By Chris Bucholtz 

You always hear that the burden of data entry is what kills SFA adoption, but the first killer is the learning curve. Last year, we cited Outlook integration as one of the key innovations in CRM. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t an innovation, exactly – it had been used before. But it is an idea that can spur adoption, and since a lack of adoption is one of the main causes of CRM failure, it’s an idea that has some legs. 

Last week, Avidian Software’s CEO, James Wong, spent more than an hour showing me the features of Prophet 5, the latest version of Avidian’s Outlook-based SFA solution. James is remarkably excited about talking about his product, and I have to think part of that is his glee at knowing he’s got a solution that’s customer-centric – his customers being sales guys. It’s got a whole mess of new features – a bunch of new reports, quoting capabilities, sales management and quota management dashboard, and the ability to identify primary contacts and organize contact by company, to name just three. But the biggest thing it has going for it is that Avidian didn’t re-invent the interface. 

You can understand the temptation: really, is there anything more fun to build or renew than the interface? But a flashy new interface is a red flag that this is a new bit of software to learn, and that triggers what the big boss here calls the “primal fear of software.” Its one thing to get it installed and working; it’s another to actually grind through the process of learning to use it. By using Outlook – something most sales guys already use on a daily basis – Prophet gets past that fear and gets a head start on adoption.