Cloud Computing & Hosted PBX News – Dallas, TX
Cloud Computing & Hosted PBX News – Dallas, TX

Five Technology Trends in CRM Cloud Computing

The advent of the Internet afforded a number of different companies options when it came to extending their offerings around the world. eCommerce presented a whole range of new opportunities and now, cloud computing is gaining in importance in this space. Entire networks are being moved to the cloud to enable streamlined operations, greater capability and lower costs. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is getting a whole new makeover in cloud computing and both companies and customers can benefit.

This Smart Data Collective piece by Harish Kotadia examined the opportunities in CRM cloud computing, identifying five technological trends that are driving the evolution in this space. The very first, of course, is cloud computing and SaaS CRM. Social channels offer a platform for significant volumes of user-generated content. While CRM vendors and users are unable to create this type of volume, they can leverage it to their benefit when interacting in the market.

CRM cloud computing in the social media space makes it possible to capture and store information in the cloud and then access it from the CRM application at any time and from any location. In other words, it is available on-demand. As social media continues to rapidly evolve, it is necessary for companies to be flexible enough to embrace the changes as they happen. CRM cloud computing makes that possible.

A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and CRM cloud computing make it easy to integrate applications and facilitate “plug and play” modules and add-ons that easily allow the organization to dramatically reduce the time and cost invested in extending functionality of the associated application. With SOA built into Social CRM, new social media tools and functionality can easily be added without costly customizations or upgrades.

Companies seeking to gain the most value from their CRM cloud computing platform can also benefit from predictive analytics as they make it possible to analyze past customer behavior and predict future behavior. When these predictive tools are embedded in the social CRM platform, the real-time social network data feed can be used to analyze behaviors. With the cloud-based approach and SOA, real-time, “In Process” analytics functionality is readily available to small- and medium-sized companies.

New mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs are also providing new opportunities for CRM cloud computing. Customers are using these devices to interact with companies, gather information and interact on social media platforms. CRM cloud computing solutions designed to this platform will produce significant benefits for any company willing to take the leap.

Finally, enterprise application and data mashups can help alleviate some of the complication introduced with on-premise CRM. With CRM cloud computing solutions in place, enterprise application and data mashups help to combine data or functionality from multiple applications so the information in presented in the necessary format so that it delivers the best value to the user.

Source

Brian