* SmartCompany provides ASP-based CRM and SFA
CRM and Sales Force Automation, the use of computer systems to manage the sales process and customer life cycle, sound like they should be a really profound way of improving how a business functions but there are two major barriers to success.
The first is cost: In-house implementation of CRM and SFA are usually expensive and place a significant load on IT. Because of these issues it isn’t surprising that there are many tales of companies being so overwhelmed by these projects that implementation ultimately fails. The second is making the system work: Ease of use is crucial if you’re going to get sales people to use the system at more than a trivial level. The problem with many of the top-end CRM and SFA solutions is that they are complex.
To solve these problems a number of ASP offerings have appeared and one of the most polished is provided by SmartCompany (see editorial links below).
The company’s eponymous service covers all of the sales process management aspects you’d expect: accounts management, contacts management, project management, opportunities tracking, order tracking, and reporting. What distinguishes SmartCompany’s service is that it is nice to look at (a crucial issue in gaining and retaining user commitment) and straightforward to use.
The functions of SmartCompany are also well integrated with each other so that, for example, the search features and a history of the data items you’ve looked at are available in every view allowing you to easily backtrack and review.
Reporting is extensive and includes Pipeline Summary Reports by Sales Rep, Product Line or both. Sales Summary Reports are available by Sales Rep with or without splits. Other options for Sales Summary Reports include by Product Line, by both Sales Rep and Product Line, or by Participant Role, Participant, or Account.
In the set up section you can define your organizational information (name, address, and so on), your account information (name, e-mail, contact information, etc.), your preferences (number of search results, report size, and other defaults), user roles (profiles and permissions), users, vendors, product lines, and products, and a document library for files that can be attached to contacts, projects, and so on.
A particularly powerful feature is SmartSearch, which allows you to create, save, and recall complex queries. Predefined SmartSearches include delinquent and inactive accounts and lost opportunities.
While other CRM/SFA products might provide more complex analytical and search facilities SmartCompany has a big advantage over them as it is easier to learn and is more streamlined in use. This ensures that your salesforce will have few excuses not to make the system work.
There’s even a SmartCompany IE toolbar. In fact, to use SmartCompany you really have to use Internet Explorer – I found a number of features that didn’t work under Mozilla Firefox.
The other big advantage of SmartCompany is price: The SmartCompany Sales option includes the contact manager, calendar and to-do list, activity history, sales pipeline management, aging of prospects and deals, pipeline reports and forecasts starting at $20 per user per month. The SmartCompany Corporate option adds booked order management, project management, payments and commissions, product price book, shared document library, and revenue and profitability reports starting at $39.95 per user per month. Both plans offer discounts for prepayment for longer periods.
Finally, there’s even a free Solo version that provides an individual calendar, which allows you to assign follow-up tasks to yourself. It also supports private accounts and contacts, archiving of old or obsolete accounts and contacts, and allows you to categorize, attach notes, tasks, and events to accounts and contacts. Solo accounts can be converted to either of the other two group accounts.
