D-Tools, Inc.

We have recently been writing about our company’s experience with CRM systems, both bad and good. We are in a great place right now with our current Zoho implementation, and we finally have right tool to help us manage and facilitate the sales and marketing process that we as an organization have identified as right for us. The combination of having the right process and the right toolset to implement it has been the catalyst for positive change within our organization.

As a software company, we provide a solution that helps our customers streamline their fundimental business processes (Sell the Job, Design the Job, Deliver the Job). Our specific features and benefits are targeted to residential and commercial AV, Networking, and Security integrators. Our software is a deep, complex platform that requires a commitment from the purchasing company to adapt to and in many cases make changes to their current way of conducting their day to day operations in order to fully benefit from the software and acheive ROI. As many of Adam’s recent blog posts have pointed out, we have struggled when trying to apply the same dynamics to the right CRM tools for our particular business.

When I first got to D-Tools we were on the NetSuite platform. As Adam has pointed out in previous posts the feature set was quite robust and there were a lot of features that from a Marketing perspective were adequate. I could create web-to-lead forms to capture new leads, I could create specific targeted lists for email marketing, and I could create email campaigns from within the system. For the most part I made use of the system and we had good visibility into our sales numbers. I was learning both our CRM system and the process we had in place as an organization, and as long as I stayed within the established lines, we were generally OK.

We started to run into issues when we identified that we wanted to be more proactive in tracking our sales activities and really start to drill down to helping our sales team develop a better process for building pipeline and tracking activity. Because we wanted to make a shift in regards to how our team went about thier daily activities, we had to take a fresh look at the platform we were using to be sure that it could meet our needs should we make these process changes.

By that time we were already looking at getting away from NetSuite so we looked at putting the right process in place with whatever CRM system we were going to utilize next, which happened to be Oasis. We began the the internal process of making some fundimental changes in our communications and sales approach, how we were going to handle day-to-day activities, and what type of reporting was needed to help facilitate the process we were going to implement. When we got the new system online there were some major holes in areas that we knew needed to be addressed or we wouldn’t be able to acheive our objectives. I don’t need to go into any details about that implementation as that has been covered in previous posts.

What we learned through both of our previous implementations was that the process that we wanted to implement required the right toolset for us to be able to be successful - and that ultimately once we found the right system that both supported the way we wanted to work as well as allow us to make changes to better adapt to our particular style, we would see improvement in many areas - which turned out to be the case once we implemented Zoho. Not only did we have an internally agreed upon methodology for approaching our business, we now had the tool that compliments and supports the process.

One of the keys for success for many companies is the ability to quickly adapt to change - both internally and changes driven by market forces. Visibility into our day-to-day business and for my team especially, the ability to dive deep and communicate to specifc segments of our customer base is essential to our business. Our sales team has developed very good relationships with our customers as our industry is one that is still driven by personal relationships. We now have a CRM system in place that helps our team stay in touch with our customers and gives them the ability to quickly and easily reach out and schedule appointments for upcoming shows, inform our best customers on breaking news and timely offers, and most importantly helps my team make the most of their time everyday.

As a marketer, I can now make sure that my messages are timely and most importantly relevent to my constituents without having to make the system perform unnatural acts to determine who we would like to communicate with. As a sales manager, I now have visibility into the deals my team is working on, what our numbers may be for a particular month or quarter, and as an executive team we have the information we need to make better decisions. We are contiuning to adjust and adapt our process to make the most of both our team’s skillset and the advantages that our CRM system can deliver - but it is the marriage of a well thought-out process and the toolset to deliver on it that makes it the winning combination - which is the basis for our business and now the reality for our internal processes.

- Tim Bigoness

I have had a couple of clients run into this issue, so I decided to write up a blog about it. As many of us aware, our development team is focusing on the next version of SI and so there are no updates scheduled for SI5. Which is why we want to make our users aware of all the workarounds they may need.

The issue in which I am referring to is not necessarily a bug, but more an unfortunate side effect. Due to some problems with SI4 shapes, we decided to completely recreate all the shapes for SI5 and with that, some of the properties were changed causing this issue. When you have a schematic drawing in SI4 and decide to show only the connection points and then import it into SI5 it gets thrown out of whack.

Adjusting to show only connection points

The result of showing only connection points

When you import it to SI5, it expands and leaves the wires connected to the bottom of the shape, no matter what I/O it is. You also lose the ability to condense it.

The result in SI5

The only workarounds are to either re-drop the shape with the SI5 schematic shape, re-connect all the wires, or prior to importing expand the shape to show all the connection points. When you import into SI5 the shapes remain the original SI4 shapes and thus lose the ability to collapse and only show the connection points, if you would like this ability you will have to re-drop the shape with the SI5 version. While these workarounds seem less than perfect, it is the only way. Hopefully in future releases this will be resolved. We do apologize for any inconvenience.

Michael Pothier

Technical Support Representative

Atlanta Office

Introduction here

As far as I know Sheet View is exclusive to ZOHO CRM. A common task (chore) in the management of any CRM system is editing large swaths of data at once. Some systems like Oasis CRM only give you a really crappy (trust me) mass update function. Other systems like Salesforce make you export to Excel to update a bunch of records and then re-import. (not fun)

ZOHO has a great mass update function that works as expected but sometimes you want to be able to change selected records as a group. For example changing just certain records to a new sales territory without changing all of them at once. You want to be able to get a view of all the possibles, sort as needed and then make the changes as needed. Common problem in the CRM admin world and until now I have not seen a good solution until I started working with the ZOHO CRM Sheet View.

Check it out. In this case I want to add a Sub-Territory to the main Territory. All I have to do is create a custom list view of the information. Press the ZOHO Sheet View link and I get an instant ZOHO Spreadsheet of the exact data presented in a new browser tab.

Once I am in the ZOHO Sheet View I can use any normal spreadsheet functions to copy, add cells change case, whatever I want can be done in the spreadsheet and when I hit save the records are automatically updated in the CRM system.

Very well implemented feature, totally useful, easy to use and HUGE time saver.

You can either modify shapes directly in the stencil they already exist in or you can create a new stencil. Either way, always copy and paste the existing shape you wish to modify in case you mess up. In this example I will create both the input and output units for the Niles ES1 for use on a plan page type in Visio based off an existing SI 5 plate shape.

1. Launch an SI 5 Visio project file and select File->Shapes->New Stencil (US Units). The stencil will display in the Shapes Window.

2. In the Stencil Tree right-click the Plates stencil and select “Display Docked Stencil”. The stencil will display in the Shapes window.
3. Right click the Stencil header in the shapes window and select “Edit Stencil”.

4. Copy the Media Plate shape from the Plates stencil and paste into the stencil created in Step 1.
5. Rename the Shape to “ES1 Input Plate”

6. Double-click the shape to open it.

7. Click on the shape to select it (a dotted green border surrounds the shape when selected) and then select Window->Show ShapeSheet.

8. In the ShapeSheet, remove the text “Wall Plate” text from the Prop.Type line Value column in the Custom Properties section so that only double quotes are in the field

9. Next change the value of the LockGroup field in the Protection section from “1” to “0” then close the ShapeSheet window.

10. With the shape still selected (dotted green border), select Edit->Open Multi Media Wallplate

11. Make any changes to the shape that want. I deleted the existing connector shapes and then drew some new shapes using the Drawing Toolbar. I used Visio functions like Format->Fill and Format->Line

12. Close and save the shape windows.
13. Within the stencil, copy and paste the shape you just modified and rename to “ES1 Output Plate” and then modify as desired.
14. Right-click the stencil and select Properties:

15. Type an appropriate name in the Title field and then close the Properties form

16. Click the Save button in the docked stencil title bar and name and save the file to the following folder: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\D-Tools\SI5\Visualizations\Stencils folder (Vista path is C:\ProgramData\D-Tools\SI5\ Visualizations\Stencils).

17. The stencil you created will display in the Stencil Tree once you click the refresh button

When you drag the shapes to a drawing page you will be prompted to pick a product from your database to add to the Project DataMatrix (PDM).

Make sure you make backups of any stencil that you create in case you ever uninstall and re-install SI 5. In order to share with other SI 5 users, they will need to copy the stencil you created into their : C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\D-Tools\SI5\Visualizations\Stencils folder on their machine (Vista path is C:\ProgramData\D-Tools\SI5\ Visualizations\Stencils).

Note: If you can’t find the folder referenced above, that is because some of the folders are hidden. To change the settings on your machine to show hidden folders, open My Computer and then select Tools->Folder Options. Click the View tab and check the “Show hidden files…” radio button. While you are here, you may want to uncheck the “Hide extensions for…” option.

-Seth Enos

I mentioned how we found, well more stumbled upon ZOHO CRM in this post.  At the time it seemed too cheap to be considered.  How can anything that costs so much less than the competition be considered a quality product?

I was wrong.  Speaking as a professional with 10 + years direct experience in the software industry I can honestly say that ZOHO CRM is some of the best Web 2.0/Cloud Based/SaaS/AJAX/whatever you want to call it software that I have ever used.

I am somewhat of a student of software development as it is preached by my personal software guru, Joel Spolsky.  I think I have read every word he has written at least twice.  I tell anyone who is considering the software business to read Joel and always ask the question “what would Joel do?” before making any important development decisions.

One of his most clever ways of finding out how well a software company can function is the Joel Test, 12 Steps to Better Code.  When D-Tools first started we were about 0 for 12.  Over the years we improved our score to about 2 for 12 and in the last four years I have everything in my power to get us to 11 out of 12.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that most companies large and small run about the 5 out of 12.

My point is that the ZOHO development team must have started at 12 for 12 and then proceed to blow the Joel Test out of the water.  The entire app is so clean and well thought out that it looks like it came from the mind of a single developer (impossible) or from an extremely talented and well coordinated team that work in perfect synchronization.  Have you ever seen how bees construct their hive on the Discovery Channel?  I think that is how these guys build software.  It must be (bee) in their DNA.

I have been working with CRM systems in one form or another since the mid 80’s, read this for some background and have implemented ACT, NetSuite, Oasis and ZOHO for D-Tools as well as SalesForce for a non-profit.  I am kind of jaded about CRM in general and I am happy when things just work as promised, not always the case, see related post on Oasis CRM and anything I have to say about NetSuite.

When I implemented ZOHO CRM a few months ago for D-Tools I was actually shocked at the functionality I found as I was going through the process.  More than one time I would invite a co-worker into my office to show them a function I implemented in half an hour that was either impossible in any of the previous systems or so hard to use that it may as well have been.

The following posts over the next few weeks will be some the things that impressed me and work well in ZOHO CRM.

I mentioned in the first part of this article how NetSuite has no out of the box relational data export functionality and the relational export “option” costs around $4,000.00.  I have quotes around the word option because other CRM vendors I have direct experience with do not consider this an option and is either free or in the case of ZOHO costs $10.00.

Maybe someone with admin experience with other hosted CRM vendors can comment on what the pricing is for a full, relational export of your data in their system is.  Also maybe someone can comment on the NetSuite process.  I am not sure but I believe the $4K gets you ODBC access only .  I believe that some programmer still has to create scripts to get the data out in a relational format.  If that is true how much time/cost is involved?

When we were trying to move away from NetSuite getting our data out was HUGE problem for us so I thought I should explain why this is important for anyone considering any type of SaaS where your data is hosted on someone else’s server.

The first thing you need to consider is that if you can not get your data out in a useful format for a reasonable price then you really do not own your company any more, your SaaS vendor does.  In the case of NetSuite if you want to leave you will have to pay a minimum of a $4,000 as an exit fee.  Also they know this, so when it comes time to negotiate a renewal do not expect a lot of flexibility on their part.

Another thing to consider is that your data backup plan is now 100% tied to your SaaS vendor.  If they go down for any reason you are left with nothing to rebuild from.  According to this article in Information Week titled SaaS Vendor NetSuite Has No Separate Backup Center For Customer Data, well, I think the title of the article says it all, please read for the details.

So I think we know what to avoid in a SaaS data backup/export process, what does the process look like with some other CRM vendors?  Refer to part one for the initial findings.  The rest of this post will go through the ZOHO CRM process of getting your data out of their system.

To get to the data export function in ZOHO CRM just got to Setup >> Data Administration Tools >> Export All Data.  You get to the data backup request form below.

You fill out the form, pay the $10.00.  The first thing you get is an email with a link and a long password.  Once you are verified you get another email with two separate links.  One for your data in CSV format and one for any file attachments. I like the dual security features of this process.  One, you have to be verified and two, you can only download the backup files when you are logged into the account.

So what do you get for your ten bucks?  Well, in a word, everything. The Data zip file contains all of the tables of information in your CRM database clearly labeled with relational ID’s and all of the custom fields that we added are included.

I am not going to bore you or stretch my technical knowledge of relational databases but in order for the data to be useful each record in each table needs an ID number that relates that information to other tables.  For example Contacts would be related to an Account by the Account ID.  If the data comes out of the system with no relation ID’s it is essentially useless.

I asked our CTO, Corey Krehel how much effort it would be to get this CSV information into a relational database and he said as long as their are ID’s it is almost an automatic import process.  Point and click and you have a working backup of your data.  I feel better already.  You can not believe how much time and money we spent just getting to this process when we were trying to leave NetSuite.

The attachments zip file has all of the files attachments in separate zip files that are related to the specific record they are attached to.  Not much to explain here, it just works.

It is nice to see such a well thought out process in ZOHO CRM.  To my professional eye it looks as if the data back-up/export feature was planned and architected right from the start.  I think that says a lot about ZOHO and the type of company they are.  Conversely I think the fact that the total lack of any out of the box data/export functionality in NetSuite says a lot about them.

In the previous post I tried to just stick with just the facts as to why we left NetSuite.  I read it a number of times and others here familiar with the story agreed that it was clear and factual.  However I heard from our (ex) NetSuite reseller Ray Tetlow of Skyytek and he had a different version of the events that transpired.  I told him numerous times that he was free to post any comments on the D-Tools blog or create his own blog.  He declined because he was going to “take the moral high ground”.  I am not sure what that means in this case.

So I decided to revisit the issue to make sure I covered everything as accurately as possible and did not try and spin this any one way or the other.

We did not leave NetSuite because the software sucked.  The software sucked hard back in the version 7,8  and 9 days but the current version we were on was OK.  I am not aware of any other single vendor software company that can recreate the NetSuite lead to cash process.  Maybe the individual parts are not as good as the competition but having everything integrated into one system has a lot of value.  Based on my extensive research to try and recreate NetSuite functionality in a product like Salesforce.com was going to take four separate vendors.  You can read about it here.

We did not leave NetSuite because of the price.  Yea, it is expensive, the price always goes up, the product levels, packages and options constantly change, extra emails cost 4 cents each and they brutally shifted their focus from an online QuickBooks competitor to the small end of SMB to SAP competitor during our time with them.  So yea, if you are going to compete with SAP your price structure is going to look similar but remember we bought into this when it was Oracle SMALL BUSINESS not SAP lite.

Also we are not stupid here.  Switching costs are huge with any platform change, especially so with a platform like NS that does not give you easy access to all of your data.  See related post on who owns your data.  We knew it was going to be very expensive to switch.  Just the hard costs of the new software platform and data conversion costs were close to $80K.  I figure the total hard and soft costs of the switch were around $200K.

The reason we left NetSuite was their business practices.  I do not think I can explain it any clearer than here. We had a dispute over what contingent means and as a negotiating tactic they threaten to cancel our paid in full account that was not set to expire for five months.  That is like negotiating with the mafia while they have your head in vise.  Who wants to do business with a company like that?  I was actively securing financing for this deal with our bank when we got the first collection letter nine days after the estimate.

The only thing I can add to that story is that Ray Tetlow, the founder of Skyytek claims he had nothing to do with the NetSuite business and collection practices and it was out of his hands.  I do not know what the truth is in this matter.  What I do know is that in a face to face conversation with another NetSuite reseller in the fall and I was told that the reseller controls the deal.

So now I am curious, I assumed that Ray Tetlow was telling the truth but why would another reseller make any kind of contrary statement?  I am hoping that someone with more clout than me can get to the bottom of this.  If Ray Tetlow had nothing to do with the mafia like negotiating and collection tactics then that makes NetSuite the worst customer service company in the world.  Is there anyone from NetSuite that would like to make a public comment on their collection processes and reseller agreements?  Maybe someone from the press could ask these hard questions.

I wonder who owns your data if you can not get access to it?  One thing I learned from this experience is that he who owns the data or access to the data owns your ass.

The first big problem I had with NetSuite was their business practices.  Once that was resolved we had a huge problem getting access to our data.  We hired an “expert” who said he had NetSuite experience and he was not able to get a full extract of our data in one shot after six (+ -)months.

As I was doing the research for this post I decided that before I condemn NetSuite for their data access and backup policies I should see what some of the other CRM vendors do for data backup.  I currently have full admin access to Salesforce.com, NetSuite and ZOHO CRM.

SalesForce.com gives you a weekly export function, it is free.  I just did an export on the account that I manage and it is indeed a FULL export.  Each record has a relational ID as well as the attachments.  A moderately talented database developer could easily make sense of this information.  More information on the Salesforce.com export functionality can be found here in their online help.

The ZOHO CRM Export All Data option costs $10.00.  It is a full relational export including attachments and transactions.   Again, just about any craigslist database guy could figure it out.  More information can be found here on the ZOHO CRM Export

NetSuite gives you a “Full CSV Export”.  This is pretty much useless as it contains no relational data and is basically a collection of your reports in a csv format.  I have not verified this but according to Ray Tetlow of Skyytek the relational option for NS is $4,000.00 and you may have to purchase the ODBC option as well.  I just tried to do a Full CSV Export three times now on our current NetSuite account and it threw an error once and then it quit at the part where I need had to download the file.  Like I said useless.

I tried to lookup “data export”, “data backup”, “export all data” in the NetSuite online help system and received zero (0) relevant results.  In fact the only information I could find was under a search called “full csv export“.  And it contains this somewhat humorous and ironic subtitle.  “The Full CSV Export option in NetSuite does not currently export ALL data as CSV files. The name of this option will soon be changed to CSV Export. “ Here is a screen shot for the naysayers out there.  As far as I can tell NetSuite wants to hold on to ALL of YOUR data while the others give your free or cheap instant access to ALL of YOUR data.  Also NetSuite seems to have a problem with understanding what the word “full” means.

Based on the fact that NetSuite gives you no out of the box relational export and they make it extremely hard to get your data out of the system through other means according to this voice mail from Kaylon Brown, President of Silicon Digital Systems Inc.   A reasonable person could conclude that NetSuite uses these “features” as sales tactics to lock the user in to their system.  The other online CRM vendors I have direct experience with seem to have a much more reasonable approach to “your” data.

If you are considering purchasing NetSuite I would recommend that you make sure your contract includes FULL, relational backups of ALL of YOUR data at any time for a fee comparable with other CRM vendors.

Part two here.

You can read about the first part of this story here.  This post will take over from the point we realized that NetSuite and our reseller/solution provider were not the type of organizations we wanted to continue working with.

I met our solution provider, Ray Tetlow, the founder of Skyytek on the Oracle Small Business (OSB from now on) user forum.  At the time we were struggling with version 7 of OSB.  It was really incomplete and badly tested software.  Not only was it painfully slow but a lot of the features that we made our purchasing decision on just did not work.

However to be fair to OSB we had a crappy QuickBooks conversion, (which OSB not Skyytek did for us) and we were trying to customize the software to meet our messed up business processes before we had it implemented.  Honestly we thought we were smarter than we really were and could do it on our own.

That is where Ray Tetlow entered the picture.  Personable dude, professional, good salesperson.  I liked him immediately.  He took a look at what we were doing, commiserated with me on the sad state of OSB affairs and told me first thing I had to do was STOP trying to match the application to our messed up business processes.  OSB has a decent workflow, learn and embrace that and then make changes if needed.  You might learn something about how your business actually works as opposed to how you think it works.  He was right, same thing I tell my customers now.

We engaged Skyytek and in about 45 days we had a decent implementation of OSB.  It was not perfect by any means but at least the bleeding had stopped and “everything will be fixed in version 8″.  I have two funny OSB sayings from those days.  One was “Working with OSB is like having someone pounding on your big toe with a framing hammer.  You are just happy when they stop.”  And my favorite; Working with OSB is like being married to an underwear model who does not like sex.  It has its advantages but can be very frustrating.”

I could go on and on about all the OSB product related crap but Ray kept us in line and when it became time to renew we switched from a direct OSB account to a Skyytek account.  I met Ray a couple of times at various events, we hung out and I considered him sort of a friend.  I was a reference account for Skyytek and NetLeger as it was now called (NL from now on) on a number of deals.

About 6 months before the end of our current NetSuite licenses were to expire we started to negotiate a new three year deal with Ray.  The way NetSuite as it was now called (NS from now on) parsed out the bits and pieces the software that we were used to using was now going to cost three times as much because now we needed the super premium tier or something like that.  In any case the price for 26 seats with all discounts was $125,290.44.  WAY more than our previous expense for the system but we were on a roll and did not want to mess around with our business process with a switch to a new system.

We agreed to the estimate contingent on our ability to lease the software.  In fact the estimate names the leasing company as the Bill to.  We were approved for the lease with the requirement that I personally sign for the lease.  That was not acceptable to me so I told my friend Ray that we would need some more time to find our own lease as we did not have 125K in cash at the moment.  That is when the pressure started.   Below is the actual Skyytek estimate header.  Notice the Bill To and the date of the email?

The first thing that happened was that our reseller called and said if we did not close this deal “today” or something like that then we would lose all of our discounts.  I was pressured to take the lease terms as they were.  I said we could get our own financing, just give us a week. A week later we ran out of emails through the NS system, we get something like 60,000 per year.  We contacted our NS reseller and received an estimate back for an additional 60,000 emails for $2,388.00.  That works out to almost 4 cents an email.  I am not sure how much it costs to send an email but at 4 cents per that has to be the most profitable business in the world.

It became obvious that we were dealing with a bunch of greedy @#$holes.  This also goes to show you what lock in will do to your pricing structure.  You take ethics and customer service out of the picture and they can they can charge anything they want.  Below is a picture of the estimate for the emails.

Then the real pressure started.  On 11/9/2006  I received an email stating that if our account was not brought current they would lock us out of our account AND send us to collections.  Keep in mind that the balance due was the estimate for the lease, no invoice had been issued or order placed AND we still had 5 months on our current license that was PAID IN FULL.  They actually used locking us out of our paid system as a negotiating tactic.  Also keep in mind that locking us out would have put my 40 person software company out of business.

Look at the date of the email below, November 9th.  The date of the contingent estimate was October 31st.  Although I cannot prove anything, to me this looks like a well thought out strategy between Skyytek and NetSuite.  What kind of company starts this type of aggressive collection process on a long time customer/reference account with a PAID IN FULL account after 9 days?

We received a bunch of final payment notices threatening to cut off our service and this issue was not resolved until we started contacting the NetSuite CEO on this matter.  They finally canceled the “order” on Jan 29, 2007.  As they were prepping for an IPO it makes sense that to keep in on the books for the previous year.  I wonder how many other estimates they had on the books in 2006 that they called orders?

During all this drama we decided to switch to another accounting/CRM/SFA system.  We contracted with Silicon Digital Systems to move our data from NS to this new system.  Data migration is always a complex process and SDI has a system where they write scripts that pulls the data from one system into their database and then ports over to the new system.  They do it this way so we can check and test the system and then do a final data pull once everything looks good.  I think it cost around 35K for this service.

SDI seemed to have enough experience and I thought this would go somewhat smoothly.  NOT.  According to NS you own the data but they own the access to it.  Since your data is shared with many other companies you do not get direct access to the database you have to go through their web service interface.  Apparently this changes all the time so a script that works one day may not work another.

It was taking so long we had to renew our agreement that was to expire in March 07 for another 6 months.  Sometime around August it was clear that SDI was not going to be able to perform on their contract to convert our data and it would end up in court.  After numerous threats the President of SDI left this somewhat frantic voice mail explaining that NS was deliberately blocking access to our data as a punitive action for us trying to leave the system.

Pretty bold statement but I would not be surprised if it was true.

Once again I wrote to the NS CEO and explained that I don’t know what the truth is but this is going to end up in court and it would be best for all parties if we could just get our data and move on.  He denied everything but somehow we had clear access to our data the next day or so and SDI could do their job.  I think we got a full extraction the first of September.

Anyway that is the long, sad story.  I have all the supporting emails and documentation for any skeptics out there.  In any case I will never work with another SaaS vendor that does not guarantee to give us a full copy of ALL our data in a real relational database at any time .  With the NS UI all you can get is customer information in a csv file.  You have NO access to any relational or transactional data.  If you want that you have to use their web service interface and then at their speed or connection quality. Once you get on NS it is almost impossible to leave.  They own your ass and they know it.

So this is what we learned

1. If you are going to go the SaaS route make sure you have full relational export access to your data including all transactions and attachments.  This should be a menu option, not something a programmer has to write a script for.
2. Find out the pricing of all the options up front and get a fixed price for all options as long as you are a customer.  If you don’t you will end up paying 4 cents an email and thousands for extra storage.
3. Actually negotiating price is with a company like NS is pointless.  There are stories out there of companies getting a 75% discount on the first year, spending a lot of time and money to implement and then when they can’t easily switch the “new” pricing comes out at x00% of the old pricing.
4. When you negotiate a renewal with an SaaS vendor keep in mind that they have you over a barrel and they know it.  Expect to pay somewhere close to list price for renewals.  Factor that in the overall cost.
5. Not all SaaS is the same.  SaaS stands for software as a service, like your cable company.  Some vendors charge you a monthly fee based on the number of users that month.  If it does not work out you can easily leave.  Other vendors like NS charge you for the full contract up front; it is not really a service at that point.
6. Watch out for the big fees up front for the “first seat “and complex pricing models.  NS has a very complicated model where you buy the first seat for some large fee and then the rest of the seats are sort of reasonable prices.  Both Salesforce and ZOHO CRM have a much simpler pricing model.

I have heard many anecdotal stories about the NS product, executive team and business practices but just wanted to present the facts in this case.  That is why I included the emails and estimates.  Please contact me if anything needs clarification or correction.  adam(at)d-tools.com

For more information on NetSuite and their sales and management tactics see NetSuite Consumer Fraud and NetSuite Nightmares.  Same story, different people.

Part 2 of Why we left NetSuite here.

I did not want to make the same mistake twice.  We looked in depth at all the viable CRM apps currently available.  At one point I realized that we should have just bitten the bullet and stayed with NetSuite.  The $200K we lost with Oasis CRM would have covered us for five years with NetSuite.  I am fond of saying the two biggest mistakes I have made in business were going with NetSuite and leaving NetSuite.  Kind of like buying a boat I guess.

The short list was narrowed down to Microsoft CRM, Salesforce.com, Entellium CRM and ZOHO CRM.

I looked at MS CRM a year ago and I could not get my head around it.  It needed a lot of hardware and middleware and it really looked like more of a CRM platform than a CRM solution.  Everything had to be customized to get any functionality out of it.  We took another look at it this year and pretty much all agreed that it still was not right for our business.

I implemented Salesforce for a non-profit that I volunteer for.  In general very good software but in order to get the full solution we were going to have to integrate with three other vendors for campaign integration, accounting integration and proposals.  Not only was that getting very expensive it was going to be a very tippy boat trying to get all that implemented.  As a straight CRM app it really stands at the top of the heap

Entellium seemed to be a solid middle ground product.  The UI looked kind of weird but seemed to be very functional and they had some sort of early beta of a QuickBooks interface.  It also seemed to be fairly priced for the functionality.

I first looked at ZOHO CRM to use for the non-profit I work with because of the price.  At the time $12 per user/month after the third user.  About two weeks into the ZOHO CRM implementation for the non-profit was approved for a free, one year 10 seat Enterprise Salesforce account that we had applied for a month ago.  I abandoned ZOHO CRM because we were just handed 11K worth of enterprise class software from the industry’s leading vendor.  ZOHO CRM was too cheap to be any good anyway.

As I was implementing Salesforce for the non-profit I realized that it was very similar to ZOHO CRM.  At one point I started implementing a feature in Salesforce and then I would try and implement the same feature in ZOHO CRM.  ZOHO CRM matched Salesforce feature for feature but for the most part the ZOHO implementation was easier and cleaner.

I will post a more in-depth comparison between all of the platforms but to the end the history lesson we decided to implement ZOHO CRM for D-Tools and I just abandoned the free Salesforce account for the non-profit and re-implimented ZOHO CRM for them.