General

We often see online, especially in certain areas, that many foreign trade companies are asking "do you have any suitable foreign trade software recommendations", "which foreign trade software is good to use", and "looking for a good foreign trade software". Therefore, various software manufacturers are on par and are recommending their own foreign trade software, and then listing a series of functions and reasons.

In fact, each foreign trade enterprise has different problems and requirements for foreign trade software at different stages of development. The most common ones are start-up enterprises, fast-growing enterprises, mature enterprises, and transitional enterprises. We need to make corresponding choices based on the company's own stage.

1、 What are the key points for selecting foreign trade enterprises at different stages?

1. Start-up foreign trade enterprises

A newly established foreign trade enterprise, with a small scale and relatively small business volume, is in its early stages. The most important thing for enterprises during this period is to survive in the current fierce market competition as soon as possible. The demand for foreign trade software is mainly customer management and order management, which is the management of basic data.

2. Growth oriented foreign trade enterprises

The company has been established for more than 2 or 3 years and has already passed the most dangerous start-up stage, entering a rapidly developing enterprise. At this stage, enterprises expand very quickly, and their business models and management processes often adjust with changes in the market. At this stage, enterprises are most concerned about not only the basic data management of the start-up type, but also the business process management of sales automation with the rapid development of the company.

3. Mature foreign trade enterprises

The enterprise has been developing for a certain period of time, and its business model and management thinking have basically formed its own set of management methods. At this time, the most important thing for the enterprise is to be able to implement the formed management methods through the system, providing systematic support for the company's strategic management. Therefore, in addition to the basic data platform in the first stage and the business support platform in the second stage of the foreign trade software, we should pay more attention to the decision analysis platform in the third stage of the foreign trade software.

4. Foreign trade enterprises in the transitional period

The development of enterprises has reached a certain bottleneck, and new breakthroughs are needed for transformation, such as enterprises transitioning from foreign trade to domestic trade, and enterprises transitioning from offline to online. At this point, due to changes in the market environment, the enterprise's previous business model cannot be sustained and needs to make a transformation. Therefore, the focus is on the flexibility and scalability of foreign trade software, because during the transformation period, it is actually a trial and error stage, and foreign trade software needs to continuously adjust according to customer needs.

2、 How to choose the most cost-effective foreign trade software?

1. Understand the needs of the enterprise itself

Foreign trade software is a type of management software that essentially serves to more effectively manage business for various levels of roles in foreign trade enterprises. In fact, to effectively improve management efficiency through foreign trade software, foreign trade enterprises need to understand their own "needs" or "pain points", and based on this, choose and evaluate whether the corresponding foreign trade software is suitable.

It is not difficult to understand the enterprise itself. We can start from the following aspects:

A. What is our basic motivation for choosing and using foreign trade software? Is it to improve sales performance and capabilities? Or is it to improve the level and efficiency of enterprise management?

B. What is our own stage of 'crm oriented'? Is it in the unconscious stage? Is it in the early stage? Is it in the intermediate stage? Is it still in the advanced stage? wait.

C. The costs we can afford include: foreign trade software prices, usage cycles, scope of use, and so on.

Only by truly understanding the above issues and examining the corresponding CRM manufacturers and products based on them can we maximize the value of foreign trade software and empower enterprises.

2. How to choose foreign trade software?

A. Determine whether to purchase commercial software or customized development software;

B. Based on the characteristics and actual requirements of the enterprise, preliminarily determine multiple suitable foreign trade software manufacturers;

C. Prepare corresponding requirement documents and materials, and fully communicate with various foreign trade software manufacturers;

D. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of various foreign trade software manufacturers in terms of products, solutions, quotations or quotation plans, implementation capabilities, implementation cycles, and other aspects provided to meet the needs of enterprises;

E. Determine further shortlisted software vendors;

F. Try out several foreign trade CRM software shortlisted for several months;

G. Finalize partner vendors and software.

Overall, good software is suitable for oneself. Foreign trade enterprises can listen to the opinions of various companies and learn more about their products. It is best to have free trials to determine the suitable foreign trade software for themselves.