Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has gained wide acceptance across the globe, continues to grow in India and with the current economic scenario addresses the key business issue of ‘pay-as-your business-grows’ without having to worry about IT skills or infrastructure. Tata Communications (TCL), a leading provider of the new world of communications, now offers hosted customer relationship management (CRM) services by partnering with US-based CRM leader SugarCRM.
SugarCRM is the world’s leading provider of commercial, open source customer relationship management (CRM) software. It has close to 4,000 customers world-wide. In India, Tata Communications and SugarCRM have come together to offer a robust CRM infrastructure on TCL’s state-of-the-art CRM platform to provide a 24x7 service that does not require the customer to have their own infrastructure or a skilled IT organisation to provide the users with a complete customer relationship management solution. The TCL hosted CRM solution will enable our customers to grow their business by servicing their clients based on their needs. This solution will deliver a capability-on-demand that our customers have been asking us to create for them to help them manage their business. Tata Communications will host this service at its world-class, internationally certified data centres that will provide end-to-end solutions to customers including software, hosting infrastructure, and network connectivity.
“The market for on-demand CRM in India is over Rs150 crore ($32 million) in 2009 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 50-60 per cent for the next few years. With our world-class infrastructure and leadership in emerging markets, Tata Communications is uniquely positioned to serve this need,” said, Alok Bardiya, vice president, industry verticals and new initiatives, Tata Communications.
Under the SaaS model, customers pay as per their usage instead of investing, owning and managing the complete infrastructure themselves. It has been very popular with businesses that don’t need to or do not prefer to invest in high-cost infrastructure and hence can deploy their capital in their core business activities.
This hosted CRM service includes features that improve sales force automation, marketing automation, customer support and reporting processes. Tata Communications is a leading provider of India-centric and global network services to business and offers security, collaboration, data solutions and voice solutions to enhance reach and productivity of Indian businesses.
“Our broad market reach and managed services expertise makes Tata Communications the perfect match for the Indian market when combined with the best-in-class CRM capabilities of SugarCRM. Our partnership will enable us to offer a high-quality CRM solution to Indian businesses at an affordable price,” said Sunil Joshi, president (enterprise business), Tata Communications.
“We are thrilled to be working with Tata Communications and look forward to working with such an esteemed firm to serve the Indian market,” said Jeff Campbell, vice president of channel sales at SugarCRM.
