Aphidas to transform CRM landscape of regional companies

At a well attended one day seminar titled 'Transforming Your Business with Cloud CRM', Ashraf Karayath CEO of the company unveiled the possibilities of cloud computing as a tool to enhance the customer experience and therefore the businesses to a gathering of corporate decision makers from diverse verticals of business and industry.

"Middle East is still in the early stages of adoption and we expect the market share to become nearly double of its current levels in the next three years. Recent trends indicate the CRM on-demand market in the Middle East and North Africa region was worth an estimated $52m and is experiencing a remarkable 47% growth rate year-on-year. While the rise in investment in the traditional retail, Government and financial sector continues, we have been witnessing an increased usage of software technology in governance, particularly in answerability and monitoring, and in healthcare sector through e-health and m-health introductions. These trends point to the need for such easy to deploy, manageable and scalable cloud based solutions," said Ashraf Karayath.

"Projections for the increased adoption of On-Demand CRM solutions in the region are extremely positive. UAE is in fact at the forefront of adopting such innovations and proactive approaches. The rising economy demands a more dynamic and easy to use solution. Salesforce.com is set to lead this transformation from traditional models of computing to cloud computing. So far the previous deployments have reported an increase in business revenue by 30%, greatly improved forecasting & visibility, 23% faster sales cycle, and an overall enhancement of customer experience as it gives a 360 degree view of the customer for better sales and customer service," he added.

Salesforce.com recognized by Forbes as the most innovative company in the world for the last two consecutive years with its base of more than 130000 customers across the world has further revolutionized the CRM business practices with new tools enabling the organizations to reap the advantages of social media helping companies to be social and keep attuned to the changing times.

The multi-tenant model cloud platform offered by the company ensures simple one source, one vendor accessibility, can be made operational simultaneously in multiple locations, reduces the implementation time and is scalable. It can be integrated seamlessly with other existing solutions at a lower cost and effort.

The return on investment to the client is thus speedier than what is currently being experienced from other CRM solutions. Besides, the solution being a green computing model, mitigates the need for any high end hardware which further reduces the costs.

The multi-tenant cloud platform deployed to deliver these solutions ensure simple one source, one vendor accessibility, seamless scalability and takes away from the requirement of hefty hardware. Often time the operational time from inception to becoming fully functional is reduced to a month, depending on the scale of deployment with multiple locations becoming operational simultaneously, thus reducing delays and hence saving in resources wastage.

As companies in the UAE are showing higher level of interest in cloud computing due to the growing level of awareness of the benefits it offers in terms of operational efficiency, cost savings Aphidas is all set to tap the potential of the market by providing Salesforce.com products and related services to organizations in areas of sales, marketing, service and project management.

With more than 14 years of experience in IT and related industries Aphidas has restructured its operations in 2010 and became the sole partner of Salesforce.com dealing exclusively in the products and services offered by the company. It has acquired 95 customers across the region and Africa with more than 70 full scale sales force implementation projects.

"2013 looks very promising for all businesses; we are recovering from the multitude of crises we have experienced in the past. This is the best time to focus on innovation. Companies can no longer afford to not change. They have to adapt to the challenges of the times to ensure survival and eventual sustainability. Risks have to be minimized and cost effectiveness has to be the focus. We need systems to manage the business rather than managing the systems to do the business. The only way to transform the business is to deploy affordable, simple and practical solutions as tools to overcome these demands," concluded Ashraf Karayath.