• Act!
  
• Goldmine
  
• SalesLogix
  
• Seibel MME
  
• Microsoft CRM
  
• ACCPAC CRM
  
• Microsoft Navision
  
• Salesforce.com
  
• Salesnet

The Features Analyzed for Each Product:

• Application can be operated via the keyboard for the convenience of the user

• Users can customize their own interface in columnar views

• Users can use Drag and Drop to customize their own interface

• On-line help is context sensitive

• Modifiable On-line help is modifiable to handle user defined fields, etc.

• An on-line tutorial is available for new user orientation

• Calendar Can enter a calendar meeting, activity, or task

• Has ability to display multiple users’ information simultaneously

• Has the ability to display completed activities on the calendar as well as scheduled activities

• User can filter which activity types are displayed

• Has ability for the user to define what is displayed on the calendar

• Calculator is available for computation of input into numeric fields

• Calendar is available for input into date fields

• Can assign a task to another group member

• Ability to schedule a meeting for another person

• Personal and Team Productivity

• Ease of use

• Group scheduling

• Automatically identify conflicts

• Can include non-CRM users for meetings

• link a contact to an meeting or activity

• link an opportunity to an meeting or activity

• Application has an embedded word processor

• Application can utilize Microsoft Word

• Can utilize templates for letters, FAX, etc.

• Word processing documents are saved within activity records, or drill down link

• Application can link to Microsoft Excel

• Can utilize Microsoft Excel

• Spreadsheets are saved within activity records, or drill down link

• Files of any type can be attached to contacts, accounts, opportunities, and service incidents

• Attachments can be performed via Drag and Drop

• Multi-Field Lookup

• Partial lookup

• Marketing Campaign Management

• Ability to measure campaign effectiveness

• Ability to measure campaign cost

• Can create and manage campaign letters, envelopes and labels

• Can create and manage email campaigns

• Can create and manage fax-blast campaigns

• Can create scripts and manage telemarketing campaigns

• Ability to keep unqualified imported lists separate from qualified prospects and customers

• Can automatically allocate calls to telemarketers by rules such as “round robin” and queuing

• Telemarketing call scripts can be developed and maintained within the application

• Scripts can incorporate the range of prospect answers and branch appropriately

• Ability to create calculated fields based on input responses from contact

• Ability to store product and service information (literature, brochures, etc.) and documentation

• Ability to organize product and service information in a multi-level hierarchy

• Ability to access and view product and service information

• Ability to fulfill literature requests by delegating within the application to internal fulfillment person or department

• Can fulfill request by email or FAX

• Information about competitors can be collected, tracked, aggregated and made available in a discrete area of the application

• Can store competitor names on a user defined basis

• User can link competitors to accounts

• User can link competitors to opportunities

• User can input competitor strength and weaknesses

• User can record win/losses to competitors

• Prevent addition of duplicate account records prior to entry into the application

• Ability to identify duplicate accounts

• Can merge two records together

• Ability for user to create and manage templates for word processing

• Software will automatically rate leads according to user defined criteria for qualification and/or risk analysis

• Ability to autodial

• Ability to import lists from 3rd party sources

• Ability to export marketing lists in text and Excel formats to support 3rd parties such as mail fulfillment houses

• Ability to generate forms such as mailing labels and envelopes

• International Supports international address formats, mail codes, and phone/FAX numbers

• Forecasting Can create and maintain forecasts based upon opportunities

• Forecasting Product line Forecasts can include user-definable product lines

• Forecasts can include additional items as defined by user in opportunity management

• Forecasting Aggregation Ability for management to rollup sales forecast data into summary level data according to user-definable criteria such as team, region, etc.

• Manager can override the forecast at the opportunity level (dollars and probabilities) without changing the original

• Probabilities can be user-defined according to an organization’s definitions

• Probabilities can be assigned at each step of the sale

• Ability to create and manage opportunities independently of accounts and contacts

• Multiple views Ability to view opportunities bycustomer, geography, etc.

• User defined fields are available to capture additional information

• Ability to enter and maintain specific sales plans containing several criteria linked to company sales objectives

• Ability to enter and maintain specific sales plans with many criteria linked to company sales objectives

• Supports account review process through ability to enter and maintain customer environment analysis (e.g. customer goals, key events, issues, and relationships)

• Can store and view organizational charts created in Microsoft PowerPoint or Visio

• Can create and store organizational charts within the application

• Activity Tracking Enter, document and track types of call activity and events, such as sales calls, demonstrations, presentations and training)

• Activity Tracking Priority Ability to assign priority to activity, such as high, medium or low

• Activity Tracking Status Ability to maintain the status of an opportunity via pre-defined coding such as in-progress, cancelled, scheduled, etc.

• Specific capabilities to track wins and losses

• Personal info Ability to code contacts and activities as personal to exclude them from sales reporting

• Ability to have contacts exist, independently or attached to accounts, within an overall account structure

• Ability to create sales territories

• Reassignment Territories can be reassigned with contacts, accounts and opportunities automatically reassigned

• Rollups Territories rollup according to organizational structure

• Definition Territories are user-defined based on geographical, product line, or other criteria

• Overlap Territories can overlap; the same rep can appear in different distribution channels

• Sales Quotas can be assigned by individual Sales management

• Sales Quotas can be assigned by territory, region, division, and/or as territories are defined

• Methodology Ability to create and adhere to a sales methodology

• Methodology Multiple Ability to select appropriate methodology based on opportunity

• Methodology Pre-defined Supports existing methodologies such as Bosworth, Miller-Heiman, TAS, etc.

• Quotations Can create and maintain quotations from within the application, or integrates to back-office system for this purpose

• Auto-Assignment The software automatically assigns and notifies a rep of a new lead tracking

• Built in ability to track lead source Sales productivity

• Product Codes Ability to contain product codes for reporting

• Channel Specific features to support companies utilizing indirect sales channels

• Channel Access Allows channel partners access to application on a restricted basis

• Ability to assign leads to channel partners

• Channel Forecasting Ability for channel partners to forecast opportunities

• Expense reports can be created within the application

• Linking Expenses can be linked to accounts Sales productivity

• Integration to one or more ERP (backoffice accounting) applications is supported by the CRM software developer

• Ability to “promote” prospect to customer so that back office accounting system is automatically populated with customer information

• Ability to view accounts receivable aging from accounting system in real time or near-real time without customization

• Integrates with accounting system

• Ability to view customer’s document history, credit notes, payments, aging, etc. from within CRM system

• Ability to retain customer historical sales information with drill down to greater detail

• Ability to create a quotation attached to an opportunity

• Ability to convert a quote to a sales order within the opportunity

• Sales order Ability to generate and submit a sales order without switching applications

• Taxes Ability to calculate sales taxes for quotes and orders

• Ability to validate credit limit/credit hold status from back office system real time or near-real time

• Can check on the status of a sales order

• Can check on the status of a sales order by ship to address

• Availability Can provide estimated product delivery date

• Can check inventory availability Integrates with accounting system

• Can support multiple inventory locations per quote or sales order

• Ability to view status of inventory items due to arrive on PO

• Supports creation of separate pricing per customer

• Can suggests substitutes for items that are out of stock

• Has a configurator to create complex quotations/orders for interdependent items

• Can generate an RMA (Returned Merchandise Authorization)

• Can generate a credit invoice, including the refund entry for Accounts Payable

• Specify warehouse to fill order

• Specify freight carrier

• Generate acknowledgements

• Proposals Ability to auto-generate proposals based on templates

• Ability to customize auto-generated proposals

• Maintains multiple versions of proposal or multiple proposals for an opportunity

• Supports multiple phases

• Supports proposal approval process via user-definable workflow

• Supports simultaneous creation of proposal components

• Ability to convert proposal to order Sales productivity

• Incident Tracking Ability to track service and support issues via a unique identifier

• Incident Routing Automatically routes incidents to users via user defined criteria

• Can automatically assign and notify a rep of a new incident

• Ability to manage service contracts, including effective dates, terms, etc.

• Ability to track items and serial numbers eligible for support

• Ability to automatically escalate service issues based on predefined rules

• There is a built in knowledge base for first line problem resolution

• Application has a review workflow for articles prior to publication

• Application has reports that are ready to run

• Ability define fiscal periods for reporting purposes

• Pre-built integration to Microsoft Excel for further analysis

• Ability to analyze sales by product, rep, region, customer, or other user definable criteria

• Ability to compare forecast to actual sales figures from back-office system

• Ability to evaluate customer service for effectiveness and product trends

• Can provide customized views of information to meet the needs of different classes of users

• Samples of all reports are available online

• Provides graphical analysis of data for marketing, sales, and customer service info

• Ability to work offline and update and receive updates from master database

• Supports synchronization via dial up connection

• Users who have not synchronized in a predetermined time period will not be allowed to access the client application until a synchronization has been performed

• Synchronization occurs in the background so that the user has full use of the application during synchronization

• Upgrades can be automatically synchronized to remote users

• Customizations can be automatically synchronized to remote users

• Synchronization Supports synchronization of a subset of the database

• Synchronization Supports synchronization over LAN, WAN, and FTP

• Synchronize documents from the document library, such as literature

• Application can be adapted to company’s specific business processes

• Workflow Graphical Workflow development tool is graphical

• Application can “guide” the user according to customer-specific business processes that can vary based on type of opportunity, etc. and can be specified in the application

• Ability to manage access to software screens, features, etc. via groups

• Security can be controlled at the field level

• Access to menu choices and functionality can be controlled by user

• Can control access/edit/delete by record type

• User password is encrypted

• Can create and manage email within application

• Outgoing email messages are saved as activities for recipient

• Can set up email rules for outgoing and incoming emails

• Can attach incoming email to contacts or accounts

• User profile is maintained on the server

• Tables can be added to standard database model and can be accessed by the client software without disrupting functionality or greatly deterring performance

• Fields can be added to existing tables and can be accessed by the client software without disrupting functionality or greatly deterring performance

• The software will automatically notify a user based on user-defined parameters

• Can create and manage individual and group calendars or integrates to Outlook

• Ability of the application to support multiple languages and currencies simultaneously

• Supports computer telephony integration for automated dialing and analytics purposes

• CTI  (Computer Telephony Integration) Software will automatically pop-up the contact record when call is received or transferred

• Ability to easily modify the user interface with no coding

• User Interface can be modified for particular groups of users

• Screens may be modified without any coding required

• Field labels can be modified on the screen

• User Definable fields are available

• User defined fields can validate data according to user criteria (e.g. numeric, phone number, date)

• The tab order can be modified to facilitate data entry

• Synchronization with Palm and Windows CE handhelds

• Wireless Supports wireless PDA access

• Support for web phone access

• Supports Short Message Service (SMS)

• Can create relationships between opportunities, support incidents, companies, and contacts

• Does the software run on a relational database such as MS SQL Server?

• Does the software support browser based access?

• Uses the most widely accepted general reporting tool

• Direct Import from Web site form

• Supports easy integration of inquiries via the web without user intervention

• Portal Application has a “front door” where information is summarized for individual users

• User and define the information available via the portal

• E-commerce functionality is available

• Flexible word and phrase search capability

• Has a spell checker for document related activities

• Supports multiple languages simultaneously

• Supports multiple currencies Internationalization

• Documented physical and data security model

• Documented commitment to robust performance for specific user levels

• Written commitment to application uptime, security, price increases, and business/technology issues

• Can import data from a text file

• Can export data to a text file

• Can export data to Microsoft Office applications

• Can integrate to other applications such as accounting on a batch basis

• Advanced Can integrate to other applications such as accounting on a real-time bases

• Documented commitment to data integrity and backup

• Ability for use by remote users in a disconnected mode

• Data delivered on a user-defined schedule

• Multi-company Supports multi-company use, including security configuration ASP evaluation

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