Can a CRM application be easy to use? Many have a reputation for being less than user-friendly.
Our partner has created an on demand CRM application that’s easy to learn and use.
Gordon Hartogensis, CEO, sees this as a critical combination, especially for small to mid-size companies who are entering the CRM market for the first time.
“Small companies are intimidated by the large CRM vendors,” says Hartogensis. “The interfaces are too complicated and they offer too many options and decision trees. If your primary audience for an application is your sales force, you can’t intimidate them with a complicated system. They’ll never use it. You have to keep it simple.”
“We wanted ad hoc reporting capability that fit in with our philosophy of being easy to learn and simple to use.”
Gordon Hartogensis CEO, Auric Technology
A Simplified Reporting Solution
When it came to reporting systems, Izenda’s software was a natural fit for our partner.
“We wanted ad hoc reporting capability that fit in with our philosophy of being easy to learn and simple to use,” says Hartogensis. “Purchasing a reporting product from a larger vendor would have doubled our costs because the time to integrate the application with our own would have been much greater. We looked at all the big players, but Izenda seemed to be the perfect match.”
Hartogensis also recognized that Izenda’s ease of use could be a key selling point during client demonstrations.
“There are a lot of deals and projects we go after where the key to closing the deal is a couple of reports. You can’t anticipate what fields the customer is going to want. But because our consultants and sales people know how to use Izenda, they can build a report on the fly.”
Integrating with Izenda enabled our partner to differentiate itself with a significant competitive advantage over larger competitors, and increase profitability by selling into a higher tier of enterprise customers.
The company also saved two-man years of development (an estimated $200,000) and improved time-to-market over building in-house.
“Additionally, the product that we would have developed would not have been as robust or as flexible,” says Hartogensis. “Most likely, our development would have been tailored to fit a particular customer’s needs and then later retrofitted to work for other customers.”
“By leveraging Izenda, we are now able to market to and sell into a higher tier of enterprise customers, and we’re able to go to market with the new and improved solution immediately.”
Gordon Hartogensis CEO, Auric Technology
Secure Access to Data
For an application service provider like our partner, another key to winning a client deal is to focus on security.
“Obviously, when a customer logs in, we can’t give them access to the whole system. Izenda allows us to program the settings so we can limit the data users can see. They get exactly what they need and only what they need.”
Limiting data is not only a security consideration, but it helps reduce confusion for end users.
With Izenda, users don’t have to see the fields that they don’t have the security to access.
A Critical Component in a Competitive Marketplace
Reporting capabilities are critical for a CRM application. In the past, the lack of solutions available to small companies have been a competitive hurdle.
For our partner, the internal cost savings of offering Izenda’s reporting functionality are important, but even more significant is that it allows the organization to differentiate itself from competitors like Salesforce.com, whose “customizable canned” reports lack flexibility and are cumbersome to use.
With Izenda, smaller companies like our partner now have a way to compete in the competitive CRM marketplace.
