April 17, 2001, 3:40 PM — ROAD WARRIORS of all stripes lean on e-mail, cell phones, and PDAs not just to keep up with the office but to maintain relationships with their clients. But taking care of customers requires having more information on hand than names and numbers, so many companies have started implementing CRM (customer relationship management) solutions.
CRM software can automatically assign new leads and create to-do lists for a prompt follow-up. New sales orders can be entered into the system immediately after a meeting with the customer. When the representative is in the office, the desktop provides the link to stay in touch with the company databases; whereas on the road, that link is usually replaced by a laptop equipped with the CRM client.
The new wave of CRM applications for wireless devices promises to make accessing CRM on the road even easier. Protocols such as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and WML (Wireless Markup Language) provide connectivity and content delivery as well as formatting capabilities for wireless devices, similar to what HTTP and HTML offer for wire-bound clients.
Better yet, the new generation of smart phones, such as the Nokia 7100 that runs custom applications on top of its traditional capabilities, and more sophisticated PDAs, such as the Palm VII with wireless connectivity, make custom applications and contextual wireless Web connectivity a reality.
At the same time, many CRM vendors have extended their products to support wireless clients. Thanks to the combination of wireless and CRM technologies, PDAs and other handheld devices have become likely alternatives to laptop computers for running corporate applications.
Not surprisingly, 10 percent of the 500 readers we polled in the InfoWorld CRM Survey indicated that they have already implemented wireless CRM applications, and 17 percent have definite plans for deployment next year. In fact, the new generation of wireless gadgets loaded with CRM can produce substantial savings in administrative costs, and by improving your sales force's connectivity, they'll make your company more responsive to customers' needs.
The list of CRM applications that offer wireless clients is a long one. Many CRM vendors, including FrontRange Solutions (formerly Goldmine), Interact (formerly SalesLogix), Oracle, Neteos, PeopleSoft, Pivotal, Siebel, and Upshot, have extended their clients to wireless devices. The CRM vendors that are not already offering a wireless offering will likely do so soon.
As anticipated, their offerings are diverse. Most CRM vendors, including Interact and Neteos, provide specific clients for the smart devices; others, such as Pivotal's Anywhere, offer a server-based solution that delivers CRM applications to a Web browser, without a client to install. Obviously, the latter approach simplifies deployment, but could generate compatibility problems with new browser versions.
Some vendors offer the small-device edition of their client at no additional cost. Others price it separately, which creates an additional entry in your budget for software. You should also consider replacing older devices, which may not be capable of supporting the new applications or meeting the connectivity requirements.
Prepare also to reconcile technical requirements with company policies. For example, if PDAs and cellular phones are considered personal items the company doesn't pay for, you may want to moddify the policy and enforce corporate standards for acquisition and support.
