Customer relationship management (CRM) delivered as a service via the Internet is being adopted by many small- and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). While on-demand offers a number of benefits for SMEs, this service can be more expensive than investing in an on-premise solution. Conduct a four- to six-year total cost of ownership analysis before making an investment in this technology.
Gaining in Popularity
On-demand CRM vendors offer their solutions as a service to clients, who access the applications via Web browsers. Also called hosted application service providers, this technology has gained huge media attention and has grown in popularity with SMEs over the last five years.
There are a number of drivers that have led to the popularity of this CRM service model:
- Pervasive, high-bandwidth Internet access.
- Features comparable to on-premise solutions.
- Disillusionment with CRM software...
