SaaS CRM buyer beware
posted by Anna Mar, April 07, 2011SaaS is a wonderful way to improve time to market. Many SaaS vendors offer highly scalable, leading industry solutions. However, their sales and business practices often leave much to be desired — leading to technology governance headaches for IT organizations.
Sales to the Business
SaaS CRM vendors are most successful when selling directly to sales teams. Where IT organizations might have concerns about security, control of data, integration, SLAs, audits — sales teams just see a productivity tool they can access with their mobile devices.It is not unusual for sales teams to buy SaaS CRM licenses without involving IT. Often, IT is an afterthought — when they realize they need integration. In some cases, the trigger to involve IT is trouble of some kind:
- audit, governance and regulation issues
- security incidents
- vendor management problems
- the realization that the tool does not support their processes and they require customization
IT Outsourcing
SaaS CRM vendors typically offer a platform for application development and a application marketplace. Business units may buy applications or have custom applications built on the SaaS CRM platform without involving IT.In the worst case, these applications may duplicate important functions in the IT stack and trigger a myriad of data, security, process and regulatory issues.
Vendor Lock
Once sales teams start entering their data into the SaaS CRM — vendors gain pricing power.In the worst case, SaaS vendors sell CRM to many different departments in the same organization — and then shut everyone down if someone does not pay their bill.
IT and Procurement Compliance
SaaS tools require little upfront capital investment. In many organizations there is little oversight controlling the OPEX spending of business teams.IT organizations need to make it very clear that CRM software is not a mobile app that business units can order on the fly. Strong procurement and IT compliance programs are required — SaaS sales organizations are increasingly aggressive in marketing their products directly to end users.
The Right Way
SaaS CRM can be a effective IT strategy when enterprise architecture, legal, procurement, project management, security and solution architects have completed their due diligence.
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