By Martin H. Morrissette, Sirocco CMO – Book time with me
When businesses tailor their CRM platforms – be it Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, HubSpot, or another system – the choice between configuration and customisation is pivotal. It’s a decision that not only influences how well the platform supports your processes today but also how easily it can adapt as your business evolves. From our extensive experience at Sirocco, we’ve found that configuration is typically the most effective approach. It offers flexibility, scalability, and cost efficiency while future-proofing your system for continued growth. But this isn’t just about reducing costs; it’s about creating a CRM environment that grows with you, maintains system integrity, and maximises user adoption. Let’s take a look.
Understanding configuration and customisation
Before exploring the benefits of each approach, let’s define them clearly.
| Configuration involves tailoring a CRM system by adjusting settings, workflows, and features without altering the underlying code. It leverages the platform’s built-in functionalities, allowing your business to customise processes while maintaining system stability and scalability. | Customisation, however, goes beyond the platform’s default capabilities. It involves modifying the core code or building entirely new features, offering more control and specificity. However, customisation comes with higher costs, longer implementation times, and greater risk, which may not be suitable for most businesses. |
Key benefits of configuration
Cost-Effective and Scalable
Configuration offers a significant cost advantage over customisation by leveraging the platform’s built-in features. This reduces the need for extensive custom development, saving businesses time and money. Research indicates that configuration can reduce CRM implementation costs by up to 30% compared to customization, making it a more financially viable option for many organisations. Additionally, configuration is highly scalable, allowing businesses to easily adapt their CRM systems as their needs evolve. This flexibility ensures that your CRM remains a valuable asset throughout your company’s growth.
Faster Time-to-Value
Configuration accelerates time-to-value by allowing businesses to implement changes quickly and efficiently. This agility is crucial for staying competitive. By leveraging existing platform features, configuration reduces development time and allows your business to respond swiftly to market changes and customer demands.
Minimizing Risk and Ensuring Compatibility
Configuration offers a more secure and future-proof approach to CRM customisation. Unlike custom code, which can become outdated or incompatible with platform updates, configuration ensures that your CRM remains aligned with the latest features and technologies. This reduces the risk of costly rewrites and disruptions to your operations.
Furthermore, configuration promotes a more intuitive user experience, leading to higher adoption rates among employees. By leveraging the platform’s native features, configuration reduces the learning curve and makes it easier for users to understand and utilise your CRM effectively. This can also easily lead to improved productivity and better data quality. Additionally, configuration allows businesses to easily enforce standardised data entry and validation rules, ensuring that the data collected in the CRM is accurate and reliable.
To sum it up, by choosing configuration, businesses can often benefit from:
- Significant cost savings
- Faster time-to-value
- Reduced risk of compatibility issues
- Improved user adoption
- Enhanced data quality
These advantages make configuration a compelling choice for organisations seeking a flexible, efficient, and cost-effective approach to CRM customisation.
The role of customisation: when it’s the right fit
While configuration is often the best approach for most businesses due to its cost-effectiveness, speed, and long-term flexibility, there are situations where customisation becomes necessary, and even advantageous.
Customisation provides deeper control and allows businesses to extend the capabilities of their CRM beyond what is possible with out-of-the-box configurations. For instance, companies with highly specialised needs, such as complex workflows or integrations that require more than what native CRM settings offer, might benefit from customisation. At Sirocco, we recognise that certain industries like manufacturing, energy, or real estate, sometimes require specific functionalities that can only be achieved through custom development. For example, one of our clients in the energy sector needed an advanced supply chain management feature that wasn’t supported by the platform’s built-in options. In this case, customisation was the ideal solution, as it allowed us to build a tailored system that met their exact requirements.
However, customisation should be approached with caution. It tends to be more expensive, not just in terms of initial development but also ongoing maintenance, especially as platforms evolve. Custom code can lead to compatibility issues when the CRM platform undergoes updates or introduces new features. This is why businesses must carefully weigh the long-term implications of customisation (such as increased reliance on specialised resources and potential vendor lock-in) before committing to it. Our teams ensure that when customisation is required, it’s done in a way that maintains flexibility and scalability. By adhering to best practices, we mitigate the risks of future incompatibility and ensure that customisations are designed to grow with your business. While configuration is our preferred route, we have the technical expertise to handle complex customisation projects when needed, always with the goal of delivering a solution that supports both your short-term and long-term business objectives.
Why configuration should be your go-to
For most businesses, configuration remains the smarter, long-term choice due to its flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. It allows organisations to adjust their CRM systems quickly and efficiently, keeping them adaptable in the face of market shifts and technological advances. However, customisation does have its place when unique, complex needs arise, and Sirocco’s trusted advisors can guide you through both approaches.
Ready to optimise your CRM? Contact Sirocco today to learn how we can help you harness the power of configuration (or, when necessary, customisation) to drive long-term success.
