Enterprise CRM – Benefits, Features, Platforms, and Implementation Process

In today’s cutthroat competitive age, businesses are increasingly adopting digital platforms and expanding their operations. At the core of these activities lies data—specifically, user-generated data, which is essential for reaching more customers and making day-to-day decisions. However, the challenge remains: How can businesses analyze and leverage such a large volume of data? This is where enterprise CRM use cases come into play, benefiting businesses of all sizes across various industries worldwide.

Imagine a scenario where your team handles N number of queries each day, each customer having distinct product/service requirements with its own set of quantities and customizations. Managing these vast troves of customer interactions and gaining insight is quite challenging. However, you can leverage the benefits of enterprise CRM systems to efficiently handle the data you collect and improve your customer retention rate.

Coupled with the power of artificial intelligence, an advanced enterprise CRM allows a great deal of automation, enabling you to send out automated emails, quotes, and even text messages within seconds. It gives valuable insight into the state of your sales pipeline, customer behavior, and much more.

For every stage in the sales cycle—from lead acquisition to nurturing and conversion to post-purchase service—a CRM can help you get real-time information on the go. This advanced capability of the CRM software is sure to intrigue and excite you, as it helps maximize revenue and opens up new possibilities for your business growth.

Statista indicates that the revenue in the global CRM software market is expected to reach $88.19 billion in 2024, resulting in a market volume of  $131.90 billion by 2028, showing an annual growth rate of 10.59% from 2024-2028.

In this blog, we will explore the various enterprise CRM benefits for businesses, diving deep into how enterprise CRM solution development revolutionizes customer engagement with its robust features. We will also discover the implementation process and discuss some popular examples of enterprise CRM applications.

Why Using Enterprise CRM Systems is a Game Changer for Your Business

Enterprise CRM platforms help businesses handle every aspect of their sales pipeline, enhancing productivity and efficiency. By not using a CRM for business development, you not only risk losing out on growth opportunities but also fall prey to low productivity. Here are some of the most remarkable benefits of CRM enterprise software that businesses can reap with its successful implementation.

360° View of Customer Data

Businesses are exposed to an immense volume of data every day, and consolidating this data to gain actionable insights is challenging. An enterprise CRM platform helps centralize customer data and gain a 360° view of customer interactions across all touchpoints. This empowers your team to curate better marketing campaigns and increase customer engagement.

Enhanced Team Collaboration

With a centralized platform, enterprise CRMs enable different departments across the organization to share information in real-time and collaborate more effectively. This ensures that all teams work towards common goals, helping you stay afloat in the competitive age.

Data-Driven Decision Making

With CRM systems in place, you can better leverage customer data and understand their behavior. Enterprise CRM platforms provide advanced analytics and reporting tools that give valuable insights into sales trends, market opportunities, and customer preferences. This data-driven approach assists you in making informed decisions and strategic planning.

Streamlined Sales Processes

CRM systems are highly efficient in streamlining and automating repetitive tasks such as leads tracking, data entry, follow-up emails, and appointment scheduling. This frees up time for sales executives, allowing them to focus on higher-value activities, increasing overall efficiency and productivity.

Improved Customer Experience

One of the biggest benefits of enterprise CRM systems is their ability to improve customer experience, which is a key driver of business growth through enhanced customer satisfaction. Enterprise CRM software empowers you to better understand your customers’ preferences and purchase history, enabling your sales and marketing team to develop innovative products or services tailored to meet evolving customers’ needs. This results in higher customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to improved engagement and retention rates.

Customer Support and Service

You can leverage enterprise CRM use cases to address customer queries and ensure better satisfaction. How? The software allows the customer support team to track the status of a query, assign it to a relevant representative, and ensure the timely resolution of the complaints raised.

Compliance and Risk Management

Enterprise CRM for business development is specifically designed with advanced features that help your organization comply with the industry’s regulatory requirements and manage risks. Not to mention, adhering to relevant regular standards is highly indispensable in industries with strict compliance laws.

Significant Features to Include in Your Enterprise CRM Software

CRM software for enterprises involves multiple functionalities essential for managing complex business processes and customer interactions. Here are some significant features that an advanced enterprise CRM must have:

Deal Management

The deal management feature in CRM provides a complete picture of your past, present, and future deals, helping you gain insight into what went wrong with unsuccessful ones. Based on the current stages of deals in the pipeline, you can segment them and concentrate your efforts on the right deals with maximum winning probability.

Contact Management

Contact management features in CRMs help you organize your business contacts in one place, ensuring that all departments can access up-to-date customer data. CRMs work basically as a central repository for all customer information, helping you reach your customers at their preferred time and keeping the interaction more contextual.

Email Management

Email management is a core function of all types of businesses, and an advanced enterprise CRM gives you complete control of it. It lets you prioritize emails, analyze responses, and send follow-up emails, helping you streamline your email communications.

Lead Management

In a business, tracking and managing leads is as important as gaining qualified leads. With features like automated lead assignment and lead scoring, an enterprise CRM empowers you to identify which leads are most likely to progress through the pipeline and convert into sales.

Scalability

Enterprise CRM software offers a scalability feature to address the challenge of poor user adoption and resistance to activity logging. The scalability feature ensures that the CRM can grow with your business, effectively handling increasing data volumes and user loads as your organization expands.

Analytics and Reporting

Analytics-driven business culture can efficiently transform your decision-making style from “gut feeling” to “data-driven.”  Advanced analytics and customizable reporting tools in CRM provide insights into sales performance, customer behavior, key performance indicators (KPIs), and market trends, helping enterprises make informed decisions and gain competitive advantages.

Marketing Automation

Companies often struggle to manage their marketing budgets due to a disconnection between sales and marketing teams. However, a custom enterprise CRM with marketing automation features makes it easy for your teams to collaborate and exchange essential information anywhere, anytime. It can help you effectively execute targeted email marketing campaigns and maximize ROI on your marketing expenditures.

Sales Automation

You want your sales team to focus more on selling your products/services and less on administrative tasks. With sales automation features in enterprise CRM platforms, your sales team can concentrate on what they do best — selling. This feature will help you manage sales processes, including lead tracking, pipeline management, sales forecasting, and performance analysis.

Mobile CRM

Since mobile applications have overtaken desktops globally, mobile CRMs play a pivotal role in improving customer experience in today’s digital age. According to Statista, around 59% of global internet traffic now comes from mobile, making it essential for businesses to leverage mobile CRMs to access valuable data even on the go.

Whether you are attending business meetings, trade shows, networking events, or even traveling, a mobile CRM helps you stay up-to-date with real-time business data wherever you are.

Integration Capabilities

An advanced enterprise CRM can seamlessly integrate with other systems such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), eCommerce applications, email systems, marketing tools, and social media platforms. The integration supports easy data sharing and ensures a unified view of customer data across different departments and systems.

Workflow Automation

One of the most integral features of enterprise CRM solutions is the ability to automate routine tasks and processes, such as follow-up reminders, lead assignment, and approval processes. This reduces manual work, minimizes errors, and ensures consistency in operations, allowing your teams to focus on higher-value activities.

You may like reading: Business Process Automation – Top Use Cases and Benefits

Examples of Enterprise CRM Platforms: Explore and Integrate Them into Your Business Operations

The market is loaded with countless off-the-shelf CRM solutions. Among them, some enterprise CRM platforms have gained immense popularity due to their advanced features, scalability, and ability to address diverse business needs. Integrations of these CRM platforms can greatly enhance efficiency and provide a more holistic view of business operations. Here are some real-world examples of enterprise CRM applications in 2024.

Microsoft Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 is a comprehensive CRM and ERP solution designed to streamline business processes, improve customer interactions, and provide insightful analytics.

Enterprises Using Microsoft Dynamics 365: EY, Mercedes-Benz, HP,  Hitachi, and Coca-Cola

Zoho CRM

Zoho is a fully customizable and flexible CRM that provides a wide range of features, including sales automation, marketing automation, customer support, and analytics.

Enterprises Using Zoho CRM: Bose, Fossil,  Puma, Tassal

Salesforce

Salesforce is the market leader in the realm of enterprise CRM platforms, offering a range of tools for sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development.

Enterprises Using Salesforce: Gucci, Ford, IBM, Santander, Uber

Also Read: Salesforce Sharepoint Integration – Benefits, Process and Challenges

Off-the-Shelf Vs Custom CRM – What to Choose?

As the market is loaded with several off-the-shelf CRM solutions, you might get confused about which one best suits your business needs—an off-the-shelf or custom CRM. Well, to make an informed decision, it is crucial to understand the differences between both options.

Here is a brief table highlighting the key differences between an off-the-shelf CRM and a custom CRM.

Choosing between off-the-shelf and custom CRM depends on your budget and the specific needs of your business. Thus, you must evaluate your requirements and consider the long-term benefits to make the best choice.

Step-By-Step Process to Bring Enterprise CRM Systems into Action

Implementing enterprise CRM solutions involves a series of well-defined steps to ensure seamless adoption. Each step is essential to verify that enterprise CRM software delivers significant business value and supports the organization’s strategic goals. Here is an in-depth look at each step of the enterprise CRM implementation process.

Define Clear Objectives

The first step in the enterprise CRM implementation process starts with setting clear objectives. What do you want to achieve with custom enterprise CRM system development and implementation? Once you have a clear idea of your business objectives, you can better leverage the benefits of enterprise CRM systems and supercharge your growth strategy.

Custom Enterprise CRM System Development

Once you have set out your priorities and defined objectives, the next step is custom enterprise CRM solution development. Even if the market is loaded with several off-the-shelf enterprise customer relationship management solutions, they may not meet your unique business requirements. Custom enterprise CRM software development ensures the system is tailored to your organization’s unique workflows and goals.

However, if you opt for an off-the-shelf solution, invest your effort in outsourcing the reputed CRM implementation team to ensure that the CRM systems can efficiently meet your existing workflow and suit your needs.

Data Migration from Legacy Software

Migrating data from legacy systems to the new CRM is a complex but essential step. It involves extracting, transforming, and loading (ETL) data while ensuring data integrity and accuracy. This process often requires cleaning up outdated information and standardizing data formats, facilitating a seamless transition and maintaining business continuity.

Integration with Existing Systems

Enterprise CRM platforms must seamlessly integrate with other key business systems such as ERP, marketing automation tools, and eCommerce platforms. This integration ensures that all departments can access the up-to-date information, eliminating data silos and improving collaboration. For example, sales teams can access customer purchase history stored in the ERP system, while marketing teams can leverage CRM data for targeted campaigns.

User Training and Adoption

User training and adoption are essential to the success of the CRM implementation. Even the most advanced CRM system will fail if users do not understand how to use it effectively. Thus, you should develop comprehensive training programs to educate employees on the system’s features, functionalities, and best practices, encouraging their active participation and engagement.

Continuous Evaluation and Optimization

Once your CRM system is up and running, it is essential to continuously evaluate the CRM system’s performance and optimize its usage. Regularly reviewing KPIs and user feedback helps identify areas for improvement, refine processes, and add new features to evaluate whether the system meets your objectives based on various metrics. Additionally, continuous optimization ensures that the CRM system evolves with your organization and continues to provide value over time.

After-Launch CRM Support

Post-launch support helps address any issues that arise, ensuring the long-term success of your enterprise CRM systems. This includes technical support, software maintenance, and updates to keep the platform running smoothly, minimizing disruptions, and maximizing the ROI from the CRM solutions.

Read our Step-by-Step Guide to Successful CRM Implementation to understand how to bring your enterprise CRM into action.

Enterprise CRM Software Challenges and Solutions

The implementation of enterprise CRM is not without challenges. The road is full of several setbacks that require strategic solutions so that you can leverage the maximum use cases of enterprise CRMs. Here are some common challenges enterprises encounter when dealing with the business case for CRM.

User Adoption and Resistance

Challenge: Employees may resist adopting the new CRM system and prefer using the legacy platforms due to fear of change, lack of comprehension, or perceived disruptions to existing workflows.

Solution: You must promote a culture of adoption by involving employees early in the CRM implementation process. You should also give comprehensive training and explain the enterprise CRM systems benefits in detail.

Data Security and Privacy

Challenge: Protecting sensitive customer information from data breaches and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations can be a real struggle when using CRM for business development.

Solution: You should protect your CRM systems with robust security measures, such as encryption, access controls, regular security audits, etc. Additionally, you must ensure that the CRM system complies with relevant data protection regulations, such as GDPR and HIPAA.

Data Quality and Integrity

Challenge: Poor data quality, including inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, duplicate, or outdated information within the CRM system, can undermine the effectiveness of enterprise CRM platforms in delivering accurate analytics.

Solution: Implement robust data management practices, including regular data audits and cleaning processes. Also, utilizing automated tools for data validation and duplication removal can help ensure data integrity.

Related Article: Data lakes: Next-generation data management solutions

What Next? Embark on Your CRM Journey with Appinventiv

Enterprise CRM use cases can benefit your businesses in various ways, helping you thrive in today’s customer-centric marketplace and secure a place in your customers’ hearts.  From improved customer relationships to streamlined marketing efforts and enhanced sales performance, the benefits of enterprise CRM systems are innumerable and undeniable.

Interested in custom enterprise CRM system development and implementation for your business growth? Appinventiv can help you realize your vision with its CRM integration and custom CRM development service capabilities for a diverse pool of industries.

Contact us for effective enterprise CRM implementation now and drive your business forward.

FAQs

Q. What are the differences between an enterprise CRM and CRM for an SMB?

A. An enterprise CRM differs from a CRM for an SMB in several aspects, such as:

Features: Enterprise CRMs offer advanced, customizable features, while SMB CRMs provide only essential, easy-to-use functionalities.

Scalability: With enterprise CRM software development, you can handle large volumes of data and users, whereas SMB CRMs are efficient for smaller user bases and less data.

Integration: Enterprise CRMs can efficiently integrate with complex systems like ERP, but SMB CRMs offer basic integrations only.

Focus: If you want a crm to meet complex organizational needs, an enterprise CRM can be the best choice, as a CRM for SMBs focuses on basic business operations only.

UI/UX: Enterprise CRMs have a more complex interface that enhances user engagement. On the other hand, a CRM for SMB prioritizes simplicity and ease of use.

Q. What are the different types of enterprise CRM?

A. There are basically four main types of enterprise CRM:

• Operational CRM System – These systems enhance business processes and elevate customer service by automating tasks like appointment scheduling and follow-ups.
• Analytical CRM System – This type of CRM helps your business make data-driven decisions by providing insights into customer behavior and market trends.
• Collaborative CRM System – Collaborative CRMs enable your organizations to exchange crucial information across multiple departments, improving communication between departments.
• Strategic CRM – Strategic CRM platforms integrate long-term customer-focused strategies into business planning and operations.

Q. What is enterprise CRM implementation cost?

A. The cost of implementing an enterprise customer relationship management solution can vary widely depending on several factors, such as the system’s complexity, customization requirements, and the location of CRM service providers.

On average, the cost of enterprise CRM implementation can range from $30,000 to $300,000 or more. For a more accurate estimate, discuss your project idea with our CRM experts and get a detailed quotation outlining the timeline and cost estimates.

Q. What are the top enterprise CRM trends to watch in 2024?

A. Here are a few key enterprise CRM trends expected to witness immense popularity in 2024 and beyond.

• Cloud-Based CRM
• AI CRM for analytics and automation
• Omnichannel Experience
• Personalized Customer Experience
• Social CRM
• Mobile CRM
• Security and Compliance
• Pipeline Visibility
• Integration
• Sustainability
• Low-code no-code development
• Offline data synchronization
• Centralized calendar system
• Internal audit
• Gamification

Q. Why is CRM important for enterprises?

A. CRM is crucial for enterprises because it offers numerous advantages for business growth. Some of the most notable benefits of enterprise CRM systems include:

• 360-degree View of Customer Data
• Enhanced Team Collaboration
• Data-Driven Decision Making
• Streamlined Sales Processes
• Improved Customer Experience
• Customer Support And Service
• Compliance and Risk Management

To gain an in-depth understanding of these enterprise CRM systems benefits, please refer to the above blog.

THE AUTHOR

Saurabh Singh

CEO & Director