In this series, I will focus on specific open source software you can use to manage your customers. Let’s face it, we are currently in a pretty deep recession, or economic downturn (what ever you want to call it) the point is all over the country and the world, the majority of small to large businesses are experiencing less sales, higher bills and limited credit options. For the small business owner, you have to make it work. In essence we are largely on our own.
So how do we increase efficiency, cut costs and at the same time increase sales, without mortgaging ourselves to pay for it. Well one way to do all of those things is with technology, Open source technology. I was introduced to the open source industry in 2004. There I found an enormous amount of software that handles everything from Accounting, to Point of Sale to Webservers to call centers. Basically anything you want to do with technology is available in open source.
Understand not every open source software is good, worth the time or is right for your business. It will take time to evaluate the available options and they usually don’t have professional technical support. However, you will almost always find freelance individuals in your area to help you. They can usually build you a system that is unique and will fit how you do business other than fitting your business around a particular software.
To find Open source software you can either google for it. For example say you want an open source customer management software, you would google “open source customer management software”. You will find many different choices. Many of these open source software have there own sites and an online demo for you to test it. Or you can go to sites such as http://sourceforge.net or freshmeat.net which are sites that host hundreds and thousands of open source projects.
What to look for in Open Source software for your business
1. Software with a demo site you can test the functionalities to see if it is right for your business
2. An active user community. You want to make sure there are other individuals actively involved and supporting the software via forums or some other means. You don’t want to spend the time to use an open source software and if you have an issue there is no one to help you.
3. Open source components. It is best to use open source software that only has open source components that make it up or else you will find yourself having to purchase licensing from various sources to use a particular software.
4. Try to find reviews on that particular software you are considering. Google for the reviews of that software to see what others are saying.
5. If you will be using an open source web based application, it’s best to make sure the software is able to be used on various hosting enviornments (in case you will rent your server) so that you don’t invest time in setting up this open source software and find out you can’t use it.
Below are two examples on customer management.
1. SugarCrm– I particular like sugarcrm for it’s ease of use, clean interface, and ease of customization. SugarCrm is a Sales force automation/Customer Relationship Management Software (SFA/CRM). With Sugarcrm it will walk sales people through the sales process, keeping everything documented. It is straight forward to install and has a very active community. Sugarcrm comes in three versions, open source, professional and enterprise. The open source version is freely downloaded and used while the professional and enterprise versions are paid versions with professional support. Sugarcrm has many of the same features of salesforce.com
SugarCrm has a very active community that will extend the features of sugarcrm with modules. There are many modules available in the community. If you don’t find the module you are looking for, you will be able to hire someone from the community to build it for you.
2. Vtigercrm – Vtigercrm was derived from SugarCrm many years ago and now is it’s own stand alone SFA/CRM. Many people like vtigercrm and it comes with many features. Vtiger also has a strong and active community. Vtiger only comes in one version but professional support is provided at a cost. Because it is open source you will be able to extend the software to fit your business needs.
These are the main two that come to mind. These two programs will handle customer management and can be extended as much or as little as you would like.
Search souceforge.net as well as freshmeat.net for software that fits your business.
