Quick growth within a company is usually a blend of good news and bad news. The benefit is that the enterprise  is successful, and increased hiring and beefed-up operations are an indications of momentum.
But there can be growing pains, as well. If an enterprise hasn't anticipated more employees or planned more robust strategies, it can be tough for systems to be flexible enough to accommodate the change.
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For a company that's likely to balloon in the next few years, a viable option has become on-demand CRM systems, which allow a company to increase the number of users without buying additional licenses.
In the past, many enterprises tried to anticipate growth by buying licenses in bulk, but ended up not using all of them, says Al Falcione, director of product marketing at CRM vendor Salesforce.com.
"Because on-demand is browser-based, it's really fast to get it up and running, and to add new users," he says. "You can add 100 users right in the system if you want. Companies might start small and scale quickly."
Indeed, Salesforce.com has built a very successful business providing Web-based CRM applications that implement this "no software" strategy.
However, some enterprises still prefer to have their applications in-house, for greater customization and integration with their other systems. But those preferences don't mean an enterprise will be doomed to no scalability, says Jason McNally, director of sales at software firm TechExcel.
"You just have to make sure that the application captures the process in the proper way," he advises, "so that it can adapt as you grow or change tactics."
Plan A
Often, just as important as the technology is the planning that goes into how to scale. Purchase of software tends to be reactive, particularly in the smaller enterprise space, says Craig Sullivan, senior director of international products at NetSuite.
That type of short-range planning tends to be counter to scalability.
"IT budgets are a lot more modest than they were previously, so companies will go out and find the cheapest solution they can," says Sullivan.
Regardless of whether on-demand or in-house is chosen, Sullivan recommends that companies take a step back to look at the bigger picture, particularly in terms of how the entire company will be affected.
It is also important to keep in mind that planning for growth in a CRM system doesn't always have to do with employees. Although many situations in which scalability is important involve hiring, sometimes the growth comes as a natural part of operations. (continued...)
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