Report on CRM Vendor Analysis and Recommendation for Around the World

This report analyzes and recommends a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) vendor product for "Around the World," focusing on expanding the customer base through online self-service and efficient relationship management. The analysis includes budget and resource identification using bottom-up estimation and RACI matrix. Vendor products from Salesforce, Zoho, and HubSpot are evaluated based on system requirements, customer feedback, legal compliance, security protocols, and customer support. Usability tests are conducted, and the quality and support features of each vendor are compared. A cost-benefit analysis is performed, considering both direct and indirect costs, with Zoho CRM emerging as the preferred option due to its better cost-benefit ratio, distinguished support services, and integrated smart sales email inbox. The report concludes by recommending Zoho CRM for its customization ease, excellent support, and enhanced customer experience, noting Salesforce as a secondary preference and HubSpot as the least preferred.

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Around the World
Report
10/5/2018

Around the World
Table of Contents
Business Requirements..........................................................................................................................2
Budget & Resource Identification.........................................................................................................2
Products/Equipment to Meet Business Requirements............................................................................2
Vendor Products & Equipment..............................................................................................................2
Usability Test........................................................................................................................................3
Quality & Support of the Vendor Products............................................................................................3
Cost-Benefit Analysis............................................................................................................................4
Preference of Products...........................................................................................................................6
Recommendation on Vendor Product....................................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................8
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Around the World
Business Requirements
The business requirements of Around the World include the expansion of the customer base
by providing them with online self-service, relationship management, checking on the
expenses and schedule. The business requirements include setting up the server and data
backup for the automated system along with networking peripherals and database for efficient
information storage. The business requirements of the company include employee portals and
along with internal & external blogs for the company.
Budget & Resource Identification
There are various techniques that may be used for the identification of the budget and
resources for the project.
The budget identification shall be done using bottom-up estimation as the technique. In this
technique, the activities at the lowest level in the project hierarchy will be estimated for
identifying the project costs. The overall costs will then be estimated.
The identification of the resources shall be done by gathering the data sets using the
techniques as domain analysis, observations, interviews, and group discussions. The resource
short-listing shall be done followed by the use of Responsibility-Accountability-
Contribution-Informed (RACI) matrix (Thacker, 2012).
Products/Equipment to Meet Business Requirements
The desired system will be implemented for Around the World with the use of a website
comprising of the services of the company integrated with the cloud-based Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) systems. There are various CRMs available in the market
to choose from. The website shall be created using PHP as the programming language. The
development of the website using PHP will make sure that the website is scalable, flexible,
and agile.
Vendor Products & Equipment
There are several vendors that have released cloud-based CRMs in the market. The following
factors will be considered before purchasing the equipment from the vendors:
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Around the World
 System requirements for Around the World and the specifications included in the
CRM offered by the vendor. The two set of specifications must be mapped with each
other.
 Customer feedback and rating on the product: The customer satisfaction and
engagement levels shall be high (Kaul, 2017).
 Legal & regulatory policies: The product released by the vendor shall be in
accordance with the Australian Standards and legal framework.
 Security Protocols: The measures and controls integrated in the product for
maintenance and protection of the data sets shall be considered.
 Customer Support Services: The users may have several queries on the system and the
support and maintenance services offered with the product shall be good (Singh,
2015).
Three such vendor products identified are Salesforce, Zoho, and HubSpot.
Usability Test
The usability test activities will be carried out in a set of phases. The prototype of the end-
product will be obtained from the three vendors. The prototype will have limited set of
functionalities. A usability test plan will be already in place comprising of the roles and
responsibilities of the testers, details of the usability testing tools, and the defect logging
process. The test will be conducted at the business locations of Around the World and the
usability test cases will be executed. The test results will then be documented (Hertzum,
2016).
The vendor product and prototype that will have the least number of defects reported will
then be selected.
Quality & Support of the Vendor Products
The three vendor products that have been identified are Salesforce, Zoho, and HubSpot. Each
of these vendor products has their respective features in terms of quality and support.
Email tracking, customer reports, quality reviews & audits, adherence to the Australian
quality standards, dedicated document library, and role based user access are the features that
are common to all the three vendor products.
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Around the World
However, Zoho offers distinguished support services with the capability of offering the
customers with 24-hour support services. Smart sales email inbox is also integrated in Zoho
which is not present in Salesforce or HubSpot (Zoho, 2018). The absence of these significant
features is the limitations of the vendor products as Salesforce and HubSpot. Multi-currency
support is also offered by Zoho and Salesforce which is not included in HubSpot.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
The cost of Salesforce Lightning Enterprise edition is $150 per month. The overall cost of the
CRM tool for one year will be 1800 per month. There will be indirect costs that will also be
involved as maintenance costs, set-up costs, cost of resources, and customization costs. The
direct and indirect benefits along with the discount rate of 8% have been applied. The ratio
obtained is 1.24 (Salesforce, 2018).
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Around the World
Salesforce Cost-Benefit Analysis
The cost of Zoho CRM is $20 per month and it will be $80 for four user accesses making it
$960 annually. The overall cost of the CRM tool for one year will be 1800 per month. There
will be indirect costs that will also be involved as maintenance costs, set-up costs, cost of
resources, and customization costs. The direct and indirect benefits along with the discount
rate of 8% have been applied. The ratio obtained is 1.73.
Zoho Cost-Benefit Analysis
HubSpot is an open-source tool; however it needs to be integrated with Sales Hub. The ration
in this case is also 1.24.
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Around the World
HubSpot Cost-Benefit Analysis
Preference of Products
The primary preference of the product is on Zoho CRM tool. It is because the cost-benefit
ration obtained for the tool is better than the other two. Also, it comes with distinguished
support and quality features that are not present in Salesforce and HubSpot. Zoho offers
distinguished support services with the capability of offering the customers with 24-hour
support services. Smart sales email inbox is also integrated in Zoho which is not present in
Salesforce or HubSpot.
The second preference is Salesforce as it has better market and customer reviews and offers
multi-currency support which is not offered by HubSpot. The last preference is HubSpot
CRM (Hubspot, 2018).
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Recommendation on Vendor Product
The product that is apt for Around the World is Zoho CRM. It is because the benefits that
will be offered by the system will be higher than the other vendor products. The product is
also easy to customize and comes with excellent support services. The quality and security
features are also integrated in the tool for enhanced customer experience.
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References
Hertzum, M. (2016). A usability test is not an interview. Interactions, 23(2), 82-84. doi:
10.1145/2875462
Hubspot. (2018). Free CRM for Small Businesses - HubSpot. Retrieved from
https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm
Kaul, D. (2017). Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Customer Satisfaction and
Customer Lifetime Value in Retail. Review Of Professional Management- A Journal
Of New Delhi Institute Of Management, 15(2), 55. doi:
10.20968/rpm/2017/v15/i2/163914
Salesforce. (2018). Salesforce CRM. Retrieved from https://www.salesforce.com/in/crm/
Singh, A. (2015). Drive Customer Experience for Relationship Management through
Actionable Social CRM. International Journal Of Customer Relationship Marketing
And Management, 6(4), 57-76. doi: 10.4018/ijcrmm.2015100104
Thacker, R. (2012). Introduction to special issue on Human Resource Management
certification. Human Resource Management Review, 22(4), 245. doi:
10.1016/j.hrmr.2012.07.001
Zoho. (2018). CRM Software | Customer Relationship Management System - Zoho CRM.
Retrieved from https://www.zoho.com/crm/
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