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As originally asked by Todd Staples.

I am particularly fond of those that have integration to Outlook. I know about Salesforce.com – I am asking if anyone knows of any notable alternatives that are currently utilized in this med device acute care market with success. Thanks!

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Todd Staples, MBA
Account Representative, GYN at Medtronic
Thanks Lisa. I really do have an ideal situation to be trying CRM systems and putting a lot of thought into implementation and ROI. My initial team is only 10 field reps and what I am building is an outsourced direct sales organization so one of our key value propositions to our portfolio partners (those whose products we sell) is the quality of the data collected, sales process implemented, and the daily, weekly, and monthly reports that keep them updated on their product pipeline and forecasts. Without the ability for my partners to access my sales team’s data and see a realistic snapshot of field activities, I lose a key component to fulfilling my promises. With only 10 to start, and adding 10 more reps across the country each year for the next few years I am confident we can get a lot of feedback early and adjust our resources and efforts to find the right mix in the first year, presuming we find a system that is adaptable to our needs.

Thanks for all the great feedback this has been very informative!

Lisa Olson, MBA
Senior Product & Market Development Manager | Education and Training | Medical Device | Digital – Web Development
Todd,
I have enjoyed reading the responses to your question. I wanted to jump back in to the discussion quick. First, I like how your enthusiasm and thinking that rolling a CRM out to a brand new sales force will eliminate the “legacy sales mentality” that is thought to be the reason behind such poor compliance of CRM Systems. I used to have that belief also, that it was “old ways of thinking”. I am not too sure about that any more, after implementing some of these systems in a variety of settings.

What I found is that there are three distinct areas of motivation. First, is the motivation of the sales representative. From my experience they are the priority. Knowing that sales people want to make money, how is the system going to increase their likelihood of making even more money… for themselves. I found that if I talk with the people that are actually going to use the product, I really needed to know how they would use it to make more money, or in other cases, be more productive so they can go home on time. I then reacted by making changes to the system to accommodate them where it made sense.

Second is the motivation of the company. Why are they spending the time and energy and money on a system? What will they gain from it? How will they use it? There is nothing worse than a sales rep knowing that they are entering information into a system that isn’t being used by anyone in corporate.

Third, is the person that is leading the project of implementing the CRM. What will they gain from implementing a solid CRM solution? If it is just a job to them, they may miss the mark of bringing the best system to the company. If they are part of the sales team, they probably will bring a solution that will work for all. In your case, Todd, it seems like you are the one that is implementing this system and you are motivated to find the right one.

What I am getting at here is that without the stake holders in the room while you decide on the system and the data that will be collected, you may still have resistance to the system even with a new sales force. My advice is to plan for some resistance and think ahead of time how you will work on overcoming it.

Todd Staples, MBA
Account Representative, GYN at Medtronic
Great comments from All – I especially appreciate Richard’s comments breaking down the differences between out of the box solutions and fully or partially customizable options. I agree with most here though that say it is critical that the execution and follow through be right or any system will fail. I have the luxury here of rolling out my CRM to a brand new sales force so I will be able to avoid alot of the legacy sales mentality that we run into today when trying to gain compliance from sales people that built a career on nothing but a pad of paper and some business cards.

Ewald Parolari
Vice President Supply Chain
Microsoft has a CRM tool that is fully integrated into all Microsoft Office.

Gary Baney
Chief Application Development Officer
Todd, to echo a couple of the comments above – your implementation partner/team is as important as the specific product you select. If they listen, design, implement, and then tune/adjust with a steady, solid commitment to your satisfaction then you are in a good place. If they just slam a tool in place, make a few tweaks, and then walk away, you are going to be frustrated no matter which tool you select. As in all technology selections – the ‘who’ is even more important than the ‘what’.

Sam Monaco
Consultant: Business Process Assessment, Design & Improvement / Strategic Project Leadership / In-Vitro Diagnostics SME
The answer to your question depends a lot upon what you want to go with the CRM solution. All of the solutions have various limitations but unless you have a lot if IT support available, the best bang for the buck with a lot if flexibility and opportunity to cover needs as you grow us Salesforce.com.

Peter Schogel
Founder of Blue Key Property Group, LLC
Check out Cherwell. Is great for Sales and Support tracking.

Peter Muszka
Director SAP Business Process Support at Straumann USA LLC, PMP
Todd, yes i Assume most systems can be customized to your particular sales process and product portfolio. The key to user adoption is to show your reps the benefits for them, more than just lip service support by sales management, and some clear metrics and incentives about usage. Also ease of use is important, so far feedback from mobile users has been very encouraging.

Jon West
President, Biofluid Focus, Inc.
I use Capsule CRM. It is web-based with smart phone access and integration with a variety of applications like Google Apps, MailChimp, etc. It is easy to use, but capable. It handles pipeline and tasks, follow-up and can be customized.

Jitesh Rohatgi
Bridges business and technology, brings software to life.
CEGEDIM has been an established CRM player in life science domain and have introduced a medical device specific version. Let us prove how an industry specific CRM is cheaper and better than a generic one (salesforce) including working without online connectivity on iPads (and laptops)

Bradley Freeman
Regional Sales Manager at ZOLL Medical Corporation
Zoho.com. Just like salesforce.com without the price tag. Much more economical. Provides all the functionality and integration that you would expect. Give it a trial run at Zoho.com.

Paul Anthony Bernard
Director QPC / BrightLights & Human Capital Engagement
Todd, for what it is worth after a few years of touching several CRM’s and having associates that have touched the others, the market has matured and the top players (listed in the string) have systems that for the most part are equal, the differences being user interface and ease of use… but this is often based upon the users… the systems and methods they are accustom to before taking on this tool. (I find it interesting that the users I am aware of use very little of the complete suite of features the tools have to offer…)
Certainly review them all however it has become my opinion that the more important issue is attaining the commitment, motivation of your staff to use it…. the best one, whichever you determine that is for you… is useless if your team is not going to willingly utilize it. You will be surprised there is resistance from some quarters.

Rich Herpers
Manager Customer Support at Sheldahl
We use Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM. Excellent integration with Outlook as well as nearly all other Microsoft applications. We are very pleased with ease of use and mapping to other core software functionality.

Gary Baney
Chief Application Development Officer
We really like SugarCRM. We have implemented it with a very integrated workflow to go beyond what we have seen with any other CRM. We have integrated it with websites, email servers, email marketing systems, and document management systems .. and all that VERY cost-effectively. Shout back if you would like more details.

Bill Becker
President at AutoMotion Technologies
Todd, I am very satisfied with Vtiger open source CRM. The software is free (although you can donate if so moved) and we hired a small team from India, with whom we connected through Odesk.com, to customize and implement it.

Like Salesforce, it can be customized to be whatever you want/need it to be but at a fraction of the cost. Most importantly –to me at least — you own it and can find a different contractor to maintain/customize it if you aren’t satisfied with one, or let your own IT people do it if you have the capability in-house. It is hosted wherever you want to host it. There is the still the delay for each page-load as you cited, but it is typically very short and I have gotten used to it. The delay is going to be different for each user depending on where he is located and the bandwidth.
Good luck!

Todd Staples, MBA
Account Representative, GYN at Medtronic
Thanks Lisa. Let me clarify – Multiple different medical devices with different opportunities generated in different pipes for each product line, all sold into the acute care hospital setting in the US. That should clarify easily enough.

My only objection to “the cloud” is not the storage of data, but the lag that is inherent when every single click results in data transfer across hundreds or thousands of miles and is dependent upon a consistent high speed internet connection. This does not always work well when outside sales people may or may not have data access when they need to enter data. I personally get annoyed at the lag inherent in browser based software, but that’s just me I suppose. I like data to be updated, but I’m ok with it if it updates every hour or so. There is little justification or need for second by second data refresh when it comes to CRMs in my mind, though some may disagree.

Lisa Olson, MBA
Senior Product & Market Development Manager | Education and Training | Medical Device | Digital – Web Development
It is kind of refreshing that you are asking this question to see what others in the industry have used, which is good, though without knowing what they are selling and to whom, and why that decision was made, I am thinking you will probably still be back to experimenting with the software of various companies to see what actually will work for you.

I know that you were thinking that you didn’t want to be on the “cloud”. However, I think that may be short-sighted. If this company that is calling on acute care settings is small today, where are they going to be in 2-4 years? A lot of companies may start with one CRM solution and find that as they have grown, it doesn’t fit the needs of the company anymore. Therefore, one of the most critical areas from a technology side is to make sure the data can easily be transferred to other systems in the future. This is especially true if the company is purchased and the data will be migrated to another system.

One last item, there is a lot written out there about the user success. A CRM system, no matter how wonderful it has been designed and created for a specific sales pipeline, if the users of the system (sales representatives) are resistant, or it is too cumbersome to put the information in, it will not be successful for the goals of nurturing the relationships that is suppose to lead to sales.

Lisa Olson
CoreVantage Solutions

Lesley Rubenstein-Pessok, MSM, M(Med)Sc
Executive coach/mentor ⭐ Company growth⭐ Business transformation ⭐ Business plans ⭐ Raising finance / grants ⭐ Speaker
Nothing wrong w/ Salesforce.com and it’s in the Cloud.

Klaas Dozeman
Reiziger at Endocare
hello i think the filemaker program will help its a mac crm.

Jim Metcalf
Director Corporate Accounts – Acelity
TeleNotes.net is beginning to get some traction in the CRM industry. It is a fully featured CRM with highly customizable reporting capability. The unique feature that sets TeleNotes apart from other CRM’s is their data input method. Sales reps either dial an 800 number or used the record function on their smart phone to dictate their call reports. TeleNotes uses live transcribers to enter the recorded messages in the proper data fields. Their tag line; “Dial, Dictate and Done” means that in a 60 second phone call, sales reps can dictate call reports, calendar items, competitive info, follow up tasks, emails, etc. While most CRM’s struggle to achieve a 75% adoption rate, TeleNotes enjoys a user adoption rate of over 92%. It’s an amazing product with a very loyal following.