRMs lay the groundwork for positive customer experiences in a digitally transformed world, giving businesses access to the data and backend capabilities they need.
Custom CRM systems functionality continues to evolve in response to this digital revolution. The technology is shifting to support deeper use of data mining, built-in social functionality to drive collaboration, and dedicated customer-facing tool integration to allow for faster response. These types of solutions will continue to drive CRM adoption moving forward and further entrench CRMs as critical technologies in the modern enterprise world. That’s why it’s significant to pay attention to developing a custom CRM system for modern companies. Moreover, there’s a question if the company needs to do everything on its own or resort to outsourcing CRM development. Let’s look at this issue in detail.
Why You Might Want to Outsource CRM Development
You need special integrations. Off-the-shelf CRM software integrates with some widely used networks and email platforms, but it can’t be guaranteed that you may manage your internal databases or custom online call systems via it. The more non-standard tools your team uses, the more challenging it is to find a proper CRM solution.
You don’t want to waste time and money on tools and features that you don’t need. Outsource specialists who have ready-made CRM software usually offer up to 4 packages at a time. They target various businesses, dividing them primarily by size, or rarely by field of business. That’s why vendors add multiple features to each of their products, so you can find yourself overpaying and losing valuable work time searching for features and buttons if you only need one of them.
You require an identity. Ready-made CRM is a “draft”, so you can’t customize its UX and UI design. At the same time you may experience issues with using some CRM options as sometimes the UX is designed for the convenience of the majority, but unfortunately it’s not for every user. Communication with your customers may also become a bit standardized, since your competitors may use ready-made CRM programs with the same algorithms, tools, and design.
What to choose: Ready-Made or Custom CRM Development?
CRM Solutions can be created and provided by your own company or you can get a ready-made custom CRM software. The question is what option should you choose? Well, first of all we need to say that it depends on the business goals of your company and the necessary requirements that you have for the system. Let’s take a look at some of the features that you may encounter by choosing one or another method of creating a CRM system.
CRM Software: Ready-Made vs. Custom
As far as updates and settings are concerned, you can start using a ready-made CRM software right after getting the license. As a rule, this solution is an auto-updated system, but you can update it manually as well. The main drawback associated with a ready-made CRM system is limited functionality. First, it seems as if there are lots of various features, even too many sometimes, but some of them won’t be needed at all, and you feel you lack others that are essential for your certain situation and business.
When we speak about custom CRM software development, the specialists create and give you the solution within the agreed time. The system works with strategic business plans. And when it’s really needed, your software development partners can broaden CRM functionality. Anyway, there is an opinion that ready-made CRM systems have a little price and easier launch. Well, it can be true, but it’s quite complicated to adapt CRM systems to some business processes. Some changes are possible to perform, but they are money- and time-consuming. Mind that a miser pays twice!
Secondly, we need to mention CRM systems integration. Ready-made CRM software is supplied by a vendor who provides integration as well. But if you plan to perform integration on your own, then you need tech expertise or in-house software developers. Having developed a custom CRM, in turn, allows you to be integrated with the individual IT infrastructure of your company. There is a saying that it’s easier to integrate a ready-made CRM tool. But it is worth noting that these are only hasty conclusions. If you already use third party services or you don’t have an IT department, then you’ll face all the hidden risks of CRM integration.
Information security of CRM systems is one of the most significant factors that we need to mention. Using a ready-made CRM software, it works in the following way: you’re the business owner and all the responsibilities for security and data storage are yours. If you finally choose custom CRM solutions, data storage can be either on the side of the software developers or on your company’s servers. This way you have a guarantee of a safe and reliable place for your information.
Outsourcing CRM Development vs. In-Door CRM: How to Choose a Contractor
One of the fundamental success factors of implementing CRM processes in your business is recruiting IT specialists. There are also a lot of debates and concerns about which team to choose, whether you need to hire an in-house team or contract with an outsourcing company. Let’s get acquainted with the advantages of each approach.
In-House Team
- Full control of the process. Hiring all the specialists, executing the tasks, actually, you have full control when you keep implementation in-house that isn’t possible when you outsource your project.
Immediate start of the work. When you hire a dedicated team, you can start the working process as soon as possible. The thing is that all your specialists should have CRM development experience not to spend time on learning and traineeships.
Deep understanding of your business. When your company employs a team of experienced, qualified specialists and you are personally involved in the process, of course, you will have a better understanding of all the internal structure of the system.
Talent development. Such projects give you the chance to develop your employees. They gain new skills and personal growth which boosts employee satisfaction. But it is also worth considering the fact that growing your own talents requires a lot of money as well as time.
Outsourced CRM development
- No necessity to hire new employees. When choosing outsourcing, you do not need to select and hire high-quality professionals in your team. This means that you will not spend additional resources on recruiting.
- Cost-effectiveness. When you’re going to implement custom CRM system development from scratch, all that you need is to sign the contract with the outsourced team and pay an agreed fee instead of salaries to your specialists. Thus, by choosing a development team from an outsourcer, you can save energy and money.
- Exclusive talent pool. If you want to create CRM systems related to your idea, here you have such an advantage as a wide range of professionals. You can test the expertise of the specialist during the trial period so that he will be able to prove his deep knowledge in CRM development.
- Find your ideal team. It follows from the previous point that if for some reason you are not satisfied with the work of a certain team, you can always request another specialist or find another partner who will meet all your needs. So, you can impose outsourcing to software companies until you find the best ones.
- Time-saving solution. Of course, by choosing outsourcing, you save your own time. All you need at the initial stages is to develop a specific plan and work strategies that are carried out by outsourced specialists. This means that you and your employees can spend all of your free time on other equally significant tasks.
Pros and cons of outsourced CRM development and in-house team
Let’s have a look at some benefits and risks that you may have when choosing CRM development outsourcing
Benefits of CRM Development Outsourcing
When we talk about key benefits of custom CRM software in comparison to off-the-shelf CRMs, here we can speak about “high fashion”, when a suit is created specially for you and your needs, so it fits you (your company) perfectly. This is the biggest value of a custom CRM system made by the best CRMdeveloper in this field.
There are some other advantages of outsourcing CRM systems:
Cutting-edge expertise from an experienced team of specialists who will work hard to meet all your demands and implement all the necessary CRM tools.
Project deadlines. When you work with a custom-built CRM software, your project will be completed and deployed with predictable timelines.
You are not tied to a single vendor. Your CRM developer will work with you to find the right solution for your demands.
Customer success is always the goal for the outsourced team. Your developers are with you every step of the way to ensure a successful and proper implementation.
Be one step ahead. By choosing custom solutions, you separate yourself from your competitors in the market, which will mean that your originality and customer care prevail.
Risks of CRM Development Outsourcing
Of course, like any project, CRM development outsourcing involves some risks that can be encountered, and here are some of them:
Price concerns. No doubt, when developers create an individual system for your business that will work for the profit of the entire company, it cannot be cheap. Therefore, due to the cost of specialized software development services, some small companies cannot afford custom solutions for their business. Here it is worth considering the proportionality of your expenses and expectations for the future.
Project planning. This is one of the fundamental processes when creating a custom CRM system. At this stage, it is extremely important not to rush, but to describe the plan for the further development of your business thoughtfully and in detail. If you ignore this point and do not pay proper attention to it, there is a risk that in the long run the created CRM system will be ineffective for your business.
Limited time and deadlines. If you’re going to install, deploy, and hit the ground running, a custom system might not be your ideal solution. A custom CRM system is a big contribution to your business, but also quite time and energy-consuming. You may need months to plan the functionality of the system itself, give developers time to create it, as well as testing, bug fixing, training your employees, and switching the entire system to a new one. If you are not ready to give so much time for a successful project, you should think about other options.
Want to Build Your Own Custom CRM?
Our team of experienced specialists is happy to help develop your business. Be sure that with us all your requirements and wishes will be met. Our software developers have rich experience and deep expertise in this matter. If you need help in implementing the CRM system in your business, please contact us and we will definitely come to a common solution.
