SugarCRM Redesigns Mobile Application

Given the simple fact that most salespeople spend more time outside the office than in it, the quality of a mobile application experience is of paramount importance. With that issue in mind, SugarCRM today announced it has revamped its mobile application as part of an effort to better streamline workflow processes.

Clint Oram, chief marketing officer for SugarCRM, says the primary goal of the SugarCRM redesign effort is to reduce the number of clicks a salesperson needs to make when standing in front of a customer using the application. To achieve that goal, Oram says, SugarCRM has been steadily re-engineering SugarCRM using an HTML5 framework in a way that optimizes the application for tablets and smartphones. Unlike many other providers of mobile applications, Oram notes, it quickly became apparent that in the CRM space merely shrinking a Web application would not provide a quality mobile computing application experience.

“Shrinking applications just doesn’t work,” says Oram.

With this release of SugarMobile, Oram says, SugarCRM is also allowing customers to customize SugarCRM by adding their own branding in addition to adding support for deep linking, Apple Touch ID and embedded enterprise mobile management (EMM) tools to manage application deployments.

Going forward, Oram says SugarCRM continues to work on refining a data service based on an artificial intelligence platform dubbed Candace, while at the same time beta testing a software development kit (SDK) intended to make it simpler to embed Sugar Mobile within other application workflows.

Oram says that some customers are starting to eschew the desktop version of CRM applications altogether on the assumption that a tablet or smartphone is now the primary device any salesperson will be using. As that trend progresses, it’ll be interesting to see how many new application features start showing up on mobile applications first before being added to the desktop version of an application later.