eWay-CRM

Solution Providers 2020

CRM is a quite long-term strategy, when it comes to the field of communication, with the primary focus on customers. The main goal of CRM is to primarily focus on better understanding of the customer needs and identifying their specific needs. Taking this significance of CRM into consideration, eWay-CRM was incepted to provide the best in class CRM solutions.

In an interview with Insights Success, Jan Lalinsky the CEO and Co-founder & Roman Stefko, CTO and Cofounder share valuable insights which eventually paved the way of success for the organization.

Below are the highlights of the interview.

Kindly take us through a detailed overview of eWayCRM. We are a team of determined professionals from all around the world sitting in Prague and Kansas City.

We focus only on eWay-CRM, a CRM tool for Microsoft Outlook. For more than 10 years, we have been helping companies in managing their sales, projects and customers. Our strong focus gives us the opportunity to do one thing and do it well.

We have thousands of users from individuals to multinational corporations. We are not industry oriented and such a broad range of various kinds of clients helps us get the best from different areas and offer a flexible product. Our customers come from different parts of the world. Mainly from the United States and Canada, but also from European countries such as United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, etc. We have clients in Asia and Australia too, but we tend to keep our focus on the North American and European market.

This orientation forces us to work in different time zones in order to make sure that all customer requests are being properly handled.

Our product was originally created in our parent company MEMOS Software as a custom-made software for an international team of lawyers. They needed to keep their

32 | January 2020 When Effectiveness is the Key

matters under control and sort all communication history. As they work with Outlook, they insisted to keep the software as an Outlook addin. This is how eWay-CRM 1.0 was born. Soon, our parent company realized the potential of such a product and they turned it into a complex CRM software.

Could you throw some light on your mission and vision statement? ® eWay-CRM helps companies worldwide be truly effective. We have been determined in following this mission for more than 10 years.

® That is also why eWay-CRM is embedded straight into Microsoft Outlook. This way, we are able to transform the well-known Outlook environment into a full-featured CRM tool for managing clients, sales, and projects. Moreover, you can create professional bulk e-mails.

How do you diversify your company’s offerings to target the audience? Our product is integrated right within Microsoft Outlook. There are plenty of great web-based competitors, but we believe, that people need one great and effective tool. Since most companies use Microsoft Outlook, we decided to embed eWay-CRM right into it.

What innovative measures has eWay-CRM undertaken to stay ahead of its competition? We understand that every business is unique. Often, two CEOs of different companies from the same industry run their businesses differently. We believe that a software should adjust to company needs and not the opposite. This is why we made eWay-CRM extremely flexible.

With the level of customizations, we are able to compete biggest players at a reasonable price. We provide large database of tutorials and if customers don’t have time to set up eWay-CRM by themselves, we provide a team of highly experienced consultants who do it for them.

How is eWay-CRM upgrading itself with the volatile technological advancement in order to offer disruptive products or services?

eWay-CRM is an Outlook integrated CRM software that helps customers manage their customers, sales and projects.

Jan Lalinsky CEO & Co-founder

We focus on customers who want a CRM that works and not the most modern geeky gadget. If somebody wants a shiny nice-looking product, they go somewhere else. We are chosen by professionals who know what they want and look for, i.e. something that will help them keep their agenda under control. Therefore, we carefully consider what new features we implement and what technologies we use.

Roman Stefko CTO & Co-founder

At the same time, we listen to our customers, to their needs, and try to stay on top of new challenges. We understand these days sales reps and project managers work differently, they need to work from anywhere and from any device that is by hand. This is why eWay-CRM comes with mobile apps for Androids and iOS. Also, we are working hard on a web-based interface. We want to deliver a user friendly and accessible platform.

Being a leading CRM solution provider, what has been the company’s contribution in this ever-evolving sector? The market is full of single purpose web CRMs that are easy to use but can’t grow with you. eWay-CRM is different. eWay-CRM can grow with you. Since we have experience with individuals along with multinational corporations, we know what challenges a company faces when growing. We decided to make a product that is simple to use if you are a small business, yet complex when you need it. This is what makes us unique.

Describe the experiences, achievements or lessons learned that have shaped the journey of the company. The biggest lesson learned is that your time is limited, and we can’t meet everyone’s requirements. As a small start-up, we very often used to build customized features one or two customers could benefit from. We got the deal, but our developers got stuck with – let’s be honest – not that great features. As a result, we couldn’t focus on something that everybody could benefit.

One day, we woke up 10 years later and realized that we spent too much time working on useless things and working with not the right people. We got out of our way. We had to take a couple of unpleasant steps and make painful decisions, but we were able to get back to our track.

The lesson learned is – keep your vision, trust yourself and don’t step aside. Your time is limited. Every second matters.

About the Leaders Jan Lalinsky is the company CEO and co-founder. His role is to form the vision and overall direction along with making it come true. He focusses on the business development, marketing and people management. He makes sure that heads of all departments are on the same page and on track in order to deliver healthy and sustainable company growth.

Roman Stefko is the company CTO and co-founder. He is responsible for the product development and all other technical challenges (incl. eWay-Cloud, security, internal infrastructure and much more). As a former developer, he has deep knowledge of IT which helps him challenge anything.

IS A PROFITABLE STROKE OF BUSINESS? FRANCHISE

34 | January 2020 T echnology, technique—name it, the world has bestowed some remarkably adaptive implications and stimulated them into becoming a global brand. Yet, many organizations are striving to attain the full benefits of being a globally recognized brand. To stretch out confinements, various organizations often offer franchise licenses to franchise owners in potentially profitable regions for acquiring a better customer approach. Instead of starting from a scratch, an individual can purchase a franchise and start with a proven business model that has a more probability of achieving success.

With adequate management and guidance, one can easily flourish in the business world. Franchise business strikes down certain hardships and struggles that might be faced in the start-ups. Choosing franchise

businesses over a start-up could prove as a better idea, as it has more fruitful benefits that of any initial-staged businesses.

An Established Open System Unlike any start-ups, a franchise business allows an individual to carry out the operation directly from the established foundation. From brand cultivation and marketing to future plans and customer base, a new franchise owner is blessed with almost everything. An outlet of a franchise ensures the idea of following the similar business modules and operational methods can be more effective. And, implementing some new tweaks in such absolute aspects makes the task easier for a distributor.

In addition, it also allows professionals to overview the business reports and key performance indicators which aid

one to adapt and make appropriate business decisions. Besides, a strong support system is often a necessity rather than a want. It supports an individual in maintaining balance between both independent ideologies and the brand’s business modules. The support mostly includes the vast knowledge about the franchise and an expertise outlook on products. With such system, many new business personalities can perpetually sustain in the massive markets.

Less risk factor and Higher Success Rate One of the primary concern factor and the misconception in franchise business lies within the limitation of autonomy. Unlike individual enterprises, a franchise business might be facing some problems regarding receiving a full scale autonomy which can be overruled thereafter. It requires compassion over choosing a franchise which is more suitable with a purchaser’s business ethics. This reduces the risk of being dominated by franchisors and other investor entities and helps in drafting own rules to follow on.

Though a franchise comes with a wellestablished platform, it does require consistent efforts on bringing the organization upwards. According to various reports and facts, it has been also stated that the success rate of franchise business is quite higher than an independent entrepreneurial venture. As franchisees operate under a systematic business model, they get an indirect training in marketing as well as staff handling. With a large-scale marketing, the franchisees can promptly attain more customer attraction resulting into a higher growth rate.

Instant Customer Access Customer engagement is one of the most crucial and difficult processes in a business to bear. To gain more number of customers, an organization has to invest their time and efforts on processing various marketing aspects. In case of franchise business, the odds are quite similar but with fewer efforts. As most of franchise brands have a national or a global recognition, franchisees are required to contribute into a “marketing budget” through which the parent companies could process out an extensive promotion campaigns. Meanwhile, franchisee can also start an independent campaign in order to gain instant customer engagement.

Below are some methods through which franchisees can uplift the business, independently. Focusing on target audiences—instead of exaggerating over customer approaches, one can narrow down the target audiences to highly qualified prospects. It allows business owners to concentrate and come up with best prospects to deliver.

Return-policy—being the most traditional and effective way to attract customers, utilizing return-policies in franchise business will aid the franchisees to get better customer approach. Providing something in return and offering various schemes helps in creating an adverse marketing network.

How Franchise Business works? Quite a few requirements are needed to be fulfilled by a prospective franchisee owner in order to get qualified for licensing the brand’s name. The qualification requirements significantly vary from one franchisor to other. It often includes maintaining a higher net worth and a good credit score for a larger initial investment. In addition, a franchisee must be having another source of income also an industry/management experience for guiding business effectively. Subsequently considering all the factors, the franchisor determines whether the prospective owner is worthy enough to be qualified for the business or not.

A Franchise agreement includes certain sets of terms which are required to be followed by the franchisees. After being qualified, an individual signs an agreement where he/she has to pay a franchise-fee in order to acquire the license to use the brands name and its business processes. Simultaneously, the franchisor assists franchisees with allocation, supplier connections, storemanagement and staff training. However, it also bestows various facets like specific tested operating system, with creative marketing strategies.

Initially, the opportunities of implanting reinvention in franchise business are narrowed down as the focus of a franchiser is on delivering a consistent experience across all the locations. A multiple franchised locations, a franchisee can easily attain increased purchasing power. Also, Franchise business allows business persons to be flexible to try new products or services in order to test in the real-time market scenario. Thus by considering above aspects, it can be concluded that the franchise business is most secure and best option to invest in.