When deciding which software services best fit your company’s needs, the two main choices seem to be cloud computing versus on-premise software. Cloud computing offers subscription-based applications on shared datacenters over the Internet, with the vendor taking care of all of the hosting and maintenance details.
While the pros and cons for each side are viable, customer relationship management (CRM) systems are evolving, and the software that supports it needs to as well. Companies have to adapt to their ever changing demands. The corporate world has new requirements in customer service because consumers want results and they want them fast.
Cloud computing offers a new look at application management, without the drawbacks of on-site software suites.
- Cost: Money is one topic that everyone wants to talk about. In an up-and-down economy, cutting costs while increasing efficiency is often a top priority. With on-premises software, your company pays up-front for software licenses, servers, storage space for the servers, cooling systems that keep the servers cool, maintenance of the servers, an IT staff for server configuration – you get where this is going. Cloud vendors charge on a subscription basis, meaning you only pay for the applications you use.
- Time: Installing and configuring licensed software can often be time consuming. Let your IT staff focus on new projects and application development instead of software maintenance and workarounds.
- Accessibility: Cloud computing applications offer up-to-the-minute updates to anyone with an Internet connection, including your reps in the field with mobile devices. On-site software, on the other hand, may not push updates through online, so your most useful information may not filter through your organization as quickly.
- Security: Employees leaving the company can steal customer information before leaving, whereas with web applications, management can turn off specific employee access.
- IT Staff: It is best when you have skilled IT staff readily available. Server problems never occur at an convenient time, and employing several full-time IT personnel for server maintenance can be ineffective and costly.
- Risky Business: On-premises solutions primarily have implementation risks due to deployment complexities.
- Portability: For your sales reps, the real work is done in the field, which is why you want them to be prepared for sales calls with up-to-the-minute information. Why keep your data locked away in the office?
- Speed: On-site software often houses many programs that clog up your memory, which in turn can making booting and running your computer slower.
- Reliability: When your computer crashes, you lose the data on it. With cloud computing, though, when your personal computer crashes, your data is still stored in the cloud, safe and sound.
- Collaboration: Documents that are hosted on a computer are difficult to share with co-workers, slowing collaboration and placing cumbersome limits on projects. If documents are stored on the computer of an employee who is out of the office, they can’t be viewed without access to that computer, therefore limiting any collaboration that may be valuable.
- Independence: You are tied to your computer in the office to work. Your programs, customer information, company data, and applications are only available to you while you are in the office.
- Portability: Work done away from your desk may be laborious to transfer back to the network. System access and firewalls complicate matters – as they should, to keep your network secure – and keep you from easily accessing your work.
- Storage: Adding storage capacity to your servers is expensive and time consuming. With cloud computing, storage is virtually limitless, allowing you to quickly expand your databases.
