How do you choose the right CRM for a small business?

The problem

This business had outgrown its spreadsheets and needed one trusted source for customers and leads. A build-versus-buy decision was on the table, but for a small team the cost of building a CRM from scratch, or even standing up an open-source one, could not be justified. Time-to-value mattered: they needed something working soon that would scale as their scope of work grew.

What we did

We weighed build versus buy against cost, time-to-value and how far the platform needed to scale, then chose and configured a CRM that fit a small team without a heavy upfront investment. We shaped it around how they actually sell, rather than forcing their process into the tool. Then we layered in wider context, so it captures market signals alongside customer and lead records.

The result

They have a single, trusted source of customer and lead information that went live quickly and scales with the business. Because it also holds wider market context around supply and demand, the platform now informs strategy, not just day-to-day admin.

See it in practice elsewhere: automating a complex quoting process and automating weekly market insight. This is one application of our business process automation work; the usual starting point is to map your business first.