Company Information
Surado Solutions Inc., founded in 1995, is a privately held company based in Riverside, California (US), and offers a suite of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.
Surado aims to provide a complete CRM suite, rather than a modularized solution targeted towards departmental delivery. Its goal is to build full-featured, integrated, and multifaceted systems, as well as out-of-the-box solutions. The vendor is a Microsoft Certified Partner and Microsoft Business Solutions Certified Gold Partner, and uses the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) as the foundation for its product development. It also touts the merits of the Six Sigma methodology and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) as quality improvement philosophies.
Surado targets the small and medium business (SMB) market, namely organizations with annual revenues of $1 million (USD) to $1 billion (USD), and approximately 88 percent of its clients fall into this category. To reinforce its position in this market segment, Surado offers Surado Small Business CRM 5.0, designed for ten users or less. Surado Small Business combines the core Surado CRM suite (Contact & Account Management, Sales Automation, Marketing Automation, and Customer Service/Help Desk) with Integration for Exchange (for e-mail, contacts, and tasks), the Surado Integration Module (for connecting to third party databases or creating custom tables and screens), and Surado CRM Web (a web interface for remote user access to basic functionality.
Although Surado CRM is not vertical-centric, it enjoys a wide installed base in traditionally "vertical CRM"-dominated industries, such as technology, health care, education, banking and finance, and government. The vendor has customers in all fifty US states and in over sixty-four countries worldwide. A sampling of its top clients from those vertical industries includes Blackbox, County Regional Medical Center, California State University, Georgia Student Finance, and the City of Riverside Economic Development Agency.
We'll analyze Surado CRM 5.0 from the perspectives of core CRM functionality, look at some of its distinguishing factors, and discuss some of the challenges users may face when considering Surado CRM for small to midsized businesses.
Core Functionality of Surado CRM 5.0
Core CRM functionality covers five aspects:
* contact and account management
* sales management
* marketing management
* customer service and support
* integration
The figure below is a TEC-created table comparing Surado against other vendors and their offerings. Surado performs above other vendors in the areas of marketing automation, sales force automation, customer service and support, and partner management. In the areas of contract management and creation, and project management, Surado's performance is above average, but below the highest-rated competitor.
Contact and Account Management
This area of CRM typically displays and manages detailed account information, such as information related to the company, contacts within the company review of past activities and history, scheduling, and task management.
This module offers a unified interface for account and contact management functionality, where users can review past communications, upcoming activities, sales opportunities, quotes and purchases, support issues, links to relevant documents, and information from back-end systems. In addition, Surado CRM also captures all customer communications, whether through phone, e-mail, fax, the Internet, or personal contacts. A fully integrated workgroup scheduling and task management features the ability to track activities, participants, and resources, including pop-up reminders. A relationships tab also allows users to track the important relationships that may exist between two or more contacts in the system that otherwise might otherwise be overlooked or poorly managed.
Sales Management
This area of a CRM solution focuses on managing sales opportunities and processes. It provides the features and functionality to define, implement, manage, and execute one or more sales cycles, based on individual opportunity types. This allows users of Surado CRM to configure the system to better fit their unique needs rather than having to conform to a generic sales cycle supplied by the system.
The module includes the basics: contact information, correspondence, opportunity and forecasting data, literature and presentations, quotes, orders, and post-sale service history.
Surado CRM 5.0 allows for multi-source data import from lists, or captured leads from a web site through its eLeads module. It also allows inquiry tracking and intelligent leads routing. Automated process can be initiated to distribute literature, schedule follow-up activities, and set conditions to advance opportunities. Managers can use Surado CRM to monitor team activities across customized sales stages across multiple product pipelines. Sales positioning features and functionalities are also available through competitive intelligence analysis and customer analytics, to identify habits, trends, and potential.
Marketing Management
In this area of CRM, the key components to attracting and retaining a customer base are evaluation, design, implementation, and execution of marketing initiatives.
The application can track the results of advertisements, direct mail, and telemarketing, and help design, execute, and manage personalized, permission-based campaigns. Surado CRM 5.0 also allows for the planning, design, execution, and management of multichannel permission-based marketing campaigns. Users can assign tasks and responsibilities according to revenue projections, campaign periods, targeted audiences, and channels. Potential deployment issues can be identified, and resources re-allocated. E-mail and fax campaigns can be set up for automated execution and follow-up.
Surado CRM provides for campaign return on investment (ROI) analysis as a means to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, by comparing potential and actual responses and sales.
Customer Service and Support
This area of a CRM solution is where customer service inquiries and support issues are entered, tracked, and in specific cases, escalated to resolution.
Surado CRM 5.0 features a customer service, help desk, and support knowledge base, with keyword searches. It also provides an integrated system that coordinates and tracks customer interactions across multiple contact points to address customer inquires.
Surado CRM automates support and help procedures, by automatically converting incoming e-mail messages into support tickets (including attachments), responding to support tickets, and notifying customers of soon-to-expire service-level agreements (SLAs). It also handles routing, load balancing, escalation based on multiple criteria, automated response, and ticket updates and deletions.
In addition, Surado's Web Self-Service module provides a channel for clients to access an Internet knowledge base search as well as conduct self-service ticket submission and review.
Key metrics are displayed in graphical form, and can provide managers with the information necessary to make rapid decisions regarding re-deployment of resources to the most urgent support areas. Performance gauges (such as support metrics by urgency, touch point, area, type, and support groups) provide managers with the opportunity to act quickly to prevent potential bottlenecks in providing support. Finally, color-coded alerts for events that fall outside defined parameters provide managers the ability to take a proactive approach, preventing escalation of support issues.
Integration
While integration is not traditionally considered to be a functionality, it is nonetheless a critical component of any solution, and needs to be given the same level of consideration as core functionalities. Surado CRM 5.0 is very well designed to run on a Microsoft platform (including operating systems and applications, SQL databases, and Exchange servers), and integrates tightly with front-office programs (Microsoft Office, Outlook, and Project, as well as with mobile devices, scanners and business intelligence [BI] tools) and back-office applications (Great Plains Accounting). Surado CRM 5.0 has also enhanced its level of integration with Intuit QuickBooks. This is in alignment with Surado's focus on the SMB market, where such systems are widespread.
With the optional add-on Surado Integration module, back-office applications like financials, enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), logistics, manufacturing, shipping and delivery, human resources, e-business, and industry-specific applications can be integrated to give users a unified view of the disparate back-office application environment within a centralized CRM solution. This module also allows system administrators to create unlimited custom detail data tabs to display information from back-office applications directly from within the Surado CRM solution. Finally, administrators can also create stored procedures to automatically write Surado CRM data into other databases using automatic data exchange (ADX).
SOURCE:-
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/a-customer-relationship-management-solution-aims-to-cover-all-the-bases-18676/
Surado Solutions Inc., founded in 1995, is a privately held company based in Riverside, California (US), and offers a suite of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.
Surado aims to provide a complete CRM suite, rather than a modularized solution targeted towards departmental delivery. Its goal is to build full-featured, integrated, and multifaceted systems, as well as out-of-the-box solutions. The vendor is a Microsoft Certified Partner and Microsoft Business Solutions Certified Gold Partner, and uses the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) as the foundation for its product development. It also touts the merits of the Six Sigma methodology and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) as quality improvement philosophies.
Surado targets the small and medium business (SMB) market, namely organizations with annual revenues of $1 million (USD) to $1 billion (USD), and approximately 88 percent of its clients fall into this category. To reinforce its position in this market segment, Surado offers Surado Small Business CRM 5.0, designed for ten users or less. Surado Small Business combines the core Surado CRM suite (Contact & Account Management, Sales Automation, Marketing Automation, and Customer Service/Help Desk) with Integration for Exchange (for e-mail, contacts, and tasks), the Surado Integration Module (for connecting to third party databases or creating custom tables and screens), and Surado CRM Web (a web interface for remote user access to basic functionality.
Although Surado CRM is not vertical-centric, it enjoys a wide installed base in traditionally "vertical CRM"-dominated industries, such as technology, health care, education, banking and finance, and government. The vendor has customers in all fifty US states and in over sixty-four countries worldwide. A sampling of its top clients from those vertical industries includes Blackbox, County Regional Medical Center, California State University, Georgia Student Finance, and the City of Riverside Economic Development Agency.
We'll analyze Surado CRM 5.0 from the perspectives of core CRM functionality, look at some of its distinguishing factors, and discuss some of the challenges users may face when considering Surado CRM for small to midsized businesses.
Core Functionality of Surado CRM 5.0
Core CRM functionality covers five aspects:
* contact and account management
* sales management
* marketing management
* customer service and support
* integration
The figure below is a TEC-created table comparing Surado against other vendors and their offerings. Surado performs above other vendors in the areas of marketing automation, sales force automation, customer service and support, and partner management. In the areas of contract management and creation, and project management, Surado's performance is above average, but below the highest-rated competitor.
Contact and Account Management
This area of CRM typically displays and manages detailed account information, such as information related to the company, contacts within the company review of past activities and history, scheduling, and task management.
This module offers a unified interface for account and contact management functionality, where users can review past communications, upcoming activities, sales opportunities, quotes and purchases, support issues, links to relevant documents, and information from back-end systems. In addition, Surado CRM also captures all customer communications, whether through phone, e-mail, fax, the Internet, or personal contacts. A fully integrated workgroup scheduling and task management features the ability to track activities, participants, and resources, including pop-up reminders. A relationships tab also allows users to track the important relationships that may exist between two or more contacts in the system that otherwise might otherwise be overlooked or poorly managed.
Sales Management
This area of a CRM solution focuses on managing sales opportunities and processes. It provides the features and functionality to define, implement, manage, and execute one or more sales cycles, based on individual opportunity types. This allows users of Surado CRM to configure the system to better fit their unique needs rather than having to conform to a generic sales cycle supplied by the system.
The module includes the basics: contact information, correspondence, opportunity and forecasting data, literature and presentations, quotes, orders, and post-sale service history.
Surado CRM 5.0 allows for multi-source data import from lists, or captured leads from a web site through its eLeads module. It also allows inquiry tracking and intelligent leads routing. Automated process can be initiated to distribute literature, schedule follow-up activities, and set conditions to advance opportunities. Managers can use Surado CRM to monitor team activities across customized sales stages across multiple product pipelines. Sales positioning features and functionalities are also available through competitive intelligence analysis and customer analytics, to identify habits, trends, and potential.
Marketing Management
In this area of CRM, the key components to attracting and retaining a customer base are evaluation, design, implementation, and execution of marketing initiatives.
The application can track the results of advertisements, direct mail, and telemarketing, and help design, execute, and manage personalized, permission-based campaigns. Surado CRM 5.0 also allows for the planning, design, execution, and management of multichannel permission-based marketing campaigns. Users can assign tasks and responsibilities according to revenue projections, campaign periods, targeted audiences, and channels. Potential deployment issues can be identified, and resources re-allocated. E-mail and fax campaigns can be set up for automated execution and follow-up.
Surado CRM provides for campaign return on investment (ROI) analysis as a means to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, by comparing potential and actual responses and sales.
Customer Service and Support
This area of a CRM solution is where customer service inquiries and support issues are entered, tracked, and in specific cases, escalated to resolution.
Surado CRM 5.0 features a customer service, help desk, and support knowledge base, with keyword searches. It also provides an integrated system that coordinates and tracks customer interactions across multiple contact points to address customer inquires.
Surado CRM automates support and help procedures, by automatically converting incoming e-mail messages into support tickets (including attachments), responding to support tickets, and notifying customers of soon-to-expire service-level agreements (SLAs). It also handles routing, load balancing, escalation based on multiple criteria, automated response, and ticket updates and deletions.
In addition, Surado's Web Self-Service module provides a channel for clients to access an Internet knowledge base search as well as conduct self-service ticket submission and review.
Key metrics are displayed in graphical form, and can provide managers with the information necessary to make rapid decisions regarding re-deployment of resources to the most urgent support areas. Performance gauges (such as support metrics by urgency, touch point, area, type, and support groups) provide managers with the opportunity to act quickly to prevent potential bottlenecks in providing support. Finally, color-coded alerts for events that fall outside defined parameters provide managers the ability to take a proactive approach, preventing escalation of support issues.
Integration
While integration is not traditionally considered to be a functionality, it is nonetheless a critical component of any solution, and needs to be given the same level of consideration as core functionalities. Surado CRM 5.0 is very well designed to run on a Microsoft platform (including operating systems and applications, SQL databases, and Exchange servers), and integrates tightly with front-office programs (Microsoft Office, Outlook, and Project, as well as with mobile devices, scanners and business intelligence [BI] tools) and back-office applications (Great Plains Accounting). Surado CRM 5.0 has also enhanced its level of integration with Intuit QuickBooks. This is in alignment with Surado's focus on the SMB market, where such systems are widespread.
With the optional add-on Surado Integration module, back-office applications like financials, enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), logistics, manufacturing, shipping and delivery, human resources, e-business, and industry-specific applications can be integrated to give users a unified view of the disparate back-office application environment within a centralized CRM solution. This module also allows system administrators to create unlimited custom detail data tabs to display information from back-office applications directly from within the Surado CRM solution. Finally, administrators can also create stored procedures to automatically write Surado CRM data into other databases using automatic data exchange (ADX).
SOURCE:-
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/a-customer-relationship-management-solution-aims-to-cover-all-the-bases-18676/
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