The value of cloud CRM solutions advanced the quality and efficiency of customer management in both small and larger businesses, along with the advantages of the collaboration between the colleagues. Its benefits are widely known and proved from the fact that more and more businesses are leaving their traditional on-premise solutions and have started using cloud ones. Below you can find our interview with Fahd Khan, who explains the advantages of cloud CRM, the changes that cloud improvements have brought to CRM, best practices in order to boost your productivity and much more.
Fahd Khan is a cloud Business Development manager at ZSAH Managed Technology Services. ZSAH (http://www.zsah.net/) is a leader in the provision of Private and Hybrid Clouds architects around business-need. Zsah delivers cost-effective, high quality managed IT services to a range of UK businesses, operating across multiple sectors.
Cloud Technology is constantly changing, so how does this affect cloud CRM and what does the business owner need to be aware of?
Cloud technologies are changing however in relation to cloud CRM products it is very stable. This is one of the benefits of using a cloud based CRM product, thanks to a number of leading companies and due to the rapid increase in cloud technology CRM’s have been more and more consistent whilst becoming easier to tailor for a variety of business use. In the past business owners had to be very weary of the type of CRM they needed and the various issues their specific business and CRM requirements would need. There would be a lot of back and forth with the developer in testing and siphoning out all the glitches, however in today’s market this is not as much of a problem and business owners need to simply ensure that they are subscribing to a well-established CRM product with a good name for itself in the market.
Do you have a few key best practices regarding CRM use?
With our CRM we are consistently making changes in house, and what we would advise any company that is editing and tailoring their CRM around their business is to ensure every change is recorded to avoid and keep any problems that may arise with the system to a minimum. Although it varies from company to company it would also be best practice to keep training on the CRM for staff as a regular and consistent process. The benefits of thisoccurs in two ways, the first is that your company and its processes will run more smoothly as your staff familiarize themselves and make good use of your CRM and all its features and secondly, as your CRM develops and your team becomes more proficient in its use, you could find yourself receiving beneficial feedback that could lead to further development within your cloud CRM.
Cloud CRM is thought to be the best solution especially for small businesses, do you agree? Why?
Without a doubt cloud CRM is definitely the way forward for any forward thinking SME’s. It has countless benefits from helping staff work faster and more efficiently to putting your business on a level playing field with the bigger enterprises. Expensive and high quality CRMs that only enterprises could afford are now a thing of the past thanks to the leaps and bounds that the tech industry has been making in recent years.
What are your expectations for CRM in the next five years?
I believe in the next five years the core CRM industry will remain somewhat unchanged; however there will be a major focus on mobile CRMs. With the evolution of cloud we will see complex CRMs being developed into user friendly and efficient products to be used just as well on a mobile as they are on your desktop or laptop. Just as we can now work on the move and office hardware as well as software is on the cloud, this will also play a big hand in allowing companies to be able to enable their staff to use their mobiles for CRM related work.
Given that CRM is fully saturated in the cloud, what are some of the other areas that will be next for the cloud technology?
The cloud industry is making some of its biggest impact in the medical and life sciences industries. Whereas before scientists and doctors had to manoeuvre different departments and deal with a lot of red tape in order to receive anything from scans to test results, now thanks to the cloud these processes are speeding up and a lot of research and results are becoming available almost instantaneously. Due to the sheer speed of the advancements in this industry it is hard to predict where it is headed but there’s no doubt that we have a bright and exciting future to look forward to.
You can follow Fahd at @therealfahdkhan or check his LinkedIn page at https://uk.linkedin.com/in/therealfahdkhan . ZSAH can be found in Twitter with the handle @zsahLTD and in LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/zsah .
