CRM: Should You Host It Or Bring It In-House

"Many sales teams use customer relationship management (CRM) software to keep track of all their customer information, create a consistent sales process, track goal progress and forecast sales for an allotted period of time. If you’re considering CRM software, one of the crucial decisions you need to make is whether you want an on-premise solution, which is physically located on your own infrastructure, or a hosted solution, which is maintained by your vendor in the cloud. Hopefully the following breakdown of the benefits of each avenue will help you decide which type of solution will work best for your business.

Hosted solutions tend to make the most sense for small- to medium-sized businesses. One of my clients who uses a hosted offering recently told me the low initial entry cost and simple set-up and maintenance of going hosted made a big difference for his company. This client has a limited technology budget and limited in-house IT personnel so not having to deal with all the IT backend associated with an on-premise CRM has allowed them to focus on what’s really important—sales and customer service."