On Premise and Client/Server Crm Applications
On Premise and Client/Server CRM Applications
In the early days of CRM (the term was originally coined in 1992 when customer service and sales force automation were first automated and paired) the only delivery model available was client/server-based software. In this model the company purchased the licensed software and bought the hardware to operate it on. These systems, which as still in use today, place the burden on IT staff to install complex hardware and software programs in-house and deal with ongoing technical and user issues. In addition, companies would often choose "best of breed" software systems in which they would select different CRM vendors for sales and service and marketing and then have to integrate them to automate cross-departmental business processes and share information. The advantage of best-of-breed solutions was (and still is) that a business could take advantage of deep vendor expertise and product capabilities. The drawbacks were that the company had different software programs which required complex and costly integration, a tricky task that often had to be outsourced to an integration specialist. Client/server products such as Siebel Systems dominated the CRM industry throughout the 1990s and are still in use today.
ASP Model
The early 2000s gave rise to the Application Service Provider (ASP) model, in which a service provider would "host" the CRM application software on their own servers, thereby giving their customers access to the modules they purchased. ASPs are generally "out of the box" solutions that include sales, service and marketing modules that require no after-market integration. Because of shared infrastructure environments, they are sometimes less customizable than on-premise client/server systems.
While the client/server model gained fast momentum in the 1990's (mostly by large enterprises that have the necessary budget, IT resources and infrastructure), small and midsized companies began to embrace the
In the early days of CRM (the term was originally coined in 1992 when customer service and sales force automation were first automated and paired) the only delivery model available was client/server-based software. In this model the company purchased the licensed software and bought the hardware to operate it on. These systems, which as still in use today, place the burden on IT staff to install complex hardware and software programs in-house and deal with ongoing technical and user issues. In addition, companies would often choose "best of breed" software systems in which they would select different CRM vendors for sales and service and marketing and then have to integrate them to automate cross-departmental business processes and share information. The advantage of best-of-breed solutions was (and still is) that a business could take advantage of deep vendor expertise and product capabilities. The drawbacks were that the company had different software programs which required complex and costly integration, a tricky task that often had to be outsourced to an integration specialist. Client/server products such as Siebel Systems dominated the CRM industry throughout the 1990s and are still in use today.
ASP Model
The early 2000s gave rise to the Application Service Provider (ASP) model, in which a service provider would "host" the CRM application software on their own servers, thereby giving their customers access to the modules they purchased. ASPs are generally "out of the box" solutions that include sales, service and marketing modules that require no after-market integration. Because of shared infrastructure environments, they are sometimes less customizable than on-premise client/server systems.
While the client/server model gained fast momentum in the 1990's (mostly by large enterprises that have the necessary budget, IT resources and infrastructure), small and midsized companies began to embrace the