Ordering a customer tracker is not the same as ordering custom software. If the need is to keep the person, the conversation and the opportunity in one place, a bought CRM is enough for most companies. If the need is a step the CRM will not keep — the quote calculation, the technician’s job, the dealer’s share — that step is a conversation about a small screen. Writing both from scratch produces a second CRM.
When the bought CRM is enough
If sales asks whom they called, what was said, and whether the opportunity is open or closed, the product holds that. The licence, the training and the required fields you name are enough. Insisting on custom software in that case opens a copy whose maintenance you will pay for.
When a small screen is the step
If the step runs every week in a sheet or a mailbox, and the CRM has no field for it, the screen turns that step into a record. The customer card stays in the CRM. The screen does not open a new card. What is written back is one status or one amount. A full synchronisation is not the job of the first release.
Who makes the decision
The decision is the name of the step the product will not keep, not the sentence “let us have a program built”. If there is no name, discovery is not written. HED Creative does not sell the screen in Berlin or Ankara when a bought product already holds the step. Code enters the company’s repository only if the screen is opened.
Two systems side by side
Sales opens the CRM. Operations opens the side record. Even if they are the same person, the two jobs are not swollen into one form. A shared password erases which one is home. Home is the CRM. The screen is the side record.
To start, the name of the tool you use today, the file of the step it will not keep, and the role that does that step are enough. If there is no file, last week’s email is enough.
Separate the decision in the web app development conversation. The step a CRM will not keep: screen beside the CRM.