Document Management Within Your CRM Solution
In this article I aim to outline some of the advantages in holding your data online within your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution. This refers to cloud-based CRM as opposed to an on-premise model.
Document management is undergoing a systematic overhaul. Traditionally documents have been stored in folders, drawers, filing cabinets, libraries right up to huge warehouses. These volumes of paper look and feel great and let’s face it, no James Bond or Indiana Jones film would look complete without at least one scene in such a setting.
But these files take up room – lots of room – and they are susceptible to theft, arson, and if they are not archived correctly they become a huge volume of useless information.
More recent years have seen this data being moved to floppy disks, CDs, DVDs and external hard drives. Although tiny in comparison to the paper-based model, this still entail physical storage.
Now let’s take a look at the online option. The field of online document storage is growing at an incredible rate.
This is due to a number of factors:
More people have access to computers and the internet. It really isn’t that long since many businesses weren’t using computers. Even now certain services still use hand written invoices, and a non-automated sales cycle. But computers have come down in price and become more user-friendly enough to permit businesses in all sectors to switch to using them throughout their organisation.
The capacity for data storage is growing daily. The volume of information that can be stored has skyrocketed beyond all expectations. Whereas a PC of a few years ago had perhaps a 64GB hard drive, today you can get a machine with a Terrabyte of storage space for the same price. Reflecting of this, cloud-based storage space is growing in size and coming down in price.
The internet as well as computers are getting faster & faster. I am sure most of you can remember when it took a couple of hours to send or receive a large file. What was worse, if your internet connection suffered a blip in that time, you had to go back to square one. Today it is possible to transfer large volumes of at high speed with both the internet and your computer working faster than ever before
Economics, online data storage is a factor in saving money and resources. As with all business propositions, it’s about money. Online storage means there is no need to invest in hardware or software. You don’t have to wait for equipment to be installed, or to pay for a technician to get your system up and running.
The above factors are all relevant when considering a cloud-based CRM solution. As a business grows the need to store and access client information and records increases. An online CRM solution means that your entire organisation has access to data wherever they have internet access. This means you have the information necessary to maintain control over sales operations and not miss out on any opportunities regardless of your physical location.
As you can see, the benefits of online data management go hand in hand with the implementation of a cloud-based CRM solution.
