CRM: A Business Imperative for Companies during the Global Economic Downturnfficeffice" />

Navigating through turbulent times is never easy, but today’s economic conditions are more challenging than most companies have ever faced. The instinctive reaction is switch to defensive mode; cut all strategic projects and then wait until things improve. But retreating behind the bailey could actually prove to be more detrimental in the long term. These turbulent times present new opportunities for companies that invest wisely in information technologies. This whitepaper examines how Sage is working with small and medium sized businesses like yours today to help them protect and grow their revenues during the economic downturn through the use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. CRM enables companies to: (1) deliver exceptional and personalised service consistently to their customers during these challenging times, (2) increase their customer revenue share through highly focussed business development programmes (3) extend the reach and effectiveness of new business programmes and (4) achieve significant cost savings and on-going productivity improvements. fficeffice" />

The global economic downturn has been swift, sharp and widespread across all industries. And while the timeframe for recovery is debated on a daily basis, one certainty remains true: companies today face the toughest economic conditions in several generations. The next steps they take over the coming months will determine their very survival. Winners and losers will inevitably emerge, but perhaps separated by only the thinnest of margins.fficeffice" />

The Challenge for Small and Mid-Sized Companies
The global downturn has brought about a dramatic increase in business failures over the last six months, and nowhere has this been more apparent than in the case of small and mid-sized businesses. Unlike bigger companies, where more cash on the balance sheet provides some degree of insulation, SMBs have seen a rapid decline in cash flow as a result of slowing customer demand and evaporating lines of credit.fficeffice" />

There has been a sudden rush to cut spending as companies use every means at their disposal to restrict or eliminate activities that will not improve sales or the bottom-line in the near term. While this has been understandable, cost reduction on its own will not steer a business safely through the economic downturn. Businesses also need to examine how they can safeguard revenues and profitability, and particularly within their own customer base. Otherwise, they are just delaying the inevitable: more painful cost reductions and the very real possibility of sliding into an irrevocable decline. fficeffice" />

What Can You Do?fficeffice" />

Cutting costs while maintaining growth is a formidable challenge at the best of times, but during a downturn, it can seem almost impossible. To meet these goals, SMBs will need to look for practical solutions that will help them to drive productivity and increase effectiveness across their operations.

Increasingly, companies like yours are turning to business software and CRM applications in particular, to drive through the kind of operational improvements needed to survive and accelerate out of the downturn. By optimising revenue-generating activities at a lower cost to your company, CRM is uniquely positioned to assist you during the most challenging market conditions.

Why CRM?fficeffice" />

First and foremost, CRM helps you to protect revenues from your current customers by ensuring that you are delivering exceptional service and safeguarding their loyalty notwithstanding increasing cost pressures. Additionally, by providing deeper insight into your customers, CRM enables you to unearth latent revenue opportunities within your customer base for complementary products and services. It allows you to leverage these opportunities and proactively grow your revenue share through highly focussed business development programmes which replace sporadic interaction with true customer lifecycle management. CRM, therefore, helps you deliver exceptional and personalised service consistently to your customers during these challenging times.

Selling more to existing customers may be the first priority during a downturn, but the important task of acquiring new customers cannot be overlooked. Without growth in customer numbers, any business runs the risk of exhausting its revenue base over the medium term. Selling to new prospects, however, is generally regarded as being five to ten times more costly than selling to an existing customer, so improving sales and marketing efficiency will be vital for growing your customer numbers during the downturn. CRM, and the latest generation of CRM products from companies like Sage in particular, have an important role to play in this regard. In times of recession, CRM solutions can allow you to extend the reach and effectiveness of your new business sales and marketing programmes through on-going process improvements, productivity enhancements and significant cost savings.fficeffice" />

In a downturn, therefore, CRM enables you to:fficeffice" />

1.     Grow your revenue share within your existing customer base

a.     Understand the true cross-sell and up-sell opportunity of every one of your customers in order to maximise the profitability of every relationship

b.    Dramatically reduce your cost-per-lead by delivering highly targeted marketing communications to specific customers or customer segments.

c.     Cut the amount of time and cost it takes to resolve service issues without compromising an exceptional service experience that keeps your customers loyal.

d.    Provide decentralised empowerment to your customer-facing staff in a way that will drive their productivity and effectiveness while still retaining central control over headline resource, performance and budget management.

1.     Capture new businesses at a far lower cost-of-sale than was possible previouslyfficeffice" />

a.     Lower your cost-of-sale by always ensuring that your sales team is focussed on the opportunities that are most likely to close.

b.    Dramatically reduce your cost-per-lead by delivering highly targeted and consistent marketing messages to specific prospects or market segments.

c.     Introduce marketing accountability, so you can ensure that you are getting the right level of return from every marketing dollar that you spend.

d.    Ensure consistent processes are followed, with clear key performance indicators (KPI) which create solid discipline and greater predictability for sales and service personnel.

e.     Strip administration out of your organisation, so there’s less paperwork, errors and task repetition, and less cost as a result.

As a result, one of the biggest potential mistakes a company can make at the moment is to continue with in a ‘business as usual’ mode notwithstanding exceptional trading circumstances. The ‘cost of doing nothing’, therefore, is significant. The table below highlights the potential cost of inaction through a series of practical examples. It also examines some of the underlying issues which may be affecting a company like yours and discusses how CRM can help to address them.fficeffice" />

How Sage CRM Solutions can help your organisationfficeffice" />

Lowering costs and driving productivity within your sales operations

Sage CRM Solutions empower organisations to sell more effectively and efficiently during a downturn. Sales executives have a single point of access for calendars, accounts, reports, pipeline management, contacts and call lists; all of which ensure that they are producing more revenue per sales hour. Easy-to-use analytical tools help your sales team to identify latent sales opportunities which exist within your customer database, and then create cross-sell and up-sell propositions accordingly. Automated workflow and pipeline management tools eliminate unnecessary paperwork and ensure that sales teams are optimising their sales processes and adhering to company-specific sales stages. This means that opportunities will be progressed as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Dashboards and reports provide at-a-glance information to sales executives and managers on performance at any point in time. Integration with back-office applications provides sales staff with access to both financial and non-financial data, for a complete 360 degree view of their customers. Information and capabilities from on-demand services can be added with ease, allowing users to leverage even further productivity benefits and insight. Mobile and offline solutions provide sales teams with access to the information and services that they need to do their jobs effectively; regardless of their location, device or connection, and ensuring that they are as productive in the field as they are in the office.

Lowering costs and driving productivity within your customer service operationsfficeffice" />

Sage CRM Solutions will enable your company to roll-out Web-based customer self-service quickly and cost effectively. From here, users can service their own information needs, track data and update the system without the requirement for customer service assistance and at the time and place of their choice. Additionally, you can maximise the synchronisation between your service agents and your customers, ensuring that cases are progressed in a timely manner and in accordance with service level agreements (SLA). Knowledge management capabilities make it easier to capture remedies related to specific issues which may recur over time; making sure that agents are not duplicating effort. Reports and dashboards provide detailed analysis on metrics such as call volume, case resolution times, communications, follow-up statistics and escalation so management can quantify the benefit of the agents to the business and to their customers.

Enhancing command and control over the entire organisation for your senior executivesfficeffice" />

Sage CRM Solutions provides your senior management with enhanced central control over operations and budgets, helping them to manage these areas more effectively during challenging times. Reporting and dashboards provide instant insight into business performance across multiple criteria. Senior managers have the ability to validate forecast data with full drill-down to the underlying opportunities. Real-time visibility on revenue and budget variance ensures that decisions are based on accurate information, and corrective action can be taken earlier in the cycle when it has maximum impact. Integrated with your back-office applications, CRM provides a complete view of the business and streamlined end-to-end business management capabilities.

Why Sage?fficeffice" />

Unlike any other company in our industry, Sage has focussed exclusively on the business software needs of small and medium-sized organisations for the last 28 years. With over 5.8 million SMB business applications customers around the world today, Sage is globally recognised as the market leader in this important segment.

Critically, we have worked closely with our customers to support them through previous downturns, and we continue to provide them with expert guidance and market-leading software as they into face today’s challenges. We understand that each business is unique; therefore we offer a range of CRM applications to suit businesses of all types and requirements. Sage CRM Solutions offer a portfolio of market-leading applications consisting of ACT!, Sage CRM and Sage SalesLogix. Sage CRM Solutions are provided through a range of competitive pricing options to suit your particular budget.

Sage CRM Solutions can be purchased and installed at your offices or consumed as an on-demand service provided by Sage over the Internet. Additionally, we provide a range of finance options to spread the cost of your investment over a term that suits you.fficeffice" />

Finally, one of Sage’s biggest strengths and competitive differentiators in the marketplace is our global network of over 30,000 Sage-certified business partners that provide unparalleled business applications expertise and on-the-ground coverage to ensure to that you can always talk face-to-face with an expert and that you will leverage the maximum return from your CRM investment over its lifetime.