SugarCRM

I used the self-hosted community CRM for several years for my own music business. It has a ton of functionality that matches a lot of the basic features you find in Salesforce Classic. It's a great tool for keeping track of client data, deal tracking, etc. It's also nice to be able to self-host the platform as well as it's a lot more affordable than using a paid SaaS solution.

SugarCRM Community Edition looks pretty dated. If you don't have a lot of experience with the typical CRM data model concept, it can be hard to figure out how to use the system. The interface could be modernized to make it easier to navigate and find your way around. Another downside to being the Community Edition is that you need to know how to install and maintain the platform on your own server, but this is also a plus if you do have these skills.

The SugarCRM team was incredibly helpful and supportive during our decision between various CRMs we were testing out, namely Salesforce and SugarCRM. They were flexible, accommodating and had amazing customer service throughout the process, even willing to develop new APIs to integrate with our proprietary billing system 90% of our clients were on. I really enjoyed the visuals of Sugar - as all the bells and whistles were there, but it didn't seem overwhelming (as Salesforce can) and it's geared more towards marking service teams, like my division of the business. I also really find the dashboard visuals to be superior to Salesforce. Overall, the price point was better than Salesforce, too.

Since Sugar is geared towards marketing and sales teams, it wasn't a great fit for the other teams within our organization (i.e. one-time products like printing, etc.). Though workflows are cleaner and more intuitive than Salesforce, there wasn't quite as many bells and whistles (i.e. it was difficult to build in processes that involved external teams that we outsource to).

What I like most are the synergy effects of the use of the tool by our large sales teams spread over several locations (in Spain and abroad) and our various marketing teams. We combine all customer contact points in an extremely flexible way across all departments. This simplifies our internal communication and knowledge exchange among ourselves, as well as communication with customers. The interface can be used very intuitively for an extensive CRM system thanks to its focus on a single clear navigation bar. In addition, the tool can be linked very flexibly with other systems via APIs, such as SAP, various campaign management tools, and much more.

It isn't easy to become familiar with all the relevant interface features in a short time to take full advantage of these synergies. Here, you must explore using patience and occasionally, trial and error. However, you will certainly behave similarly to other enterprise-level CRM solutions.