SFA Considerations
Customer Relationship Management or Sales Force Automation?
Sales Force Automation and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are often confused, and understandably so. SFA is a component of full-scale CRM, with SFA's focus being specifically on the acquisition phase of the relationship. A full CRM solution handles every aspect of the customer relationship including acquisition, order tracking and history, customer service and support, account management, and any other communication with the customer. CRM systems are generally larger-scale solutions with many more features than SFA solutions, and are usually more expensive and can be significantly more complicated to implement company-wide. Having an understanding of your overall business needs and your expected growth as well as your sales process needs is important in selecting the right solution for your company, whether large or small.If your organization is small with only a few sales people, then an off-the-shelf SFA solutions or contact management application may meet your needs. These basic applications are good for storing a database of customers, managing tasks, and managing a basic sales process schedule. These applications lack the sophistication and customization of SFA solutions, and it is important to make sure that the application fits your current and future business needs. If down the line you need to be able to better handle lead assignments or forecasting, these applications generally cannot be customized if that component is not already available, and upgrading to another solution may be time-consuming and difficult. In addition, if your organization experiences rapid growth, these applications often lack the ability to scale and expand to fit your growing sales needs. In this case, either a customized SFA solutions or a full-scale CRM solution could be more appropriate.