Re: SugarCRM?

Olivier Hallot wrote:

>
> I think Ogo has the ground for a very good set of intelligence-flow 
> management applications, which the simplest is groupware. I foresee 
> CRM and Project Management as 2 other natural extensions of OGo.
>
> I don't see however that just revamping the OGo skins will lead us to 
> CRM or PM. There is more to do IMHO.
>
> We can start by implementing project templates. A sales cycle has 
> many, many activities and information gathering that has to be done 
> again and again on every new sales opportunity. My personnal 
> experience on CRM is that a sales cycle has tens of tasks, gathers 
> same buch of documents each time, and requires lots and lots of 
> information to pour in, to be very effective. Futhermore, all this 
> info is to be gathered to feed the latest business intelligence gizmo 
> brought/bought by your boss. Bosses like it "kiss": red equals bad, 
> blue equals good.
>
> Then we also need a workflow engine. This is necessary if your sales 
> cycle or project management has a team of people with roles to play. 
> (Roles and function are different entities).
>
Greets:

First things first; Canada 6, Russia 1, me massive head ache. Hay its 
been -47 C here for almost a week then flooding. And no figgen hockey 
this winter due to the strike. What's a person to do?

Long Non technical response follows;

Ive read all the comments this morning (the best I can) and Oliver comes 
the closest IMHO to understanding the "requirements". Some basic things 
to consider;

1. CRM product have been around for a while from technically simple 
products such as "Goldmine" to Oracle. Prices range from 99.00US to 
thousands.
2. Like email clients, everyone involved in a sales function uses them, 
hence their entrenchment in the business process.
3. Products are typically selected on the basis on what Oliver states 
well, " the latest business intellignece gizmo bought by your 
boss...bosses like it kiss"
4. Report preparation and report formating is the key as this 
'intelligence' is reported on a weekly or daily basis in a very 
systematic format.
5. Why, they need to support the sales cycle, which is intended to 
generate revenu. See point 3 above
6. This data is then used in other business processes (in part or 
completly); inside sales, support, product developement, marketing, 
financial reporting

Segway: general sales/business cycle is as follows:

- someone creates a demand...ie: we need to improve sales this month 
(typically to impress the boss or due to revenue shortage)
- contact lists are purchased or extracted from existing customer data bases
- contact lists are handed to junior sales people who work the phones to 
pre-qualify potential  sales opportunities
- pre-qualified  contacts (now in specific companies) are reported in 
terms of precentages at the weekly progress meeting
- pre-qualified contacts are then solicited by external sales people who 
'work this contact' which involves several phone calls, transferr of 
marketing collatoral, typically lunch meetings, then more phone calls, 
email contacts and on site meetings...the objective of which is simply 
to identify a product sale in terms of viability as a function of time; 
30 days, 60 days, Q1, Q2 etc followed by an assessment of competing 
products/solutions....all this data is documented, tracked, stored and 
selectively made available as seldom do sales people share the actual 
contact (person)....as they work in part on commission.
- the sales function is simply this, make a square peg fit into a round 
hole and all changes need to be trackable and related to all parts of 
the business function and process
- this entire sales process is extensive, detailed, prolonged and roles 
over (in part) to customer support functions once the actual sale 
transpires.
- it is much more involved then described but I am trying to keep this 
short (as requested..:))
- similarily the data collected in also transition to product 
development units which use such data to monitor customer 
acceptance,feature functionality and product enhancements or additions 
vis a vis competative products and client requiremetns.
- the key here is use the data to remain close to the client to improve 
product quality to ensure outperformance of the competition and 
competative offerings.
- the entire process from start to finish is intended to 'generate 
revenue'...real or perceived, hence companies spend a lot of money on 
this type of product as they believe that investment in such process and 
products can generate a substantial return. That is the key and hence 
the massive acceptance of this type of product and process.
- SugarCRM for example has received investments in excess of 2M last I 
checked, the product is not sophisticated but it is sold at a price that 
most can afford and is easily integrated into existing 'intelligence 
systems' due to its use of open standards componenets which allows 
integration with closed systems as well.  Note the gpl is used 
selectively and provides in this case inexpensive components to build 
the application on. The key however is use of open standards which is 
not the trend by competative offerings which are sold on the basis of 
lock-in requiring up-sales to get the needed functionality.
- SugarCRM is selectively build and targetted agressively at a specific 
market segment. SMB, SME not Enterprise clients who already are 
entrenched with very expensive systems. The larger players do not work 
well in this market segment as its not profitable or viable, hence the 
SugarCRM team has both discoverd and focussed well on this segment and 
supported by expensive and massive markteting efforts towards this goal.
- the CRM product sector is worth billions on an annual basis, no data 
readily available on a comparison between between groupware/crm products.

Technical review follows later on. Apologies for the long post.

/ch


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