OEM ( Origininal Equipment Manufacturer) whilch would use the platform edition will have complete access to Sugar code and coding tools and they can use deployment options in Sugar to endorse own custom built solutions Sugar Platform Edition has many features including:

• Access to the world’s most flexible, open and intuitive development tools to build solutions.
• Ability to develop and deploy Sugar Platform Edition solutions across any cloud platform
• Ability to develop and deploy Sugar Platform Edition solutions across any cloud platform; insuring zero lock-in for partners or customers
• Quick development and very high ROI.

SugarCRM brings wonders with the platform edition to OEM vendors and customers worldwide.

excerpts from opensource magazine :http://opensource.sys-con.com

On-Premises CRM

There continue to be companies that prefer to deploy their CRM solution in-house, behind the firewall.  Some of these companies simply don’t trust their data to the cloud.  Others have mandates to keep all customer data behind the firewall.

Still others have large amounts of data to move to and from legacy systems, and feel that performance will be better with a CRM solution that’s on the same server rack as the legacy applications.

Finally, there are companies that would simply rather purchase software than rent software.

Cloud CRM

Cloud CRM is at the tip of tongue for all companies in the today’s environment.

Cloud CRM’s popularity is due to a aspects like:

No IT involvement required; pay as you go; and also existing integration with other cloud applications.  Cloud CRM is a multi-tenant, as opposed to a dedicated server application.

Data Center CRM

A third deployment option represents the midpoint between the Cloud and the corporate network.

This option is selected by companies that wish to purchase CRM software than rent it, but would not use the box or ad box to existing rack server.

If you opt for this option, a company can purchase/implement CRM software and hosts it with either a CRM hosting company on a dedicated server or on a dedicated server in some locality.

Hope these options will help you understand your need of deployment option

How Does CRM Work?

Essentially, CRM works by gathering information about customers and analyzing the information collected. An example of this would be begin from any kind of marketing campaign conducted and information collected. When the lead/consumer information is obtained in the form of a business card or just details then items enter into the CRM database. The accurate details about a consumer give an accurate idea of wishes of a consumer. After analyzing the data collected, businesses can adjust their marketing campaigns and increase sales. CRM works wonders in reducing a “relationship gap” formed between the business and its customers.

CRM can help any kind of business vertical improve its performance from a small and single outlet of any grocery, flowers shop to enterprises spread over different geographies in tracking the sales and business.

What Can a Business Gain From Using CRM?

• Any business wishes to improve and increase customer service and customer retention.
• The business also wants to maximize revenue by advertising the right products to the right people.
• Returning customers and value added services to existing customers.
• Maintaining a positive relationship with one’s customers is an essential element in business. Well-rounded CRM works to ensure that this element exists.

Excerpts from marketing articles by author - Scottie Hawksworth

CRM is thought to be only bigger business but CRM has everything to offer at lower costs, the costs definitely less compared to benefits.

I read Microsoft’s Jason Nash explaining -  There will be events in people’s lives that will result in buying behavior and decisions, helping you to sell more effectively.
Today the world has changed. “The applications are far more usable and flexible than they used to be, leading to greater CRM adoption”, says Dean Carroll of Microsoft Partner Aspective. “You can create business processes in the CRM system which is actually in line with your business.” For example, CRM seamlessly with Microsoft Office Outlook; this means staff doesn’t have to learn a completely new interface to be able to use the system.

These are lines he spoke about MS Dynmics, but I am sure, this has now become the routine feature of CRM, infact there is integrations possible in CRM with any feasible tool serving the proper purpose.
CRM is definitely a boon for business folks, be it a seller or a buyer. CRM can best justify and satisfy your business irrespective to the size of business be it SME or MNC.

Traditional business methods have proved expensive and very time consuming. As a result businesses have been looking around for a better solution. SugarCRM solutions proved the right strategy that was required, it catered business needs and solutions to problems.

Veon Consulting with its dedicated market research and SugarCRM implementations over three years has proved the added advantages of CRM. The company has provided maximum customized and efficient solutions to its customers.
Veon has helped in economical and quick solutions to help companies with right business solution there by increasing revenue and profits. It has helped with Remote accessible CRM, Mobile based CRM, tele- marketing CRM thus adding the confidence to experience.
Veon gives a well planned , easily integrated CRM strategy catered in order that comapny fulfils its business targets.

• Cost: SugarCRM without any debate is economical than Sales Force, and you have always have an option of increasing functionalities in SugarCRM.

•Data Abstraction: SugarCRM gives better clarity on data abstraction and ownership. Exporting and importing data to and from SugarCRM is just one click away.
Sales Force does not give you the feel of owning data as you need to create reports and export them, the process is easy but you need to repeat a few times to get familiar.

•Business Verticals: SugarCRM fits into all business verticals, whereas Sales force is very sales industry specific.

•Higher flexibility in Hosting: SugarCRM can be hosted at client’s end with minimal server configuration giving best results. Hosting choice is completely in the user’s court with no worries.

•Shifting from Salesforce to Sugar: I have many leads who come with the mere purpose of shifting to opensource Sugar from Salesforce, they have their own reasons.

On that note I would conclude Sugar as better option for your sales force processes than SalesForce.com.

Over the past few years there has been a conscious effort by SAP to become more web based rather than being limited to the traditional SAP GUI. The Netweaver suite by SAP has been conceived as a base in this direction. SAP now also supports various third party applications integration due to the in-built J2EE engine. Adobe is one of these. From ECC 6.0 version SAP supports seamless integration between SAP and Adobe forms. You can for example design an interactive form for your Sales Force to capture orders from the customers. You can also impose the validations as appropriate (Example dropdown for materials).This will however require you to purchase an add-on.

Integration between SAP and Adobe flex based application is much easier. For this you can create a web-service around the suitable RFC enabled business objects or BAPIs and make an online call to it within SAP. However in this case the validations need a bit more of coding rather than just drag and drop in the earlier example.

Veon Consulting can help you in achieving an internet rich Adobe flex applications with SAP backend. Please contact us for some sample charts built on Adobe Flex at info@veon.in.

•    The author is technical SAP  Adobe consultant at Veon Consulting, Hyderabad
•    SAP is a trademark of SAP AG, Germany.

Certain leading companies have brought about ways to move in the direction of objectively moving towards a way of measuring the business value of an IT initiative. Most often than not, this involves measuring the performance of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with help of historical data.

The article defines an approach the businesses can take towards valuating the IT initiative.

(i) Define your KPIs

The first step in defining the performance indicators, which, truly indicate the performance of the business. Following are some typical KPIs which have been used in multiple organizations. However the actual KPIs may differ from business to business. For example a Milk Distribution Company can have Logistics cycle time, Demand Forecasting and Delivery Accuracy as KPIs. An automobile repair workshop can have Average Service Repair Time and Spare Part availability as KPIs.

· Order to Delivery Cycle time (Days)

· Average Inventory Level ($)

· % On Time billing

· % Payments within Payment Terms

· % Accurate Invoicing

· % Accurate Shipping

· Logistics Cycle time from Factory Gate out to Customer Gate in (Days)

· Manual FTEs required to run the business

(ii) Measuring New Versus Historical KPI Values

As a pre-requisite to measuring the business benefit for an IT initiative, the business will require to compare the KPI values after the IT initiative versus the values before the IT programme was implemented.

(iii) NPV value of the initiative

This is the most difficult and crucial step of the calculation. For all the KPIs benefits in step (ii) and assuming a life of 5 years of the IT program, the business will require to give the net present value of these benefits. For example, if the KPI improvement is that IT improvement brings about 5 FTEs saving (assuming 1 FTE = 60,000 USD / Yr ), then the

NPV = Business Benefit 1^st Year / R + Business Benefit 2^nd Year / (R*R) + Business Benefit 1^rd Year / (R*R*R) + Business Benefit 4^th Year / (R*R*R*R) + Business Benefit 5^th Year (R*R*R*R*R)

Where R = 1 + Interest Rate / 100

Assuming Interest rate as 5 % then NPV works out to be = $ 259,768.

The NPVs summed over all the KPIs gives the total business benefits for the IT initiative.

As a thumb rule the NPV for the project should be greater than the implementation cost of the project.

The author is Seeta N., who is a consultant at Veon Consulting, pioneers in open source CRM consulting. For enquiries drop a mail at info@veon.in. For having an online demo visit www.veon.in

Joomla
Alfresco
OpenDMS
myDMS

The prime drivers for organizations in implementing these solutions are to

Have stricter version control
Have an approval process in place before a document is release to internal / external stakeholders
Enable collaboration and knowledge sharing

The author is a lead consultant at Veon consulting (www.veon.in). Veon consulting is a leading open source enterprise consulting firm based out of Hyderabad.