How Easily Can You Export Data from Your CRM Software?

The recent implosion of Entellium has CIOs and sales managers talking. Despite all the benefits of hosted CRM applications, there’s always an outside possibility that a CRM software vendor might shut down entirely. Fear of losing customer data may prevent managers from pursuing a customer relationship management strategy at all, according to some industry experts.

When shopping for CRM software, purchasers must ask prospective vendors about their procedures for data access, recovery, and migration. In fact, Entellium’s own marketing material encouraged their prospects to ask tough questions about data migration. Unfortunately, this solid advice couldn’t save the jobs of the sales and marketing professionals who were laid off when the company suddenly ran out of money.

CRM software champions within a company must make sure that they have a data export strategy in mind, regardless of the stability of their vendor. This tip applies equally to clients of hosted CRM systems and to owners of site-specific CRM software. Just as a vendor on shaky financial territory could vanish overnight, a custom installed CRM solution might become worthless if a legacy hardware or software module cannot be serviced or replaced.

Fortunately, in this case, investors and other board members of the company have been able to keep the servers running. Over the coming weeks, the eSalesForce and Rave platforms -- each supporting groups of otherwise satisfied client companies -- might be sold off to new owners at bargain basement prices. Whether the existing CRM applications will remain as-is or will be integrated into competitors’ suites remains to be seen. Either way, this episode illustrates the importance of accessing and backing up data locally, regardless of how stable a vendor looks.