business benefits of crm in the cloud for midsize companies

AMI-Partners Whitepaper

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AMI-Partners

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Copyright AMI-Partners, 2011

Business Benefits of CRM in the Cloud

for Midsize Companies

December 2011

http://www.ami-partners.com/


© AMI-Partners, 2011

Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3

Core Benefits of Cloud Applications ......................................................................................................... 3

CRM in the Cloud for Midsize Businesses .............................................................................................. 4

Global Midsize Business Climate ................................................................................................. 5

Midsize Business CRM Drivers ..................................................................................................... 6

Midsize Business Requirements for CRM................................................................................................ 6

Driving Value across the Organization: Oracle CRM On Demand ............................................ 7

Integrate Sales and Marketing .................................................................................................................... 8

Consistent, Continuous Experience ........................................................................................................... 9

Mobile Support ................................................................................................................................................. 9

Actionable and Insightful Business Analytics ...................................................................................... 10

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 11

About AMI-Partners .................................................................................................................... 12



Introduction

Today, midsize companies face two fundamental challenges; they must nurture and expand

business opportunities under dynamic market conditions, and achieve sustainable growth in an

increasingly competitive environment. Like large enterprises, midsize companies need

enterprise-class solutions to support day-to-day operations and maintain business efficiencies.

Enterprise applications in particular, align strategically with midsize companies looking to fuel

growth using automated business processes or company-wide intelligence. An AMI-Partners’

study shows that nearly 80 percent of midsize companies worldwide regard enterprise

applications (e.g., ERP, CRM, etc.) as essential to their organization’s continued success.

Compared to large enterprises, however, many midsize companies do not have a well-

established IT infrastructure to benefit from economies of scale. Limited financial capital often

restricts their capabilities, while IT demands may steadily outgrow immediate IT resources —

including staff, budgets, and systems. Managing the core technologies necessary to run the

business (e.g., IT security, data storage, IT networks) thinly stretches resources, leaving little time

for more strategic IT initiatives—like customer relationship management (CRM)

implementations—which are critical for business expansion.

Core Benefits of Cloud Applications

Midsize companies across the globe, nonetheless, are increasingly recognizing the benefits of

cloud computing, including software-as-a-service (SaaS) or, cloud applications. Nearly 2-in-5

already deploys one or more cloud applications, and interest level across various business

management applications is just as significant. Cloud applications represent a cost-effective and

highly adaptable solution for midsize companies –particularly with limited budgets, small IT staff

and varying business requirements to consider. The overall cost, flexible commitment, and

simpler deployment and maintenance are some of the main advantages of a cloud-based

model.

Specifically, deploying cloud applications is chiefly an operating expense, as opposed to the

typical capital outlay associated with enterprise-scale software deployments. The “pay-as-you-

go” structure allows companies to procure (or terminate) additional capacity, seats, components

or features, as business requires. Having a flexible service delivery model impacts midsize

companies’ ability to react to changes in the market, enabling them to remain competitive and

sustain profitability.



In addition, modern cloud applications are optimized for a browser-based environment, which

improves manageability, upgrades and troubleshooting, and ultimately frees up IT staff to focus

on the organization’s strategic needs of growing top line revenue while positively impacting the

bottom line profitability. IT departments significantly benefit from this type of architecture,

which depending on the vendor, is typically housed in a world-class data center and provides

superior performance and high availability.

With all of these factors combined, an increasing proportion of midsize companies worldwide

are deploying various business management applications in the cloud. One of the most

valuable is CRM. By 2015, AMI-Partners expects that 45 percent of all SaaS users within this

segment will deploy a CRM cloud application.

CRM in the Cloud for Midsize Businesses

With the mindset of midsize companies shifting to growth, businesses are taking steps to

implement solutions to enhance organizational intelligence in an effort to drive greater

performance in the market. Along with gains in productivity, attracting and retaining customers

have become strategic priorities to improve competitive positioning and bottom-line results. As

these strategic goals must be achieved in a cost-effective manner, cloud services are garnering

increased acceptance among midsize companies. In particular, CRM has been a prime driver in

the cloud market as basic CRM functions apply to many types of businesses and rapid

deployment is attractive to companies seeking an immediate sales impact. For midsize

companies, there are four key business requirements for successful implementation of CRM

cloud applications:

Integration of sales and marketing for increased ROI

Consistent, continuous experience from a customer perspective

Mobile support for an increasingly flexible workforce

Actionable and insightful business analytics

In this paper, we examine in particular, how Oracle’s CRM cloud solution, Oracle CRM On

Demand, meets these requirements and enables midsize companies to realize their growth

aspirations. But first, we gain a perspective of the global business climate for midsize companies

worldwide and drivers for CRM adoption.



Global Midsize Business Climate

AMI-Partners’ global research confirms the expansionist mindset of midsize companies.

Average 2010 revenue for this market has increased considerably compared to that of the prior

year. Over 60 percent of midsize companies worldwide expect a further rise in revenue this year,

which falls in line with their more optimistic perceptions toward future business conditions (see

Figure 1 below). Moreover, over 80 percent of midsize companies generated sales from large

enterprises, which is a major motive for adopting advanced technology. In many instances,

smaller companies need to extend their IT infrastructures to large customers and/or suppliers, in

order to effectively respond to and manage these business dealings. Top-tier business

applications help midsize companies implement efficient business processes and meet the

higher demands of their large enterprise customer base. Cloud solutions have become a key

means in building an enterprise-level IT network, more quickly and economically.

Another strong indicator of growth plans is that more than a quarter of these companies are

planning to expand their footprint by adding new business locations and nearly half plan to

enlarge their staff in the next 12 months. Midsize companies tend to have employees that work

outside of the office, with 4-in-5 managing a mobile workforce (or, employees travelling for

business at least 20 percent of the time) and 3-in-5 supporting telecommuters. With this,

enabling out-of-office or remote workers to seamlessly and securely connect to the company’s

IT network and resources is essential to supporting their productivity levels.

Not sure 6% Get worse

9%

Stay the same 45%

Get better 39%

Worldwide Midsize Companies Expectations About Upcoming Business Conditions

Figure 1: Worldwide midsize firm outlook on upcoming business conditions, AMI-Partners, 2011



Midsize Business CRM Drivers

Given the current business climate, the fundamental business driver for any size firm—small,

midsize or enterprise—is the need for efficient and effective customer interaction management.

From a global perspective, more midsize companies are becoming “customer-centric”

businesses and implementing CRM strategies that involve systems to retain existing customers

and acquire new ones, while streamlining processes for a direct impact on sales, service and

marketing costs (see Figure 2 below).

The implementation of CRM is sought-after by businesses given the resulting benefits of these

strategies, which include greater customer loyalty and increased revenue opportunities.

However, taking into account the costs associated with maintaining or attracting customers,

midsize companies need to protect their profitability by deploying a CRM solution that offers a

manageable price, a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and is high scalability. All of which are

possible with a cloud solution.

Midsize Business Requirements for CRM

One of the biggest reasons for the failure of a new system is the lack of understanding of how

employees go about doing their jobs. By and large, business processes are driven across the

organization. A CRM cloud solution must be flexible enough to adapt to existing workflows; and

managers should get their arms around these workflows before considering CRM applications.

0% 50% 100%

Launch new products/services

Expand into new markets/opportunities

Invest in new customer acquisition activities and methods

Improve processes/invest in training to increase productivity

Improve existing customer experiences and retention

Worlwide Midsize Companies Top 5 Initiatives to Increase Revenue

Figure 2: Worldwide Midsize Companies Top Five Initiatives to Increase Revenue, AMI-Partners, 2010



When the time comes to evaluate a CRM solution, executives at midsize companies should keep

the following four criteria in mind, previously introduced in the beginning of this white paper:

Business Requirements Business Benefits

Integration of sales and

marketing for increased

ROI

Deliver an integrated end-to-end process from campaign recipients to

leads to opportunities to net customers. Provide ability to analyze and

optimize the entire holistic process rather than focusing on marketing

and sales as two independent silos.

Enhance efficiency of the marketing and sales process –one version of

the truth (underlying data) and everyone on the same page.

Consistent, continuous

experience from a customer

perspective

Provide a consistent multi-channel experience regardless of whether

the customer chooses to interact via phone, web, chat, email, etc.

Enhance customer intimacy and stickiness by demonstrating

knowledge of customer needs, preferences and interaction history.

Mobile support

Provide employees with real-time information on smart phones and

tablets as well as traditional browser-based UI.

Integrity of CRM information is vastly improved as employees can

work on-line or off-line when the information is current, rather than

entering information at a later date, when in the office.

By addressing customer issues in real-time/close to real-time, firms

stand to be perceived as highly customer focused.

Actionable and insightful

business analytics

Define, measure and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs). Access

an immediate and ongoing view of business from integrating,

analyzing and leveraging customer metrics.

Conduct analytic activities such as market segmentation, sales

analysis, forecasting, and optimization without having to constantly

rely on limited IT resources.

Track customers’ engagements, measure campaign effectiveness, and

identify the most valuable customers to increase revenue and profits

as well as contain costs.

Driving Value across the Organization: Oracle CRM On Demand

Oracle CRM On Demand is helping growing midsize companies make smarter decisions,

enhance operations and productivity, and realize the best value from a single CRM solution.

Oracle CRM On Demand offers a broad and deep set of capabilities to help organizations drive

sales, marketing, loyalty, and service effectiveness. CRM cloud applications that narrowly focus

on specific tasks or business roles only prove to result in performance constraints and impede

Figure 3: Key Business Requirements of CRM Cloud Solutions for Midsize Companies



organizations in effectively responding to customer demands or dynamic conditions in the

marketplace. CRM cannot be truly transformative unless customer data flows across multiple

operations within the organization. In this regard, Oracle CRM On Demand offers a best in class

solution for midsize companies, delivering a broader measure of ROI and quantifiable business

value across the organization. Here is how Oracle CRM On Demand exceeds business

requirements for a successful deployment of CRM in the cloud:

Integrate Sales and Marketing

Oracle CRM On Demand offers a complete, integrated

set of enterprise-marketing capabilities from early stage

prospecting through lead management to closed

revenue. As a result, organizations no longer need to

endure silo-ed and disconnected sales and marketing

pipelines. Instead, they can improve collaboration

between sales and marketing, automate nurturing of

leads and measure performance of a unified revenue

funnel. Capabilities include:

Improved Collaboration Between Sales and Marketing:

Sales and marketing can better collaborate on critical

business processes like lead definition, acceptance

criteria, and automated feedback to marketing

throughout the sales process.

Automated Nurture of Leads: Marketing can now

automate multi-stage multi-channel campaigns.

Marketing organizations can start with simple, visual

drag-drop campaign design options and can scale to

robust, rules based adaptive workflows that can

support 100’s of offers and personalization.

Robust Profile and Response Management: Marketers can build personalized landing pages,

microsites, and intelligent web forms using a self-service, rules based solution. Progressive

profiling ensures the capture valid, clean data while minimizing irrelevant questions. A built-

in recommendation engine ensures delivery of the right offer.

Customer Perspective:

“With Oracle CRM On Demand Marketing, we now have a unified solution to consolidate our sales and marketing processes," said Allan Murphy Bruun at Ambu. "The system has significantly improved our marketing productivity and has provided new capabilities to demonstrate ROI. We have observed a 20% improvement in lead quality within 4 weeks of deploying the solution." “Oracle CRM on Demand made it possible for our sales, marketing, and management teams to have a complete view of our customers across the world. It has enabled us to act quickly on sales opportunities and increase our sales conversion rate by 15%.” –Aper Yuan, Associate Director of Development, HanStar Hardware Co., Ltd.



Lead Scoring & Routing: An automated lead management process ensures valid, high quality

leads are scored and routed to the appropriate sales channel. Marketers can automate lead

delivery to their direct sales organization and channel partners.

Consistent Experience

Oracle CRM On Demand offers a hosted call center to

drive productivity, reduce costs and improve the

customer experience. Oracle Contact On Demand is

the only hosted multichannel support application that

can be deployed in days without up-front capital

expenditures or integration costs. Agents can work

efficiently from anywhere in the world with 360-degree

views into customer interactions and real-time

business intelligence. Customers gain from rapid and

personalized sales and service, while organizations can

dramatically reduce costs and increase revenues.

Capabilities include:

Hosted Contact Center: Hosted voice, voicemail, email and customizable IVR and ACD

capabilities that were recently augmented with chat, co-browsing, response libraries, and

multi-party conferencing.

Integrated Solution: The hosted contact center creates a cutting-edge dynamic for sales

and service agents to quickly and efficiently deliver answers to customer questions, within

the same system and without additional investments.

Mobility

Oracle CRM On Demand offers a complete set of next generation mobile and desktop

solutions that improve productivity by enabling reps to access and update information

anywhere, anytime. Capabilities include:

Oracle CRM On Demand Connected Mobile Sales. This add-on mobile service provides a

configurable mobile solution on iPhone and BlackBerry devices. Salespeople can access

data from CRM On Demand in real time with a rich, native user experience, which will be

comfortable and familiar to current iPhone and BlackBerry users.

Customer Perspective: “Before implementing Oracle Contact On Demand, we lacked important sales call metrics, including the ability to map calls to outcomes. Now, we have clear visibility into the complete call lifecycle. As important, we accelerated time to value with a hosted solution that was easy to roll out—in just six weeks—and easy to use—with our representatives getting up to speed on the system in just days.” – Michael Bell, Inside Sales Manager



Oracle CRM On Demand Desktop: This application

centralizes essential CRM information in the

familiar Microsoft Outlook environment, increasing

user adoption and decreasing training costs. Users

can manage CRM data while disconnected, then

synchronize bi-directionally when they are back on

the network.

Apple iPad Support: Complete CRM On Demand

functionality, including administration features, is

supported on the Apple iPad with a few minor restrictions.

Actionable Insight

Oracle CRM On Demand successfully offers a

comprehensive range of hosted customer management

tools and analytical capabilities that allow midsize

companies to maximize the benefits of CRM across

multiple business processes. The enterprise-class

solution provides employees with query and analysis

functionalities, real-time insights, sales tracking and

customized reporting from a single, easy-to-administer

web interface. Much of the advantage of Oracle CRM On

Demand is the depth of functionalities enabling midsize

business executives to better address complex business

issues and drive company-wide efficiencies. As such,

organizations can effectively provide intelligence to a

broader audience, gain deeper insights into sales and marketing activities, and uncover potential

revenue streams.

Customer Perspective: “We implemented Oracle CRM On Demand for its functionality and ease of use, which has allowed us to transform the knowledge of individuals into organizational intelligence. This intelligence is now available anywhere and at any time through the cloud, ensuring we can efficiently manage longterm sales cycles.” – Masakatsu Asai, General Manager, Management Information Systems Department, JATCO Ltd

Customer Perspective: “With Oracle CRM On Demand, we have a full visibility model into our sales activities. It has increased efficiency, communication, and collaboration in a way that was simply not possible before.” – Laura Waltrup, Vice President of Sales Operations, Structural Group, Inc.



Conclusion

Midsize business executives will find that Oracle CRM On Demand delivers unprecedented value

with the broadest set of capabilities from a single-provider solution. The solution proves to

have the industry’s lowest total cost of ownership, the most on-demand deployment options,

the deepest CRM expertise and experience of any CRM provider, and the most secure CRM in

the cloud. The flexible, scalable, and feature-rich CRM solution also has industry-specific features

to support the unique requirements of many businesses including Wealth Management, Life

Sciences, Automotive, Insurance, and more.

Midsize companies across the globe are successfully leveraging Oracle CRM On Demand to

positively impact sales, marketing and service, thereby growing the top line while positively

impacting the bottom line as well. For more information on Oracle CRM On Demand, please

visit oracle.com/crm.



About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy,

venture capital, and actionable market intelligence — with a strong focus on global small and

medium businesses (SMBs), and extending into large enterprises and home-based businesses.

The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data,

business strategy perspectives and “go-to-market” solutions. AMI was founded in 1996. Since

its inception, the firm has built a world-class management team, each with ten to fifteen years’

experience in IT, telecom, online communications or multimedia.

AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT,

internet, telecommunications and business services companies. The firm is well known for its IT

and internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets; its annual retainership services

based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 30 countries; and its proprietary database of

SMBs, Cloud services studies and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-

Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several

thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and

analysis.

business benefits of crm in the cloud for midsize companies

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