Book Image

Implementing SugarCRM

By : Michael Whitehead
Book Image

Implementing SugarCRM

By: Michael Whitehead

Overview of this book

<p>SugarCRM is a popular customer relationship management system. It is available in both free open source and commercial versions, making it 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 distils hard won SugarCRM experienced into an easy to follow guide to implementing the full power of SugarCRM. SugarCRM is an extensive PHP/MySQL based application but with its rich administration interfaces no programming is required to get the most of it.</p> <p>This book will give you all the information you need to start using this powerful, free CRM system. Written by veteran SugarCRM expert and experienced documentation author, Michael J. Whitehead, this book 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 of this exciting product.</p>
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Implementing SugarCRM
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
Preface
Index

Customer‑Centric Business Management


Most of this book deals with the issue of helping you identify and implement a CRM that is suitable for your business. However, neither SugarCRM nor indeed any truly effective CRM deals only with that narrowly defined set of topics that originally constituted a CRM system.

From product catalogs, quotes, and invoices to service contract management, and from email marketing campaigns to project management and resource tracking, extending your CRM into a customer‑centric business management system is gaining increasing recognition as an appropriate and effective technique for small and medium businesses. (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, which can resemble aspects of a CRM, but are significantly more detailed and simply more appropriate to larger scale organizations.)

At its...