We're a small, quickly growing to mid-sized discrete manufacturing firm (roughly 50 employees, probably 100+ by end of 2006), with a growing number of distributors (and indirectly, the dealers that are their customer base). We receive many end-user leads, which we then pass to these distributors (and sometimes the dealers, directly).
We have a primarily inside sales force, who speaks with everyone from distributors and dealers, to architects, project managers, multi-family developers and recording studio owners (we manufacture a family of construction products).
We have a small sales team, and nearly non-existing marketing department -- so need to leverage efficiency and productivity via technology.
Our current environment is beginning to cost more and more time -- so we're research CRM and other apps, in order to quickly develop a roadmap.
We have a standard, Windows-based distributed environment, and we use QuickBase for SFA (by Intuit - very light on features, compared to even quasi-CRM like ME9). We use Outlook for email, standard Office apps organized by folder, Microsoft (formerly Great Plains) SBF (Small Business Financials 8.0) for everything from customer orders and invoices, to inventory management, to accounting. Finally, we run our online store (a small part of our total business, but one with a high volume of small, end-user orders) via Yahoo! Store.
None of these systems are integrated, and we are rapidly outgrowing them.
ME8 (and now ME9) is intriguing because:
A. The price point is much lower than full-featured CRM like Siebel, but it has many similar features.
B. A Maximizer 3rd Party Developer called AccMAX has a module that would allow us to run SBF from within Maximizer (and automatically have orders accessible via customer record, etc.).
C. Inherent integration with Office apps (Outlook, Word, etc.) would help our organization and efficiency.
D. ME9 is less expensive (amortized over 2-3 years) than a hosted app with a monthly fee such as Salesforce.
Our concerns:
1. There seems to be a lot of IT admin and even integration needed to ensure proper function of even "out of the box" functionality. For instance, to mimic QuickBase's web interface, we have to purchase eCRM, and dedicate a server to which people can log on via VPN (and candidly, we don't have a great handle on what is needed technically for this - if anyone reading this does, input will be appreciated).
2. The reports of technical issues on this message board are far from encouraging.
3. We have to trust not one vendor (Maximizer), but two - one even smaller, and more unknown (AccMAX).
4. I used to use Maximizer (pre ME), and ran the first version of ME in '95 or so -- and it was both great, and unique (opportunity management was in its infancy in those days, at least in the "sub-Siebel" market). However, the more I read - the less "out of the box" it seems.
Choices seem to be:
1. Try to stay with current apps, and make the best of it, maybe via some custom integration.
2. Go with the more expensive, but seemingly more safe world of hosted apps.
3. Take a chance on ME9, and hope that efficiency and productivity improve because of it.
SPECIFIC QUESTIONS:
1. Given all of the above, does anyone have suggestions, ME-related or not?
2. If this were your decision, what would you do?
3. Any strong suggestions or warnings regarding ME OR any other CRM apps? (Siebel, Salesforce, NetSuite, Sage, etc. etc.)
Thanks in advance for any help or insight you can offer.
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