Picture the scene. Your favourite dessert is sat on a serving plate across the room, its frosted flakes of gluttonous goodness luring you in, the scent of sweet buttercream drifting across the air. You imagine yourself getting stuck in – your taste-buds salivate – your fingers itch for a fork – suddenly only a few meager crumbs remain and there’s enough chocolate in your beard that you could be mistook for a novelty Santa.
Yes, you could have it all. But come on, we’ve all felt that nauseous sugary dip that makes you regret even locking eyes on that sinful sugar fest. Well, what’s the alternative? Refusing? Sitting there kidding yourself you’re content with your grapes and water crackers? Come off it.
Moderation. That’s the key. Forget all or nothing and consider your options before you dive in headfirst. It works with cakes and it works with Clouds. In fact, if many businesses were this disciplined with their choice of CRM deployment, they really could have their cake and eat it too – since the initial and ongoing gains of combining on-premise and hosted CRM packages is really quite appealing.
Before you make your selection, it’s best to have a clear understanding of everything that is available to you. After all, the last thing you want to do is run with a CRM deployment option just because your main competitor or bloke in the office next door is raving about it.
What works for them, might not work for you. Think of it like that cake we were all fantasising about earlier – not everyone likes the same kind of sponge and there are some tastes that really only suit certain events, that’s why you’ve got to satisfy your own needs.
The three main CRM deployment options are Cloud CRM, On-Premise CRM and the combined platter of both – the hybrid cloud. Let’s first take a look at the Cloud CRM.
Cloud solutions are rather like the rentals of the CRM world. You don’t purchase it or own it outright, instead a monthly subscription cost is applied to cover all upgrades and service updates. With over 3 million users worldwide, Microsoft Dynamics is a reliable Cloud CRM system but regardless of your provider, Cloud CRM benefits include no upfront costs, no overhead dedicated CRM server, rapid CRM implementation and the fact you only ever pay for what you use.
If you want to call the shots and control everything from your own server, On-Premise is the way to go. With this option, you can utilise existing IT investments and retain direct control over data – a significant aspect of business in the legal and financial sectors. Companies that use On-Premise as an add-on to their existing infrastructures might find that the overall costs are lower since they can avoid monthly cost hikes and use resources already live such as personnel or outsourced IT – who can also manage the CRM independently.
The pick and mix of CRM solutions, the Hybrid Cloud option is the best of both worlds combining the gains of both the Cloud and On-Premise systems we just discussed. Firstly, you can choose to either pay monthly or purchase the license outright at the start enabling economic flexibility.
According to Rackspace, a global leader in Hybrid Cloud solutions, over 60% of businesses are now considering moving to a combined CRM option due to the limitations of operating in either a solely dedicated or public cloud environment.
Their argument? Simple. You just can’t find a one-size-fits-all solution that matches with what Cloud or On-Premise are offering. Unique requirements and different applications are complemented by a Hybrid Cloud solution because of its adaptability – it’s like matching the right solution to the right job.
Need an example? Take IBM – the traditional hardware vendor that introduced 40 new cloud data centres last month to accommodate global demand as part of their complete Cloud overhaul and strategic plan to win business by backing the Hybrid solution.
Their Cloud Leader for the UK and Ireland Doug Clark commented:
“One of the things that’s been really evident over the past two years has been this need for a hybrid Cloud environment. There are a lot of customers for IBM that still want to have on-premise capability whilst making full use of the Cloud”.
When both public and private Cloud and independent servers are combined together to create a seamlessly operating platform, suddenly all other deployment option take a back seat. Add to that the peace of mind organisations feel with the safeguarding of secure data Hybrid solutions deliver while freely migrating from on-premise tech and that’s the icing on the cake.
By Gareth Cartman
