Skip to main content

The Platform CAN Do the Work. Let it!

On June 15, 2021, the CRMKonvos crew had the chance to chat with Andreas Schuster, Customer Success Director for SugarCRM in Europe, about the company’s evolving vision and goals. He did not disappoint.

Schuster has filled a variety of roles over the years, both in the software industry and outside of it, and has developed an appreciation of what well-administered CRM can do for a business and its customers. “I have been able to get to know CRM in the industry and in sales, and I keep getting to know it again and again,” Schuster said. “I never get bored watching companies actually supporting their sales management with software, but also just the way they work together with the customer and with the customer. And it is always exciting.”

 

One important thing that Schuster believes, though, is that CRM is more than technology; it is behavior and culture which technology can enable to be better. “CRM is not so much a technical tool; it really is an approach,” Schuster said. “It's a strategic sales approach, and there's a lot that goes into it now, but it's still the same.” The technology is an important starting point though, especially with larger and more complex businesses. Schuster added: “I keep coming back to this: the software that's used has to work great, it has to be intuitive, it has to look good. But taking this CRM approach is first of all a strategic thing in a company. You have to want it. You have to prepare for it. And you also have to set an example for your company from the point of view of the executives. Those who do this are very successful.”

CRM Language

It sounds like Mr. Schuster is speaking CRMKonvos’ favorite language—the language of customer and employee experience alongside raw quarterly numbers. The conversation moved on to other topics, such as the oft-mentioned 360 degree view of the customer. Does it exist? Can it exist? “It's always situational,” Schuster said, noting that a great number of companies mention the 360 degree view in their product claims or mission statements. “It is of course an approximation of such an ideal case, but 180 degrees would already be a super advance for companies that have no CRM approach at all.”


If one is to talk about a view, one must also talk about visibility, and that’s something that rarely remains consistent, especially in companies with multiple divisions and diverse stakeholders. “In CRM cultures, it's exciting to see how collaboration changes in companies where everyone has access to customer data, at least in the sales area, but also across departments,” Schuster said. “This means that by sharing access, we also have a joint opportunity. And then we can ultimately work together on reliability and team success in the interests of the customer.”


Unfortunately, the intent often gets lost. “The first thing that companies have done is limit the visibility. So the Rhineland sales channel is only allowed to see Rhineland customers and the branch in France is only allowed to see their own customers, and then again horizontally. So one distribution channel is only allowed to see its products, the other only the others. I take two steps forward and one step back.” This sort of self-limiting approach to consistent, broad-based information access is running out of time and space. “Today's customers are also global, they also look at me globally,” Schuster added.


Regarding another common term, the customer journey, there seemed to be agreement that sales and marketing tools needed to evolve from something that supports the hunter-gatherer-farmer model that has been used so often, into more of a tour guide image. “Customers rarely stay forever, but they should have a good time while they are with you, and if you lose customers … they should remember you well because you always see each other twice in life,” Schuster said. Thank-you emails, offers of favorable contract extensions, and similar things will leave a good memory, showing gratitude that they were a customer rather than punishing them for leaving. “A customer who is won over today should be won over sustainably. They should be accompanied, not won over and discarded. These are customers who will be lost again.”

The Platform and Beyond

Still, Sugar sells technology which businesses use to succeed, and the company is always moving forward in that area. Schuster went into some detail about Sugar’s direction and goals, including the company’s new motto, “Let the Platform Do the Work.” It’s more than the automation every vendor has been building for decades; CRM is starting to use artificial intelligence to provide support and guidance so workers can be both more effective and more efficient with their time. “Artificial Intelligence, most people think that's something difficult. But if you look at how simple the application possibilities are—say I look at my leads in Sugar. They are listed for me, one to ten, these are the most probable, these are the most improbable. I can plan a whole week around that.” Schuster adds that using software to do the grunt work to fulfill a request such as “How should I plan my week?” can take tremendous stress off of a person, so that they start each day energized and focused on what they need to do.


To hammer the point home, Schuster turned the focus to smaller businesses—consultants, like us. “You guys are essentially a one-man show. You live by correctly assessing sales opportunities. Is there someone who will actually become a customer, or do I potentially spend days feeding that sales opportunity and ultimately nothing comes of it,” he observed. “SugarCRM now has a feature, it's even called Predict. That means, if I create a sales opportunity or a step before, I want to qualify a lead, then the system already tells me: ‘So from this industry you had a lot of leads in the past, but you didn't win any of them. That means you can try again, but save your resources, be economical and realistic.’ With another lead possibly, ‘From this industry you have won a lot of customers in the past. That means, put more effort into it.’ That's what the system does today. You used to have to build reports, combine them, export them. That was a real science. Today, the system does that by itself.”

 

If platform is the word of the day, then ecosystem is one of the runners-up. The shift of major vendors to become platform providers has meant greatly increased focus on partnerships—something Sugar has always done very well. One of the reasons for this ties back to the idea of a good customer journey. “SugarCRM is an ecosystem. We offer services ourselves. We have a system there, a network of channel partners. But no matter who it is, we basically offer customers this customer journey functionality as well, because we simply believe it brings something to win customers sustainably,” Schuster said  “It prevents escalation. Escalations and re-acquisition measures are many times more costly and damaging for a company than customer acquisition. It really costs resources, it leaves a bad mood. Why should I win a customer only to fight for him next year? It doesn't make sense.”


To close, we asked Schuster what three wishes he would like to grant to a potential customer so that he has a successful CRM project. “What would I want to give him? Definitely an open ear, because you have to listen first in order to be able to advise. Then all the experience I've gathered that I can throw into the ring, into the pot, that I can offer. You can't avoid experience. You just get experience. It can be good or bad, but you can always help others with it. And the third thing I can give him is this: If he decides to become a customer, to stick with it, not to take for granted that it all just works now.”


This article has been written by my colleague Marshall Lager and is published with his permission

Comments

Last Year's Top 5 Popular Posts

SAP CRM and SAP Jam - News from CRM evolution

During CRM Evolution 2017 I had the chance of talking with Volker Hildebrand and Anthony Leaper from SAP. Volker is SAP’s Global Vice President SAP Hybris and Anthony is Senior Vice President and Sales GM - Enterprise Social Software at SAP. Topics that we covered were things CRM and collaboration, how and where SAP’s solutions are moving and, of course, the impact that the recent reshuffling in the executive board has. Starting with the latter, there is common agreement, that if at all it is positive as likely to streamline reporting lines and hence decision processes. First things first – after all I am a CRM guy. Having the distinct impression that the SAP Hybris set of solutions is going a good way I was most interested in learning from Volker about how there is going to be a CRM for S4/HANA. SAP’s new generation ERP system is growing at a good clip, and according to the Q1/2017 earnings call, now has 5,800 customers with 400 new customers in the last quarter alone. Many...

How to play the long game Zoho style

The news On February 7 and 8 2024, Zoho held its annual ZohoDay conference, along with a pre-conference get together and an optional visit to SpacX’s not-too-far-away Starbase. Our guide, who went by Chief, and is probably best described as a SpaceX-paparazzi was full of facts and anecdotes, which made the visit very interesting although we couldn’t enter Starbase itself. The event was jam-packed with 125 analysts, 17 customer speakers, and of course Zoho staff for us analysts to talk to. This was a chance we took up eagerly. This time, the event took place in MacAllen, TX, instead of Austin, TX. The reason behind this is once more Zoho’s ruralization strategy, transnational localism.  Which gives also one of the main themes of the event. It was more about understanding Zoho than about individual products, although Zoho disclosed some roadmaps. More about understanding Zoho in a second.  The second main theme was customer success and testimonials. Instead of bombarding us with...

Reflecting on 2023 with gratitude - What caught your interest

A very happy, healthy and prosperous new year to all of you. This is also the time to review my blog and to have a look what your favourite posts of 2023 have been. With 23 posts, I admittedly have been somewhat lazy in 2023. Looking at the top ten read posts in 2023, there is a clear clustering about a few topics, none of them really surprising. There is a genuine interest in CX, ChatGPT, and vendors.  Again, this is not a surprise.  Still, there are a few surprises in the list! So, without further adoo, let’s hear the drumroll for your top five favourite posts on my blog – in ascending order. After all, some suspense cannot harm. The fifth place gets claimed by my review of ZohoDay 2022 – “ Don’t mess with Zoho – A Zohoday 2022 recap ”. Yes, you read that right. This is a 2022 post. The fourth place got claimed by another article on Zoho, almost one year younger: Zoho, how a technology company reimagines business software . It is a reflection on the Zoholics 2023 conference ...

Salesforce stock tanks after earnings report - a snap analysis

The news On May 29, 2024, Salesforce reported its results for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2025. Highlights are a total quarterly revenue of $9.133bn US, resembling a year-over-year growth of 11 percent a current remaining performance obligation of $26.4bn US a remaining performance obligation of $53.9B US an operating margin of 18.7 percent. diluted earnings per share of $1.56 The company reported a revenue guidance of $9.2bn - $9.25bn US for the next quarter and a full year guidance of $37.7bn - $38.0bn US, resembling growth rates of 7 – 8 percent and 8 – 9 percent, respectively. With these numbers, Salesforce ended up at the lower end of last quarter’s guidance on the revenue growth side while exceeding the earnings per share projection and slightly lowered the guidance for the fiscal year 2025. The result: The company’s share price dropped from $272 to bottom out at $212. The bigger picture Salesforce is the big gorilla in the CRM and CX industry. The company has surpassed ...

Zoho - A True Unicorn

End of January Zoho held its 2020 Zoho Days, an analyst summit, which I was happy to attend, along with more than 60 colleagues, as the only analyst from Germany, as it seems. Sadly, it took me quite a while to complete this – Zoho deserves a faster commentare. But hey, let’s look forward and get rolling. Zoho is a privately owned enterprise software company that has quietly evolved from a small software company in 1996 to an ambitious global player that serves the SMB- and enterprise CRM market with cloud applications. The company has a set of 45+ business apps with more than 50 million users, 10 data centres and counting, and is available in 180 countries. The company is profitable and maintained a CAGR of more than 30 percent over the past five years. But why quietly? Because Zoho managed its growth pretty unusually (almost) fully organically with only very minor acquisitions. Crunchbase lists one. Following this unique approach, which defies the tradit...