Why India needs Indian CRM

Indian CRM? Whether we agree or not India is a very different country, and Indians are very different people. Yes, we are. No, I am not talking whether we are superior or inferior people. We are just different. Our Bosses, Employees, companies, Management style is different.

We believe in making a (remarkably) minimum effort and achieving maximum results. In fact, the whole Indian philosophy is about that. We have been cultured for centuries to work in the scarcity of resources and still achieve excellence. We are best in doing that. The proof is that world’s best companies choose Indian CEOs and Executives for top position to run their businesses.

As Indians, we are different, yes we are:

• Cost Efficient, very profitable.
  • NASA spent Rs. 4500 Crores to send a mission to Mars.
  • Hollywood spent Rs. 800 crores make a movie “Gravity” on a failed mission to Mars. The movie also eventually failed.
  • India (ISRO) did this at 450 crores. AND, most importantly, they did it in the first attempt.
• Never disciplined.
  • I am sure everyone will agree on this. We don’t stop at the traffic signal because it is red. But we stop at lights because there is a cop standing there. No cop, no stop.
• Able to handle Chaos, quickly.
  • Just have a look at 2,3, and four-wheelers on any Indian road. Now compare this with accident ratio with any other country. India is a much safer country to drive.
• We can have difference of opinion
  • Even with our family members and we are OK with that. We can live with that for entire life. Imagine the average life of marriage in the USA is 3.5 years. Now compare this with Indians.
• We are modern.
  • The USA talks about women liberalisation and empowerment. They have never had women as a President. We had Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1970s. We may look old fashioned, but we are very modern by thinking.
• Women power.
  • One of the reasons Indian economy is most robust is that the control of the household economy in India is still in the hands of women.
• Creative
  • We are one of the most creatives lots of all. Maybe that makes us little undisciplined also. But we are creative beyond doubt.

Why India needs Indian CRM:

Especially when we talk of SMEs and VSEs (very small Enterprises), they have a different kind of challenges.

• They have team members who are not toppers in their colleges. In other words, they get 2nd class talent. (Mostly, The typical backbenchers).
• Regarding IT infrastructure also their resources are limited. They require software that does not require a massive investment regarding Hardware or Networking. No fancy virtualised IT infrastructure or No costly leased lines for internet access.
• They cannot afford to give high-end mobile phones or tablets to their employees. The software they choose has to work with low-end Mobiles also. Most of the companies don’t even provide 3G/4G data plans to their employees.
• Lack of regular training. On the job training is best defined by these small enterprises. They cannot afford costly seminars and workshops for their staff. They don’t have the structure for regular training.
• Lack of regular monitoring and mentoring. One of the biggest things challenges is SMEs cannot afford managers. Owners are managers. They juggle between their different roles.
• No expensive consultants. They cannot afford consultants to study and design processes for them. They don’t have an RFQ or even primary documentation for the requirement.
• Different Expectations from CRM:
  • Rather than the excellent analysis of the trends and big data, they need the day to day task management and follow-up management.
  • Even centralised Customer Database provided by CRM is a great help. At least all the team members now have one

But even after all these limitations, they need to be competitive and profitable at the same time and compete with Companies in developed countries.

Most of CRM software available in market are developed by keeping western world in mind. Even some very big Indian CRM vendors also have more than 90% of their customers in Europe and USA. Their software is not for India, its actually for USA or EU. 

To summarise Indian CRM should be:

1. Low cost, as little as possible. Not only the CRM has to be low cost, but the infra required to run the same should also be as small as possible. E.g., a big no to the costly server and OS requirements.
2. A mobile App which should also work on the cheapest smartphones in Market.
3. Work on any PC (even an OLD PC). Preferably Android CRM App.
4. Require minimum or no data entry. Nobody hates data entry as much as Indians. (Unless we get paid for data entry in dollars).
5. Work as Employee tracking and cost analysis solution. Most bosses and managers in India want to know what their employee did today. AND, this should not require data entry by employees.
6. Integrate with SMS out of the box, since we primarily use SMS.
7. Tight security features, since all Indian bosses are very concerned about their data and how it is accessed.
8. Bosses may not use CRM, so reports should be emailed to them automatically.
9. Bosses still want all the reports in EXCEL or Printouts, so CRM should allow that.
10. CRM should help manage processes but should also be flexible enough to handle exceptions (which would be many).
11. CRM should have lots of automation so that there is less work for humans.
12. Track sales enquiries and allow

India has always been known to jump technology generations. India seems to be more ready for Mobile CRM revolution than anybody else.