There have been many successful open source solutions which we have come across in the last few years. However very rarely we find any of them as successful as SugarCRM. It is therefore natural to ask what the factor behind this success is. We will leave this topic for another article but right now lets judge the popularity levels of the application using certain key metrics.
Secret behind SugarCRM’s growing popularity
SugarCRM has been one of the most rapidly growing customer relationship management solutions of the recent times. This info-graphics looks at the journey of SugarCRM over the years and brings out the key milestones in its journey towards success.
The Top Reasons for SugarCRM’s popularity
The following are the reasons why we think SugarCRM has gained popularity over the period. They are listed below in the order of importance. However we don’t claim the the list to be complete and exhaustive.
# 1 Simple Interface
The solution comes with a clean and really nice interface which shows the related information in sub-panels. This helps the end users to find out the related information quickly and with ease. Any one who has basic knowledge of surfing the web can be a potential user of SugarCRM. Simple interface has been a key to many other applications like WhatsApp, Facebook etc.
# 2 Open Source Version
The solution comes with an open source version called community edition for all the users who want to give it download it for free and give a try to check how it works. Many companies are using community edition for production use as well. A few of them migrated to the paid version after understanding the merit of the solution.
# 3 Flexibility
The solution comes with all sorts of flexibility. Be it in terms of extending the solution with custom modules or making custom fields, having it hosted on premise or in the cloud, or the operating systems ( Linux or Windows).
# 4 No Hidden Charges
Other applications have some hidden components based on usage or customization. SugarCRM comes clean on this. There are simply no hidden charges at all.
# 5 Vibrant Community
SugarCRM’s ecosystem is present in almost all countries across the world. The partners, developers and customers are free to communicate using the community portal. There are many plug-ins available for download and to be used on SugarExchange.
Conclusion
The application has found decent momentum in all corners of the world and primary reason for this has been its affordability, ease and flexibility. SugarCRM has also been increasingly used for making revenue generating solution platform. Due to the above factors many customers have migrated from other proprietary applications to maximize their returns. Ease of customization and integration has helped companies adopt SugarCRM in their current landscape.