Interview with the director of business development of CRM of 1C-Rarus company Alexey Kudinov

Alexey Kudinov: Trends of the market of CRM – internet marketing, mobility, clouds and PaaS

TAdviser: If to consider a CRM segment of the Russian IT market – what main technology trends of the current year?

Alexey Kudinov: Trends of the current year began also last year, and even in before last is internet marketing, mobility, clouds and PaaS. The first trend - marketing was displaced from traditional sources in the Internet. For CRM became a relevant task to help the company to estimate ROI of marketing. To mobility there was an opening of new opportunities in the context of CRM. The companies having mobile employees understood that they can be more effective thanks to the best organization of communication with clients. Until recently the mobility as competitive advantage was understood only in retail trade, today the companies of other fields of economy begin to realize it and to stake on mobility. As for the third trend, a situation following.

Small and microbusiness it is almost universal left on 'cloud' CRM Wednesdays, and here attempts of medium and large business to solve local problems actually were the same way unsuccessful. Medium-sized companies began to return to professional CRM solutions. It reminds me a situation of almost ten-year prescription when in Russia there were no 'clouds', but in the market there was a closed solution Quick Sales. The model of distribution was following – the version on one workplace free of charge was established. But it was impossible to reconfigure, for the subsequent places surcharge was required. At some point the company faced impossibility of development and returned to professional solutions. And here the fourth trend – PaaS finds manifestation. So use of 'clouds' for a hosting of the individual CRM solution which can be finished and tuned up. This approach was interesting to medium business, and, in some cases, large to move loading to data center. It is especially relevant at present currency rates that limits possibilities of purchase of server capacities.

In respect of emergence of new functionality of bright events in the current year I would not note. The usability of products improves, gamification elements are implemented. It is much told about integration with social networks, but examples of successful and cost-efficient projects when it was succeeded to return investments and to get profit, are unknown to me. Products which help to keep track of reputation of a brand in a social blogosphere, to keep track of activities of users, are already presented at the market, but their use in practice, unfortunately, – still single projects.

TAdviser: What it is possible to tell about market situation in general?

Alexey Kudinov: Multidirectional movement. The crisis phenomena force the companies to be optimized, and here sales, marketing are on the first place in terms of achievement of result. On the other hand, in one company known to me the IT budget of the current year did not exceed last year's. Moreover - IT budgets in most the companies are reduced, and in some industries and the companies budgets are cut to the level of the most necessary support. The projects which are not giving an essential gain in the short term are not started. Nevertheless, I expect growth of a CRM segment of IT market at the level of 10%. At the same time I speak about the market of the professional CRM systems, disregarding and without meaning so-called 'CRM modules' as a part of corporate portals, document flow and the similar systems. In money it is difficult to estimate the market. Pleased us that according to the results of a research of TAdviser of 2014 we were included into the three of the largest CRM integrators, but on the other hand set thinking means, at other companies of case it is not as good as last year.

TAdviser: What it is possible to tell about the level of the competition between vendors?

Alexey Kudinov: The competition is, but the market is still free, is not saturated with CRM solutions. So far players not too feel it. Especially in the field of large and medium business where after all professional CRM solutions mostly are used. Here penetration of at most 25%. And it in the Moscow region, on others is even less. In the Far East the level of penetration decreases to 5%.

TAdviser: A feedback with the client – one of the most important components of any retail business. On the other hand, in the conditions of global informatization and demand for personal information, the aspiration to avoid identification, to receive service and "hide", fade into the background is more and more peculiar to the modern mass client. How this contradiction in practice is solved? What technology new products offer vendors in the CRM products to give the chance of the company to hook on the client, to force to reveal and be in touch?

Alexey Kudinov: Really, at clients the feeling of protection of own information space is aggravated that found reflection in the federal law "About Personal Data Protection". However it is possible to interact with the client. In respect of technologies there are already techniques of tracking of clients. For example, the call-tracking allowing to identify from where the client came to the website or from what mobile called. In respect of basic approach nobody thought up anything better, than to give something to the client in exchange for providing the data to them and permission to their processing. For example, record of a cycle of telecasts about CRM, available in exchange for client data is uploaded to our website. Or we provide to the client integration of CRM with telephony on one workplace in exchange for its identification. In a retail segment widespread acceptance – registration of the purchased goods. Did not register – 1 year of a guarantee, registered – for example, 3 years. It is a good bonus under which then it is possible to offer the client other goods and to perform a feedback. Specific approaches depend on the industry and a product.

TAdviser: What new functionality appeared in "1C:CRM"?

Alexey Kudinov: The product constantly develops therefore new there is a lot of. In particular, in the block of marketing which as such was already displaced in the Internet. It confirm also traditional polls of clients when on a question where found information on the company or a product, you receive one answer – on the Internet. Therefore in 1C-Rarus there was a call-tracking mentioned above assuming integration into Google Adward and "Yandex.Direct". In addition we develop technology of business processes - we draw route charts without programming, a possibility of informing clients by means of SMS notifications, e-mails now. And not only colleagues, but also clients.

For example, if the client is interested in information on the course of accomplishment of its order at the level of internal business processes, it is possible to implement it. New opportunities appeared also in integration with telephony of office and telephone recording. I will emphasize that a large number of additions and completions of the product "1C:CRM" (about 150) were made on the basis of the action "Summer of Quality" which is carried out by us last summer during which we received specific wishes from our clients and partners and considered them. About 50 more wishes will be considered in the next releases until the end of the year.

TAdviser: Since the beginning of 2015 the 1C-Rarus company implements about 80 implementations of "1C:CRM" if to trust data on the website. What it is possible to tell about dynamics of demand in comparison with last years – demand grows or decreases?

Alexey Kudinov: Information on the number of the implemented projects on the website not complete, in the current year is much more implementations. Many projects are implemented through partners and in the projects not always clients permit to publish information on the website. As for dynamics of business, projects becomes more, projects become larger. The average number of licenses for the client is equal 15 today (a few years ago 5). At the same time among our clients - the company where 500 employees work with 1C:CRM more, and in implementation phase there are several projects where the number of users exceeds 2000. As for the number of clients companies, this indicator is the last one or two years approximately at one level.

TAdviser: Whether there are techniques preliminary (at a stage of discussion of the project) estimates of potential economic result of implementation of CRM? How this technique is demanded by clients and is reliable?

Alexey Kudinov: All this look for "a silver bullet", write and publish smart books with calculations. But to make a universal design model of calculation of ROI which would be reliable at least for a half of CRM projects, very difficult. If at all perhaps. Two identical companies are not on light as two identical implementation projects of CRM are absent also. There is a huge number of the factors operating not on the party of the contractor, and on the party of the customer not under control of us. We can only recommend to the customer to act one way or another, and the solution, to work how exactly, he accepts. At the same time, we have a big base of the implemented projects with the saved-up statistics, digits, customer reviews. On the basis of these data we are capable, having found out specifics of the client, "on a napkin" to count and orient the client what result he can expect according to the results of project implementation.

TAdviser: Let's talk about technical support of the implemented systems. If to compare large business and a segment of SMB - the difference in requests is how big? And respectively, - in configurations/settings of software products?

Alexey Kudinov: In a product line 1C-Rarus four levels of CRM products are provided: the basic single-user version (individual entrepreneur), standard (5 jobs), the "prof" version (the best ratio between the functionality/number of places / the price) and professional solution of the top level of "1C:CRM CORP". As for technical support, that large number of requests goes from small business, and respectively, the greatest efforts are directed to satisfaction of these requests. Support of large and medium business is organized differently. It is performed, as a rule, in the project progress and within post-project maintenance. On project implementation phase support is performed by the command implementing the CRM solution. Then its competences are transferred to specialists for post-project maintenance. Thus, it is the separate structures configured under the client. Large business on a hot line, as a rule, does not address.

TAdviser: How support is organized whether it is multi-level?

Alexey Kudinov: Yes, multilevel support based on our solution "1C:ITIL" is implemented, since the simplest consultations at the 1st level and finishing with expert methodical and technical support. All principles of classical Service Desk and SLA are applied.

TAdviser: How interaction with 1C company on the technical issues arising in sales process and service of CRM is organized?

Alexey Kudinov: 1C - the owner of a system, we are a developer, we also promote a product on the basis of partner model of business. Consultation of the partners in a product is performed by us. If consultation on the 1C:Enterprise 8 platform is required, we, naturally, address 1C, and the vendor quickly provides us advisory support. On large projects, with extreme load or a huge number of users when it is necessary to monitor system performance, we give to clients support too. In structure 1C-Rarus exists the special division "1C-Rarus TechLAB" helping clients with code optimization, load control, setup of infrastructure and other technical issues.

TAdviser: What represents mobile application of iCRM? What practical results of its use?

Alexey Kudinov: At this stage the basic CRM functionality has mobile application and allows the mobile employee to send to the client the e-mail or the SMS with instructions, to record a feedback, to obtain information on the order. We are going to develop its functionality. With it we are actively helped by clients, for example, company "Komatsu of the CIS". They took basic iCRM (A mobile workplace of the sales manager) and added to it the specifics. The solution helps during the work out of office to representatives of the local dealer who using our iCRM transfer operational information to parent organization. And the solution iCRM can work in offline and, thus, allows to communicate with the central office asynchronously as on site can not be cellular communication, - at first to photograph, then to transfer. The office browses information on existence of the necessary spare parts in warehouses, order them, thereby, reducing delivery time of the necessary part and reducing time of outages of technology. As for platforms, at the moment mobile application of iCRM works under Android and iOS, but soon there will be application and for Windows Phone.

TAdviser: How problems of integration of the CRM module with systems other than 1C are solved?

Alexey Kudinov: For us integration of CRM with other IT systems is not a problem. We are successfully integrated with 'self-written' products, SAP, Microsoft and any other as we own all modern exchange protocols of data. Moreover – existence of a system from 1C is not obligatory, we are able to do thin integration of the CRM solution in the operating CIS on other platforms. But as penetration of 1C in the market of the accounting systems considerable, is a little such projects - about 10%.

TAdviser: What perspectives of development of the company on this direction?

Alexey Kudinov: We develop consulting in the field of customer relationship management. We prepare the new specialized CRM offer in the field of PaaS. We expand possibilities of 1C:CRM in the field of Service Desk and SLA. We offer the clients easy integration of CRM and telephony of office. We develop abilities to manage business processes (BPM) in a product. For the medium-sized and large companies actively we work on a usability – to make a system more convenient in work on any device. And in the plan release of the new 1C:CRM version.