SugarCRM Puts CRM User Experience in Context

The Battle for Sales: Five Reasons Showrooming Will Always Win

One of the primary reasons that customer relationship management (CRM) software is not universally used across the business is that for the most part, these applications were designed for managers rather than the people that are actually tasked with using them.

To specifically address that issue, SugarCRM today released version 7.0 of its namesake CRM application, which is designed to help the people that use its software to actually sell more by giving them more contextual information about any customer at any given time.

According to SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin, roughly 20 million people use CRM applications today. But Augustin claims at least 200 million more people could be using it, which is one reason Goldman Sachs decided to invest $40 million in SugarCRM. Organizations are not adopting CRM, says Augustin, because resistance is high among the rank and file to software that is designed to make it easier to manage sales rather than actually enable sales.

The latest version of SugarCRM makes use of JavaScript to create a user experience that Augustin says provides access to related information about any given sales prospect regardless of whether that data resides inside or out of the enterprise. The end result, says Augustin, is a CRM application that sales people actually want to use, because it provides the context they need to help them actually achieve their sales quota, which in their minds is directly tied to their commission checks.

Compensation drives behavior in many subtle ways. If organizations truly want their sales staffs to enthusiastically embrace CRM, they need to make sure the users get the data they need to make the sales.