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Contents 
Introduction
ACCPAC
Act!
Coordimax
GoldMine
Legrand
Maximizer
Specifications
How we tested
Editor's choice
About RMIT |
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For the purposes of this review we are mainly concerned with contact management rather than full CRM functionality; however we will try to comment on higher functions where they occur. Basically we consider the user friendliness of the product, import and export options and breadth of features. Also, we will note if there are improvements to features criticised in the previous review of this product type. This is a review more than a test as such.
Sample scenario
This company's sales staff maintain all their contacts on Excel spreadsheets, and customers are complaining that they get contacted by multiple sales people for different products. The company wants to centralise its contacts into a database that all the sales staff can access.
Approximate budget: Open.
Requires: Contact management software suitable for 50 sales staff.
Concerns: The contacts database needs to be located on a central server so that there's one version of the truth. Staff should be able to synchronise their databases easily over a network or over a VPN while outside the office. Staff and management should be able to track each customer's contact history to better coordinate sales activities across the whole organisation.
Final words
If you want a good contact management product then Act! and GoldMine are both reasonable choices. Act! relies on it's own proprietary database which has the potential to reduce your integration flexibility and GoldMine relies on third party support contracts.
ACCPAC is a Web-based application -- useful if your staff are highly mobile. Legrand has most bases covered with their easy-to- use CRM being highly configurable without much trouble, and Maximizer has many of the same advantages as Legrand, but is more for larger companies.
Finally, Coordimax seems to have an edge through extreme flexibility, and excellent vendor support.
What about SugarCRM?
SugarCRM is one of the fastest growing CRM/Contact Management systems in the world, and competes directly with many of those systems listed.
SugarCRM's commercial open-source model clearly differentiates it from the competitors by providing full access to all source-code allowing the system to be easily tailored to suit each customers needs, making it a powerful alternative to an otherwise proprietary and inflexible systems included in the review.
SugarCRM is commercially supported in Australia by Insightful Solutions, and backed internationally by SugarCRM in the US.