Zoho CRM is well positioned in the mid-market playing field. The Zoho feature set is rich and capable without being complicated; their ecosystem of integrated apps offers lots of room for expansion; and their price point doesn’t break the bank.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) means different things to different people. For some it's purely about sales. For others, servicing existing customers is the more important element. In some cases, both are equally important. Regardless of your definition, a key component to a solid CRM is the ability to understand the people and companies with whom you interact, to have visibility to the communication with those people, and to effectively facilitate your future interactions. Zoho CRM is well positioned to accomplish this goal very effectively.

Zoho CRM has, frankly, come a long way in the last decade. Early incarnations felt like a lightweight Salesforce.com clone, and disconnected from other features and functionality. The Zoho CRM of today is a polished and professional product with a rich feature set and tight integrations to other applications in the Zoho ecosystem. Contact management is treated as table stakes, so the features you'll feel as front and center are all things that add value to your organization. Zoho has great tools for managing your sales pipeline, automating workflows, communicating with your prospects and customers, and collaborating with your team. The platform has definitely evolved from an entry level tool to a solid mid-market CRM that's a great fit for a wide variety of organizations.

There are a lot of features offered through the Zoho CRM that the consultants at GRAYBOX find really appealing. First and foremost, the system is incredibly flexible. Configuration is a key element of the Zoho CRM strategy for a custom experience, so the user interface, notifications, fields, data validation, and processes are all configurable components of the system. This high level of configuration is really evidenced in the multitude of ways in which you can access, filter, and view data in the system. Additionally, Zoho CRM can be customized through use of Deluge, Zoho's low complexity scripting language, to further customize and automate processes. Zoho exists as an integrated component with a myriad of other Zoho apps, as well as integrated third party tools and apps, which allows a tremendous amount of growth and extensibility beyond purely CRM features. And, finally, Zoho CRM offers a Sandbox for testing and refining your customizations, ensuring a stable and reliable path to rolling out new features without disrupting your production operations.

Zoho CRM occupies a great space in the CRM market. It's more sophisticated than tools like Insightly or Pipedrive, but less complex than Salesforce.com or NetSuite CRM. From a price perspective, it's well below either of those more enterprise offerings. And in the final analysis, only the more sophisticated companies are going to leverage the additional features of those more complex systems, meaning Zoho provides a great features and value combination. For companies considering a web of Zoho products (ie: leveraging the Projects and Accounting options from Zoho in addition to Zoho CRM), the process is relatively straightforward, billing is unified, and linking the apps together is a painless process. However, depending on the specifics of your situation, it can be important to evaluate exactly what data handoffs need to occur between the modules. They are separate apps, and that can either be a benefit, or feel like a burden, depending on the specifics. Additionally, depending on the number of users you need in those various systems, the license costs can start to add up.

Given the interwoven nature of the Zoho ecosystem, and the important and nuanced nature of CRM systems in general, it's important to have a team of experts at your side to help in the process. Deeply understanding current and future business needs, being able to bring to the table an experienced evaluation of solid options to meet those needs, and providing candid assessments to ensure your business is able to successfully execute on the implementation of their CRM, are all critical aspects of a partner in this process, and the team of consultants at GRAYBOX take that role very seriously. Let us help you navigate these decisions, and setup your company for success.