The Importance of Being Mobile
The Smartphone is perhaps one of the greatest introductions of the new millennium (though some may disagree). Web enabled mobile phones have been rising steadily as technological advances have increased speed and decreased price.
Although some may look at smartphones as vanity objects (a bunch of teenagers hanging at the mall Tweeting about Justin Biber, uploading photos to Facebook, etc.), many professionals utilize their smartphones as productivity tools.
Business Productivity On-The-Go
Barton Goldenberg, president and founder of ISM, Inc. released an article about the future of CRM. In it he notes that “Today’s software runs on desktops, laptops, and smartphones, with increasingly ubiquitous access to custom applications making CRM data and customer information readily available, anytime and anywhere.”
What Goldenberg is saying is that if your CRM doesn’t have a mobile app available, you’re basically behind the times.
Having a mobile app of your CRM helps facilitate field sales, out of office business meetings, and can even be helpful during networking events.
According to Nancy Keddy, CEO and Co-Founder of Touch Ahead Software, LLC, “Mobile CRM apps give us access to a limitless number of contacts and additional information and don’t’ require that we store that information on the mobile device.” This is an option that comes in handy when smartphones usually only come equipped with a couple of gigs of hard drive space.
The Bottom Line
If you or your organization is considering implementing a CRM solution, check to make sure there is a mobile component included.
If you already have a CRM and aren’t using a mobile application, contact your system administrator to see if there is one available.
The Cloud Trend
So we’ve talked about the benefits of SaaS (Software as a Service) including cost efficiency, scalability, and even its positive effect on the environment. However, most companies handle their Business Intelligence (BI) applications in-house. This may not be true in the next few years as SaaS usage is expected to grow to 23% by 2013.
What exactly are BI applications? Business Intelligence applications are computing utilities ranging from data mining and analytic programs to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms.
CIO conducted a survey in May with over 300 IT leaders and found that 23% expect to utilize cloud of SaaS as their main BI solution within three years.
For SaaS vendors, this is incredibly good news, as 57% of those surveyed claimed they anticipate a bigger investment in BI applications within the next year. Opportunity is knocking!
The Benefits of SaaS
We’ve already discussed the benefits of SaaS, but we’re going to do it again!
Two Major Advantages of SaaS
- Cost Efficiency:
o SaaS eliminates the need to buy licenses in bulk.
o Rented on a month-to-month basis (lower upfront costs).
- Off Site Management:
o Reduces workload for in-house IT staff.
o Vendor monitors and updates application.
o Off-site automated backups available.
Its Up To You
Do you want to be ahead of the game and hop on the bandwagon now or later? Regardless of what you decide, SaaS is on the rise. Now is the time to start thinking about whether or not to head into the Cloud.
Web-Based CRM Software EquityTouch 2.2 Released Friday
Significant Speed and Functionality Improvements May Mean Easier Workdays
BOSTON—Boston software development company, Touch Ahead Software, released on Friday a version of its customer relationship management solution that contains significant improvements for its web-hosted CRM solution, EquityTouch.
The web-based solution is targeted toward the alternative asset industry, including private equity and venture capital firms. It specializes in deal-sourcing collaboration, which helps with the management of complex business relationships that come with the nature of the industry.
The main performance changes in version 2.2 consist of giving the user the ability to switch between tabs on Company and Person records more quickly, navigate Touch searches more quickly and perform full drag-and-drop. This means that the tabs labeled Company and Person were merged together so that the Summary, Touches, Details, and Relationships tabs all load at the same time. Now users don’t have to wait for the tabs to load, which increases speed. In addition, all field groupings within EquityTouch can now be dragged and dropped across the whole page so users have control over organization to best fit their needs. If someone doesn’t want to have the Groups grouping at the top of their screen, they can just drag it to the bottom of the screen and this view will be automatically saved.
In addition to these improvements, several bugs were fixed which will further enhance the functionality of EquityTouch. Touch Ahead Software continuously tests its solution to be sure that all features are working to the best of their ability and beyond.
All users of EquityTouch will see these changes and no action is required on the user’s side to implement them.
About Touch Ahead Software LLC
Touch Ahead Software is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions company, focused on providing unparalleled benefits of advanced technology to the alternative asset community. The benefits include higher user satisfaction and increased deal sourcing productivity by utilizing user-friendly collaboration tools, as well as a dramatically reduced cost of ownership and time for implementation. Touch Ahead Software is the developer of EquityTouch®, the premiere deal CRM service for the financial industry and other specialized industries. For more information, please visit http://www.touchahead.com.
Press Contact
Cathie Briggette
Touch Ahead Software LLC
(p) +1 866 960 9301
(e) cmb@touchahead.com
How Deployment of Mobile CRM Can Help Your Business
Because pads of paper aren't enough!
Chances are that your employees already use a smartphone such as a BlackBerry for work. With the ease of mobility and the convenient size of the smartphone and other web-enabled handheld devices, why not choose to make your CRM application accessible on there, as well? Employees who work remotely are able to access client data in a matter of seconds with mobile CRM.
Mobile CRM can be very helpful to your team. Many businesses have employees on-the-go, and yours could very well be one of them. What's surprising is that not as many businesses as you may think have taken advantage of mobile CRM - which is an opportunity for your business to get ahead.
The ability to access client data and manage complex business relationships while out of the office is invaluable. Why not take advantage of the opportunity to increase productivity while improving organization and communication?
Using a CRM application that has mobile capabilities helps you to stay on top of data entry. For example, if you just met with a client, and you agree to set a date for another meeting, you have your CRM at your fingertips. With some solutions that have Outlook and calendaring integrated, you could immediately check what dates and times work for you and enter the appointment right then and there. This decreases the chances that you will forget about your future meeting or forget to put it on your calendar. Many CRM applications allow you to enter your points of contact with a person, whether it is a meeting, phone call, or E-mail. Mobile CRM allows you to enter this information instantly before you get back to the office and while the information is still fresh in your mind.
Mobile CRM is an easy, secure way to get the information you need, when you need it. An interesting statistic is provided by the maker of BlackBerry, Research In Motion. It collaborated with Forrester Research to survey the market for mobile CRM, and they found that more than half of the people who responded to their study lost business opportunities before they made their CRM available on the road, because they couldn't access the information without being in the office.
This is another reason why making CRM available on-the-go is so important. Try not to use lack of time and money as an excuse to not invest in mobile CRM, because the business opportunities that are lost as a result of inaccessible information will cost you time and money in the long-run.