Best of breed solutions

Trying to understand the “best of breed” is not an easy endeavor especially considering that needs of enterprises within the same businesses may vary. CRM applications can be divided into large enterprise solutions, tools for the SMBs, and a hosted option. SAP and Siebel are by common consent considered to be the best choices for Enterprise Class CRM solutions. They enable organizations to link thousands of employees situated vast distances apart across the various branches, offices, and divisions of an organization.

SAP is one of the few companies that have not been touched by the spate of consolidations that have occurred in the sector. It has made significant advances in RFID and even teamed up with Intel this year to simplify the usage of RFID in the organization. SAP has made the delivery of business-driven SOA into one of its strength. The Enterprise Services Architecture Adoption Program from SAP is uses the NetWeaver application and integration platform. It facilitates a smooth transition to an SOA without hindering the working of the already present systems.

Siebel too has been earning a reputation for itself as a player of note in the Enterprise Market. Its product Business Analytics 7.8 provides advanced reporting functions as well as a server for clustering and failover operations in UNIX environments. Siebel has also initiated a project, “Project Nexus” for which it has joined hands with BEA Systems, IBM, and Microsost. The objective of the project is to provide an SOA-based architecture for CRM applications that will run on .Net and J2EE application server platforms. crm-daily.com says:

Microsoft has a particular edge with SMBs because many already are using the company’s Office suite and are likely to go for the familiar, stable choice that will integrate well with what is currently in place.

Go to: Answering the Call: The Best of CRM