In 2012 we entered the CRM Idol competition , an annual competition that provides CRM industry related small businesses an opportunity for exposure, resources and advice that would otherwise be unavailable to them. The primary judges seemed to recognize our focus and approach to CRM implementation: A successful CRM project is a combination of a product and service, keeping it simple, without unnecessary features and capabilities with clear focus on delivering the desired business results.

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Here is the complete CRM Idol 2012 Review:

 

CRM Idol 2012 Review:
Produs by Atol Business Solutions

reviewed on 15 September 2012

 

Atol is a Slovenian company that is entering CRM Idol for the first time this year. Atol opened their presentation to the judges by describing their core beliefs about CRM, namely that:

• CRM shouldn’t fail;

• Successful CRM connects the business with IT;

• Successful CRM puts “adoption before function.”

 
On that basis, they aim to provide both a product and consulting services to make CRM initiatives successful. They aim to bring a mixture of business consulting and IT programming skills together and they aim, above all else, to keep CRM simple. Their passion is that most organisations buy far more CRM functionality than they need and spend far too much of their budgets on technology integration, instead of focusing on the things that actually matter, for example, user adoption, cultural change, incentives etc.
 
Now all of this is perfectly reasonable – the judges wouldn’t disagree with any of the statements above (in fact the judges are some of the most passionate advocates of these principles). But, CRM Idol is a competition for CRM software vendors, so ultimately we judged Atol on their product. As far as the product is concerned Atol have built a configurable B2B sales solution to support contact & opportunity management. They started by building a sales methodology, which they subsequently turned into a product in an open source, LAMP-based solution. Their product was designed through direct client experience with 40-plus end user organisations. It offers B2B organisations a simple tool to manage the stages in the sales cycle, providing task-lists and accelerators at each stage.
 
The focus of the tool, above all else, seemed to be simplicity. If you have used task management within Microsoft Outlook, then the chances are that you will be able to use Atol CRM without much of an issue. Atol CRM provides some nice functionality around click-to-call (via Skype) organisational hierarchies and functionality for building sales communities like RSS feeds and sales tips. However, the judges did not really see a unique differentiator in the product. Many CRM solutions provide sales methodology and opportunity management functionality and many also focus on simplicity for the SME segment. We felt that Atol’s unique strength as a company was really combining product and services together – the knowledge of not only how to configure and customise the solution but also the knowledge of how to keep CRM simple and drive the desired business change. Effective CRM required both right and left brain to work together in alignment, and that’s what Atol seemed to be focusing on.
 
Reviewed by CRM Idol 2012 Primary Judges