In today’s digital landscape, startups have no shortage of tools to craft exceptional customer experiences, but picking the right ones and managing them can be challenging. Our survey demonstrates that these digital-native businesses understand the value of customer relationships and the need to leverage technology to manage these relationships effectively. Over 99% of startups across the region use one or more CRM tools, with 61% using more than one.
CRM platforms help startups consolidate marketing, sales, operations, service, and content management into a single source of truth.
Laurence Butler, Global Senior Director, HubSpot for Startups, believes that startups should remember that while having CRM tools is beneficial, the real power lies in having a single platform that combines siloed customer data.
“Think of your CRM as the ‘home base’ for customer data. With AI-powered tools’ capabilities, founders can do even more with less on their CRM platform,” he says.
When everything is in one place, it’s easier to see the big picture, spot trends, and make data-driven decisions. We encourage startups to adopt a comprehensive platform to enhance workflow efficiency, increase accountability, streamline communications, and improve sales forecasting.
A survey of 1700 software buyers found that when CRM tools are all on one platform, you can have stronger connections among your data and systems and greater ROI on your tech investments.
Terrascope, a Singapore headquartered SaaS company offering smart carbon measurement and management solutions, also adopted HubSpot’s CRM platform early on in their journey.
“Early CRM adoption streamlined Terrascope's operations by enabling our marketing, sales, and customer success functions to be integrated onto a single platform. This move halved our sales cycle to 5-6 months for large enterprises, tripled win rates through tailored engagement for prospects, and accelerated the customer onboarding process.” echoes Maya Hari, CEO of Terrascope.
At Multiplier, adopting the HubSpot CRM platform early in their business growth was driven by the need to streamline operations and leverage data for informed decision-making. “HubSpot provides an integrated platform that centralises customer information, automated marketing and sales processes, and offers real-time analytics. This allowed us to maintain high efficiency, improve customer relationships, and make data-driven adjustments to our strategies, leading to enhanced overall performance,” - says Sagar Khatri, CEO of Multiplier.
Multiplier also leveraged our CRM platform’s scalability and seamless integration with other tools to grow with the company and support its evolving needs without disruption. Sagar points to the platform’s user-friendly interface that has helped minimize the learning curve, enabling his team to quickly adapt and leverage the platform’s benefits to drive business success
“Overall, HubSpot has been a critical component in driving our business's success through enhanced operational efficiency, better customer insights, and improved sales performance” - adds Sagar
The survey further reveals that ‘security of software’ and ‘features that meet our needs’ are the top two factors for startups when choosing a CRM, while ‘scalability of software’ comes in at a close third spot. Some country specific nuances exist. In Singapore and Indonesia, founders prioritise “features that meet our needs” as the most influential factor while in India and Philippines “security of software” ranks as the most influential.
Emphasising the need to pick a CRM that scales with your business, Terrascope’s Maya Hari points out: “When selecting a CRM platform, we looked for one that seamlessly integrates with existing tools and workflows, while being intuitive and easy for our teams to adopt. Scalability is crucial for startups facing evolving business needs and having the right tech stack enabled Terrascope to grow our global decarbonisation SaaS platform across APAC, Europe and US.”
With the right CRM platform in play, you can collect data from multiple sources that feed into better data analysis and decision-making. Our survey revealed that on average, 71% of startups across the region feel they have adequate data and are leveraging it to identify new opportunities and grow their business.
However, the Philippines lags behind other regions in this aspect. 38% of Filipino founders say they don’t have enough data on prospects, customers, and the customer journey. They are also the least satisfied with their tech stack, and have the highest respondents in the region (48%) who say that they’re finding it more difficult to grow their business in the last year than the years prior.
When asked about key challenges related to data, founders and startup leaders point to limited time, resource, and expertise in data analysis and interpretation as the top challenge.
custom-module
Complicated Call-To-Action