The Three of Comparison of Open Source Customer Relationship Management (Crm) Software
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THE THREE OF COMPARISON OF OPEN SOURCE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) SOFTWARE Ayuditya Annisa Edmarani (1006822694) Desi Ratiwi (1006822744) Mochamad Luthfi Suladria (1006822952) Nikmatul Wachidah (1006822965) Putri Sidratul Muntaha (1006823002) March 2012 ABSTRACT Customer Relationship Management (CRM) softwares are very common in large companies. However, CRM softwares are not very common in small and medium company. Open source CRM softwares are often targeted to enterprises whose requirements are not covered by standard software. Similar circumstances apply to organizations that need continuous adaption of the software to changing processes and needs. Therefore a company have to start implementing Information Systems (IS) technology into their business operations in order to improve business values and gain more competitive advantage over rivals. CRM software has the potential to help improve the business value and competitive capabilities of the company. And in this paper the suitability of current open source CRM softwares for these enterprises will be examined. It provides sufficient information for a small or medium enterprise to choose a flexible and adaptable open source CRM software. Then selected open source CRM projects are reviewed and classified according to these criteria. The results are a criteria catalog and a classification of selected open source CRM softwares. Keywords: CRM, Open Source, SugarCRM, Vtiger, SplendidCRMSoftware I. INTRODUCTION In an era of financial crisis and expense reduction it is important that companies keep pace with changing technologies and markets, adopting strategies for tracking trends, but which are not expensive. Because the current economic crisis leads companies to adopt strategies in order to fight against the difficulties. Regarding the costs, the purchase of open source software is free and the hardware associated to the systems has lower costs. This is justified, taking into account that those which are looking for open source software are not available to purchase commercial software, and also usually don’t have financial resources to invest in more sophisticated equipment. The open source software has a good quality, despite being developed by community. Nowadays the releases and the stable versions of software usually suffer an extended inspection and are exposed to various tests of software quality before being delivered. Often the commercial software lacks some essential functionalities for organizations. The fact of commercial software does not provide the source code, not allows adding extra features. The open source software provides its source code, enabling organizations to develop new characteristics and integrating them into their applications. The integration of other complementary software, is an additional possibility. The availability of the source code allows the integration of different tools. For example, it is possible the integration of open source databases, open source CRM systems, open source business intelligence tools, etc. Therefore some company needs low cost CRM solutions that can easily adapt to their business model and IT structure, instead of having to adapt their business model and IT structure to the CRM software. II. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service. Customer relationship management describes a company-wide business strategy including customer-interface departments as well as other departments. Measuring and valuing customer relationships is critical to implementing this strategy. There are many pieces of software available that offer customer relationship management features, but in reality, CRM goes beyond software implementation. It's a business strategy that often involves using multiple pieces of software, as well as implementing policies that promote the collection of customer information, and the use of that information by individuals throughout the company in order to maximize customer service and increase sales. III. PROFILES a. Vtiger CRM Vtiger CRM is an Open Source CRM software mainly for small and medium businesses. vtiger CRM is built over proven, fast, and reliable LAMP/WAMP (Linux/Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) technologies and other open source projects. Vtiger CRM leverages the benefits of Open Source software and adds more value to the end-users by providing many enterprise features, such as sales force automation, customer support & service, marketing automation, inventory management, multiple database support, security management, product customization, calendaring, E- mail integration, add-ons, and others. Vtiger CRM software installation is very simple as all the necessary software, such as Apache, MySQL, and PHP are integrated and executables are made available both for Windows and Linux (RedHat, Debian, SuSe, Fedora, and Mandrake) operating systems in SourceForge.net. You need not concern too much about setting up database, Web server, and other software. Vtiger CRM also provides, enterprise grade business productivity enhancement add- ons, vtiger Customer Portal, vtiger Outlook Plug-in for Microsoft® Outlook® users, vtiger Office Plug-in for Microsoft® Word® users, and vtiger Thunderbird Extension for Mozilla/Thunderbird users. All these add-ons are part of the vtiger CRM Open Source project in SourceForge.net b. SugarCRM SugarCRM is the world's leading provider of open source customer relationship management (CRM) software. Over 7,000 customers and more than half a million users rely on SugarCRM to execute marketing programs, grow sales, retain customers and create custom business applications. Leading publications such as CRM Magazine, InfoWorld and eWeek praise SugarCRM for its ease-of-use, flexibility and open design. SugarCRM runs on the leading cloud computing platforms, including Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Sugar On-Demand and Private Clouds, offering customers unparalleled choice and control of their data and deployments. c. SplendidCRMSoftware Inc SplendidCRM Software Inc.'s development team formed in November 2005. The application is built on the Microsoft platform (Windows, ISS, SQL Server, C# and ASP). Designed for system integrators, SplendidCRM allows administrators to add user- customizable features such as .NET 2.0’s Themes, Web Parts and AJAX. SplendidCRM is positioned as a competitor to SugarCRM, as the two applications share many of the same features. For instance, both offer an Outlook plug-in and the ability to add custom fields.development team formed in November 2005. The application is built on the Microsoft platform (Windows, ISS, SQL Server, C# and ASP). Designed for system integrators, SplendidCRM allows administrators to add user-customizable features such as .NET 2.0’s Themes, Web Parts and AJAX. SplendidCRM is positioned as a competitor to SugarCRM, as the two applications share many of the same features. For instance, both offer an Outlook plug-in and the ability to add custom fields. SplendidCRM is a commercial open-source Customer Relationship Application that targets companies with an investment in Microsoft-based servers. The CRM market is mature 8-billion-dollar-per-year market with double-digit growth predicted through the year 2012. CRMs are experiencing growth because they are no longer just sales and lead-generation tools; they are, in fact, taking on a new role as a back-office platform. The CRM is becoming the unified application that tracks all interactions for all current and future customers. By providing the source code for our technology and by delivering this techology on the popular Microsoft technology stack, we believe that we can attract a small but healthy percentage of the market that wants tight integration and requires Microsoft compatibility. SplendidCRM was developed using the best development tools and using the best practices for web application development. As a result, SplendidCRM has become a highly-scalable, highly-customizable, enterprise application that can be delivered at a fraction of the cost of the major players in the CRM market space. All CRMs have a core set of features, so SplendidCRM competes on price, on performance, and on the natural technology bias of the typical IT professional. Windows and Linux have a nearly equal share of the server market, but IT professionals defend their choice with the same vigor usually reserved for religious dicussions. No product can be everything to everyone, but SplendidCRM seeks to be the best product for Windows-based servers. SplendidCRM is a web-based application, so it can be delivered as an on-site application or as an on-demand service. We will be engaging with partners that will customize SplendidCRM for highly-specialized vertical markets. SplendidCRM Software is a Microsoft Certified Partner. IV. COMPARE THREE OPEN –SOURCE CRM APPLICATIONS Vendor name Vtiger SugarCRM SplendidCRM Company logo Product Name vtiger CRM On Demand Sugar Community Edition SplendidCRM Community vtiger CRM (Open Source) (previously known as Sugar Open