Book Image

Implementing SugarCRM 5.x

Book Image

Implementing SugarCRM 5.x

Overview of this book

SugarCRM is a popular customer relationship management system. It is an ideal way for small-medium business to try out a CRM system without committing large sums of money. Although SugarCRM is carefully designed for ease of use, attaining measurable business gains requires careful planning and research. This book will give you all the information you need to start using this powerful CRM system. It is the definitive guide to implementing SugarCRM. Whether you are wondering exactly what benefits CRM can bring or you have already learned about CRM systems but have yet to implement one or you're working with SugarCRM already, this book will show you how to get maximum benefit from this exciting product. It demonstrates how to install SugarCRM and also how to get the most out of it by customizing it and integrating CRM into your organization as per your needs. Focused on the needs of the enterprise, this book provides a solution-driven approach for both business and IT specialists to get the most from this powerful and popular Open Source application. It begins with a general discussion about CRM. You will then learn the benefits of such systems, and then explore SugarCRM and its unique value. You will then go through the guidelines for installing and making deployment selections that are set out alongside information for identifying, planning, and applying customizations. Training guidelines and ongoing administrative tasks will be discussed as you progress further into the book. A brief overview of SugarCRM 6.0 is provided at the end of the book.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Implementing SugarCRM 5.x
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
Preface

Customer-centric business management


Most of this book deals with the issue of helping you to identify and implement SugarCRM in a manner that makes it suitable for your business. However, SugarCRM and its competitors do not focus exclusively on the defined set of topics that originally constituted a CRM system.

Extending your CRM system into a customer-centric business management tool is gaining increasing recognition as an appropriate, and an effective technique for small and medium medium-size businesses.

Note

Note that a lot of what follows becomes less relevant for organizations whose size exceeds 200 employees. Larger organizations tend to need integrated solutions based around Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools, that can resemble aspects of a CRM system, but are significantly more detailed and simply more appropriate to larger scale organizations.

At its heart, a CRM system is about consistently excellent communication—both inside and outside the business. Later chapters will more...