Here at 1CRM we make what the Gartner Group calls an all-in-one CRM. On the face of it, if you are in the market for a CRM, it sounds like an all-in-one CRM might be a good idea. After all, why would I want to buy a solution that had less-in-one? And perhaps forced me to get additional tools at extra cost, to meet the overall business need.

While there is some truth in that, each organization has different needs, and when looking at the relevance of an all-in-one CRM to your business the first step is to understand what people mean when they say all-in-one CRM. So – we scoured the ‘net to get some consensus.

Over at Infusionsoft, their definition is that it means a system that includes Marketing Automation, and Sales Management, with integrations and reporting/dashboards. While that is perhaps a good start, we note that these functions are all focussed on the Sales and Marketing departments.

Meanwhile at Hubspot we see their sense of what is included in an all-in-one CRM. They define it as a system to empower your sales, support, and marketing teams to provide a seamless customer experience. If we go with this view we see that an all-in-one CRM should support the Sales, Marketing and Service departments. SugarCRM also approaches all-in-one CRMs this way, as does salesforce.

At Work[etc] we see a more encompassing definition for an all-in-one CRM – “a complete business management platform with CRM, projects, billing and more all tied together in one simple program. This means one place for everything from staff and customers to budgeting and billing.” So in terms of the departments within an organization, we now add the Professional Services department, which delivers and manages client projects.

Within this definition we should also add general administrative staff to those departments covered by an all-in-one CRM. While many CRMs have the ability to generate Quotes, and maintain a product catalog, only a handful also offer full order management including Sales Orders, Invoices, and recording received payments and tracking accounts receivable balances. (At this point, integration with accounting systems becomes important!)

Bitrix24 also lines up with this broader definition of an all-in-one CRM, as do SuiteCRM, vTiger, Zoho One and Microsoft Dynamics. And it is this comprehensive version that 1CRM subscribes to as well – 1CRM includes:

• Sales Management, Reporting and Dashboards
• Marketing Campaigns
• Full Order Management
• Project Management
• Service Management

We like to refer to this broader version of an all-in-one CRM as being Sales & Marketing plus OPS – where OPS refers to Order Management, Project Management and Service Management. Or just SMOPS for short.

So the next time you see a product described as an all-in-one CRM, you’ll know to check whether it just covers Sales & Marketing, or Sales, Service & Marketing, or Sales, Service & Marketing plus Order Management and Project Management. And based on the needs of your organization, you’ll be better able to filter out the products that don’t cover all your requirements.

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