A CRM implementation must be a comprehensive, cross-department process involving:
Though the above list is a useful guide as to what order of priority you should follow, addressing this list in reverse order here helps clarify some of the rationale as to why.
It is a testament to SugarCRM that it spawned so many open source forks, before deciding to take itself down an exclusively closed-source, proprietary route. There seem to be dozens of them out there, each claiming to be unique while all working from the same core community edition engine, abandoned by Sugar CRM all those years ago. Read more
I was recently asked this question and at the same time asked to explain what free CRMs have to do with the subject of digital transformation. Naturally, we here believe that Planet Crust’s CRM is the best free CRM on the market, providing the market-leading open source Salesforce alternative. However, more importantly, we provide a low code platform that rivals “Lightning”, the Salesforce rapid application development offering in every facet. CRM is just the tip of the iceberg – with the Corteza low code platform we can build just about any type of records-centric web applications. Read more
According to Wikipedia, “Innovation in its modern meaning is a new idea, creative thoughts, new imaginations in the form of device or method. Innovation is also often viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs or existing market needs. Such innovation takes place through the provision of more effective products, processes, services, technologies or business models that are made available to markets, governments and society.”
Personally, I like the use of the term “more effective” above. It says something important which is often missing in open source products. It’s not good enough to only write beautifully-engineered technology, because that’s often not what counts as more effective in the eyes of those who buy. We need to think through the whole context outside of engineering – the processes, the services, the business models etc – and we need to ensure that the big picture looks and feels more effective overall. Read more
Crust Technology recently had the pleasure of taking part in the Univention Summit in Bremen, Germany. The Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is a leading platform for cost-efficient operation and easy administration of server applications and entire IT infrastructures. It is both self-hosted and open source and is used by many recognisable, brand-name organisations. UCS is an excellent OS base upon which to build your Digital Sovereignty, being practical, feature complete and supportive of multi-vendor environments.
Digital Sovereignty is a complex term, implying unimpeded access to the software code (i.e. 100% open source), default support and promotion of federated architectures, control of data location and consistent cross-jurisdictional regulation. While vendors such Univention point the way at the infrastructural level, software manufacturers at the application layer must pick up the baton with equal enthusiasm and determination.
In practical terms, what might this mean for software application vendors?
Be 100% openCredibility is key. Businesses and governments pushing for Digital Sovereignty must learn from history. It’s littered with defunct open source providers, who failed to deliver compelling alternatives to components of giant data-harvesting clouds and proprietary software manufacturers. To fail again would be to be laughed off the stage, while the use of data from our corporate champions, mittelstand (mid-sized economic actors) and small businesses drifts further and further from our control. The stakes are that high.
Do you want to take the first step to Digital Sovereignty? Give Univention’s UCS a try and set up Crust using their Univention App Center.
Crust Technology Ltd, headquartered in Ireland, is the driving force behind the open-source Unified Work platform Crust, providing a flexible, self-hosted platform for your organisation to work and communicate internally while engaging with its customers, suppliers, partners and other third parties externally. Its integrated approach to identity, messaging and business logic delivers a simple-to-use yet extensible means for managing users and the applications they require every day, whether in the cloud, behind the firewall or a hybrid of the two. For more information, visit www.planetcrust.com or follow @Crusttech on Twitter.
Crust Technology strives for feature-by-feature equivalence with Salesforce. While some parts of our feature set are different (and, we believe, superiour!), the ability to migrate from even complex Salesforce implementations, and immediately realise performance, control and cost benefits, makes the Crust and Corteza platforms the more attractive choice.
The backend of Crust and Corteza is written in Golang, a multi-threaded processing language. Designed with performance in mind from the outset, it’s extensively used by Google to power its data centres and applications. Salesforce themselves are even recent converts to Golang.
The frontend of Crust is delivered in Vue.js, a lightweight JavaScript engine which also focuses on performance, reusable components and optimized re-rendering. The frontend should always create an outstanding experience for the users.
The majority of open-source CRM’s are written in PHP, an older, single-threaded processing, web programming language. Reaching up to the hundreds of thousands of users demanded by modern-day customer scale applications should not necessitate complex optimisation efforts on an older codebase – performance should be there by design, as it is in Crust and Corteza.
While Crust’s architecture allows it to be shipped as a “monolith” bundle for smaller sites, it can be split into microservices for larger sites, allowing components with heavier workloads to be fed and watered individually according to their processing needs.
Crust Low-Code PlatformThe Crust Low-Code Platform is Crust’s answer to Salesforce Lightning, the cloud vendor’s low-code platform. It allows businesses to customise Crust CRM quickly and safely, augment its functionality or create entirely new applications (e.g. Crust Service Solution is also built with our Low-Code platform).
Intuitive, yet comprehensive in its approach, Compose delivers a “building block” method for designing and implementing your key business applications. With Corredor you can add automation scripts, increasing the efficiency of your application.
With powerful API’s Compose also enables businesses to extend safely beyond the borders of their Crust implementation and integrate with third-party systems – either within the boundaries of their firewall or outside.
UX is crucial, but it is not always about creating unique UX. While some of our features necessitate innovation, much of our approach at Crust is driven by what businesses expect to see from their enterprise applications, especially if they’re seeking viable alternatives to solutions proposed by the likes of Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics365.
With Salesforce you are stuck to their cloud. You don’t know exactly where your sensitive business data is stored, or who has access see it. In Crust and Corteza however, you have full control over all your data. You decide where you want to store it: in the cloud of your choice, behind a firewall or as a hybrid of the two.
Not everything revolves around cost, but Salesforce prices do hurt. The full Salesforce suite can cost up to an eye-watering USD 300 per user per month and even that does not include the costs of other applications in the appexchange.
Crust and Corteza products are and always will be 100% open source and the cost of support is a fraction of that of Salesforce. Our commitment to quality is sky high and we will always chase feature equivalency with or superiority to Salesforce.
Crust Technology has ambitious growth plans. We’re already the premium open-source CRM vendor for enterprise-scale deployments, but we’re aiming for outright market leadership. We’re excited about this journey. If you are too, please contact us at recruitment@crust.tech.
11 December 2019
Cork, Ireland
Crust Technology is excited to announce a new release of Crust, the open-source Salesforce alternative. This is a major release of Crust which includes new applications, such as Crust Service Solution, and a long list of new features and improvements.
Crust Service Solution home page
Optimized CRM layout
Improved module builder with checks if list and record pages have been created
New options in automation scripts
Namespace selector on the left, allowing you to move quickly from one namespace to another
New messaging options
PDF preview and the improved input area
New admin area with dashboard
Over 100 issues have been solved since the last release, including enhancements and bug-fixes. The detailed list is available in the repository on Github.
In June 2019, Crust Technology contributed all of its software intellectual property to the Commons Conservancy, an independent open-source foundation. In doing so, we created Corteza, “The Digital Work Platform for Humanity”. Corteza has been featured on sites like opensource.com, and the Corteza Community recently hit another milestone by growing to over 2000 individuals and companies from all over the world.
New features are added to Corteza continuously, and it often gets updated a few times a week. Crust is an enterprise product based on Corteza source code. It is stable and thoroughly tested, and major releases come out every three months.
Crust is the open-source Salesforce alternative for businesses and organisations. To learn how to get Crust, or how to migrate from your current solution, please contact Crust via the contact form or via sales@crust.tech.
There is an online demo of Crust available at https://www.planetcrust.com/demo.
Crust Technology Ltd, headquartered in Ireland, is the driving force behind the open-source Unified Work platform Crust, providing a flexible, self-hosted platform for your organisation to work and communicate internally while engaging with its customers, suppliers, partners and other third parties externally. Its integrated approach to identity, messaging and business logic delivers a simple-to-use yet extensible means for managing users and the applications they require every day, whether in the cloud, behind the firewall or a hybrid of the two. For more information, visit www.planetcrust.com or follow @Crusttech on Twitter.
For many, either being part of something bigger than ourselves or standing up for closely held principles are important. In June 2019, Crust Technology contributed all of its software intellectual property to the Commons Conservancy, an independent open-source foundation. In doing so, we created Corteza, “The Digital Work Platform for Humanity”.
T
he objective of Corteza is clear – to deliver a 100% free, open-source, self-hosted cloud platform for growing your organisation’s productivity. It enables relationships and protects the work and the privacy of all those concerned.
This effort began by producing a fully-featured alternative to Salesforce – the cloud leader in CRM – and an alternative to Slack Enterprise Messaging. All of this is presented via a unified interface on the frontend, joined up with automation on the backend. Very recently, we also released Service Solution, a self-hosted enterprise-grade alternative to Salesforce and Oracle Service Clouds.
Everything is delivered with modern, hyper-efficient code. Organisations can benefit from the impressive low-code development facilities to build their own custom apps, reducing costs and lowering time to delivery.
The publicly stated values of the Corteza project are as follows:
Public Good:
Corteza’s software and other offerings are designed and provided as a public good for the public benefit.
Open and Transparent:
Corteza’s governance and operations are open and transparent. It uses the best practices from across the not-for-profit, private and public sectors.
Diverse and Inclusive:
Corteza’s members, policies and programmes are designed to actively foster diverse, inclusive and non-discriminatory participation.
Built for Humanity:
Corteza’s software and other offerings have a real impact on people’s lives. As such, they are designed, built and provided with a strong emphasis on quality, privacy, security and usability.
All Crust software is built 100% on the Corteza code-base. Professional versions of Crust software are made freely available to the not-for-profit sector, including all professional software maintenance.
On top of this, Crust is beginning to push development of Corteza’s outreach Programmes, which range from Humanitarian through Ecological to Privacy Programmes.
Delivering a standards-based public good, then constantly striving to push those standards higher is a lot of work. Being part of something bigger than us is key to the Crust team’s identity and to our brand. Since the launch of Corteza, we discovered that the more we give and the better we give, the stronger our business gets.
The Not-for-Profit sector deserves an approach to building software that is inclusive of its requirements and which ensures organisations in the sector do not fall out-of-step with developments in the private and public sectors. Crust and Corteza successfully deliver this approach, feature-rich and with ever-reducing economic barriers to entry and participation. Our low-code philosophy is central to this ethos and we go out of our way to ensure that, where coding is required, it’s limited to well-supported and inexpensive JavaScript skills.
The cherry on the cake? Crust Essential Support subscriptions are completely free-of-charge for Not-for-Profit organisations and their customer bases – subject to the condition that the organisation is fulfilling its purpose by using our software. Digitally transforming and managing your relationships with your donors, advocates and volunteers have never been easier.
Are you working in a Not-for-Profit organisation? Get your free online Crust demo here.
Last week brought us the news that two of the most significant players in the CRM market, Salesforce and Microsoft had struck a deal. Salesforce Marketing Cloud will soon be hosted by Microsoft Azure. At the same time Microsoft Teams, a Slack Messaging alternative, will be integrated with Salesforce Sales CRM and Service Cloud.
When we were first designing Crust’s product strategy, our research showed that Salesforce Chatter, the internal messaging system on the cloud-only platform, was the most disappointing element of its portfolio. In its place, we decided to implement a core Messaging system inspired by Slack’s architecture and feature set. This feature set is already included in our Sales CRM and Service Solution.
Why was Slack-like Messaging of such interest? At Crust, we believe that openness, consistency and standardisation of data architecture are critical to the healthy long-term functioning of a business. Cobbled-together data architectures are expensive to maintain, and it’s always the customer that pays. Crust and our community project, Corteza, avoid such complexity by default. Our Messaging can suck in data from thousands of different sources if we wish and standardise that data for use across our various applications. Try to do that with email…
At Crust, we believe that openness, consistency and standardisation of data architecture are critical to the healthy long-term functioning of a business.
It remains to be seen what Salesforce’s decision to hold hands with Microsoft means in terms of businesses’ data sovereignty. Recently, Google’s been accused of health data stockpiling, and one of the concerns is that data from one service will be used to promote others. Is it possible someday that Microsoft buys Salesforce outrightly, giving it unfettered access to all activity on the powerful trio of Salesforce, LinkedIn and Skype? That’s a lot of sensitive trading data and intellectual property, and it highlights the big question of a data grab where Microsoft may find itself wandering into antitrust territory once again.
However, let’s face it; this is all about money. The real costs of Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics365 already border on extortionate. How much more customers can be “locked-in” by dependence on the vendors’ closed business logic implementations and hoisted with new charges remains to be seen. If history is any measure, then they usually find a way.
Crust will always aim to include market-leading features, will always provide familiar UI’s and UX and will always be 100% free and open. Our strategy to offer a robust, self-hosted alternative to Salesforce looks more aligned than ever.
So is Salesforce copying Crust’s strategies? Maybe just a little wink in our direction with their Microsoft Teams integration, but for the rest, we’re a whole lot safer and less expensive a bet 😉
Want to check it out for yourself? Get your free online demo here.
When you hear the word CRM, what comes to your mind? Do you see a software that helps you keep customer data or do you see an application that provides actionable insights? If you think of it only as a customer information repository, then you may not be taking much advantage of the capabilities of a CRM system. If you think of it as a way to grow your business, then you are on the right track.
But a CRM application is not just for your sales team only. It can also work for your marketing and customer service units. When you align your customer relationship management (CRM) strategy with other departments’ workflows, you can uncover more information about your customers, thus giving you a holistic view of them. Then you can have a better understanding of them, which can help you gain their trust and continuing business.
That is not all. A CRM solution has other benefits for your business such as the ones we discuss below .
The main purpose of CRM is right there in the name: to build stronger relationships with customers. This is preferable to finding new leads and prospects because they cost 5 times more than to maintain your business relationships with your current clients, according to an infographic by Invesp.
Finding new customers is more costly than keeping existing ones.
When used correctly, a CRM can boost your business with existing customers because it helps you see who is making purchases, who is engaged with your marketing activities, and who you need to watch to make sure they stay with your company.
The insights you gain from a CRM software can also help you personalize your interactions with your buyers one-on-one. It can be something as basic as using their names on emails or it can be something as complex as curating content that is tailored to their needs and interests.
When you store all of your customer data on your CRM system, you can see with a glance who among your patrons provide you with the most revenue. You can use this information for creating targeted marketing campaigns that can entice this percentage of customers to spend more.
You can do that by reaching out to them individually via a personalized email. This is when you can tell them how much you appreciate their business and give them offers and discounts exclusive only for them. You can also generate special coupons or codes for their use and enter those in your CRM platform to make sure that they are honored upon checkout.
Big data is big. It is not just in size but in impact as well. Since your CRM process requires that you collect information from customers at every turn, it becomes a data mine that you can exploit. You can get insights from this dataset through reports and dashboards. The latter offers you a comprehensive summary while the former can provide you with in-depth information.
Additionally, you can utilize your CRM data to determine the performance of your sales team. Once you have the numbers, you can determine who the top performers are, who are lagging behind, and the areas where you need to work on.
That is not all there is to data, though. Modern CRM solutions are now capable of connecting with third-party software. You can take advantage of this by integrating it with a BI/analytics solution so that you can uncover more insights that can help drive business growth.
If you started doing business without advanced software, it can be challenging to make teams use CRM. However, once you show them what such a system can do and ease them into adopting it, then they may embrace it fully in no time.
But what exactly can a CRM software do to make your workforce accept it?
For one, it can automate redundant tasks like data entry. Nobody likes inputting the same information over again into a system. With a CRM armed with automation capabilities, your employees can save time and energy because it enters the necessary information into relevant fields.
Moreover, this application relieves your employees of the task of having to follow-up with customers, leads, and prospects. That is because your CRM solution can trigger follow-up emails when it meets certain conditions (that you can set when you configure it the first time).
The beauty of cloud-based applications is the way they offer mobility. This can only mean that you can work on the go, from home, or even in a cafe or another setting. Because of this, you can answer the queries of your staff and step in to resolve issues anytime.
What’s more, your being able to access your CRM technology from anywhere helps you stay in control and make sure that business is running smoothly even when you are not present in the office.
A customer-first approach can help you put your business operations perspective. That is something a CRM can assist you with because of its rich data regarding your leads and purchasers. With the insights you uncover, you can enhance your engagement and marketing strategies to make them more attractive to your entire audience or to specific segments. Therefore, you can inspire loyalty and retain your best customers.
