Thursday, July 31, 2014

Cloud CRM: Myths Busted



Who hasn’t heard of the cloud as it relates to technology? Certainly no one in the business sector is in the dark. Even for the average Internet user, they’re involved with it perhaps without even knowing; anyone using Dropbox or Google Drive is a cloud user.

Organizations are presented with some serious considerations when they begin to court the idea of going to the cloud with their customer relationship management solutions. If you’re also considering this move, it’s probably because you’ve heard of the benefits of doing so, yet you’re hesitant because you’ve also heard rumors of security issues related to having all of your information off-premise. Let’s take a look at some of the myths related to the cloud.

First and foremost, what about the concern of compromised security presented to you in the cloud?  How sophisticated is your in-house security? What do you know about your data encryption efforts or your firewall’s ability to keep hackers out? You can all but guarantee that your security protocols pale in comparison to what a cloud-based company has established with their protocols.

Security threats are extremely serious to cloud CRM companies because they know if one incident occurs, it could spell the end of their existence at worst and a public relations disaster at best. Failure is not an option for cloud companies, which is why they have security measures in place that are virtually impenetrable.

Maybe you’ve heard that the cloud is akin to unobtainable real estate – it’s just too expensive. Don’t be fooled into thinking only the largest businesses belong in the cloud. Cloud CRM is scalable, perhaps more so than what you’ll find with on-premise solutions. You can actually cut costs by going to the cloud while enjoying an ease of scalability. You have no maintenance to worry about and no expensive infrastructure to upgrade every couple of years.

Another myth is that cloud CRM offers poor service. A majority of businesses hold on to this perception. In fact, most cloud-based companies can offer you better support than what your in-house IT team can offer for your on-site solution. The cloud-based vendors offer more powerful computing processes and around-the-clock support.

You might have already invested a lot of time and effort in how you currently approach your workflow. You think that going to the cloud will disrupt this workflow. However, what the cloud offers that your current system probably doesn’t is a more efficient way to search your customer database and access your business intelligence. You will also find that you can work off site with the cloud and realize more workforce collaboration.

For sales departments, the ability to collaborate and work off site is vital to the success of the operation. At
Front Row Solutions, we realized this long ago and decided to do something about it. Sales teams need more CRM support and that’s exactly what we’ve delivered with a mobile CRM app that ties your robust cloud CRM to sales reps in the field. Sales reps can now send their sales reports through the mobile app in under one minute. To learn more about Front Row, visit us online at www.frontrow-solutions.com.