Replacing a foreign CRM: what moves across and where the time goes

Short answer: when a foreign CRM is replaced, the schedule goes on the customisations that piled up over the years: custom fields, automations, reports, integrations with the website and with accounting. Choosing the replacement product takes less time than that. The customisations get written down first, and then somebody decides which of them are still needed. The data is exported while access to the old system exists, even if the move itself starts later. An off-the-shelf CRM covers a standard sales process. A custom system is needed when the CRM has long been working as a platform for partners or customers.

We quote in roubles, so the figures below are given as proportions and timelines rather than converted amounts — convert at the rate of the day if you need an absolute number, or ask us for a quote.

Why the question is still open

Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics left the Russian market in 2022. Some companies still work in them through foreign entities and intermediaries, and every subscription renewal becomes its own problem. The risk is that access disappears without warning, taking the data with it. How to prepare for that is covered in what happens to your data if the vendor shuts down.

First step: export everything now

Without waiting for a decision about moving, take a full export: objects, fields, the relationships between them, activity history, attachments. Files and emails routinely fall outside the default export and have to be taken separately.

Check the export by opening a few records: can you see which company a deal belongs to, who owns it, which files are attached to it. An export nobody has ever opened can turn out to be incomplete at the exact moment when there is no second chance at it.

Second step: write down the customisations

Years inside a foreign CRM leave dozens of custom fields, rules and reports. Half of them are unused, and nobody knows which half. Make the list:

• custom objects and fields, and who fills them in;
• automations: what happens on a stage change, which emails go out;
• reports and dashboards that management actually looks at;
• integrations: website, telephony, email, accounting, marketing services.

Mark each line as needed or not. Usually a third of the list gets struck out, and the project becomes smaller on the spot.

Off-the-shelf or custom

A standard CRM product. Fits when the sales process is standard: leads, deals, tasks, a pipeline. Custom fields and simple automations are configuration work, and integrations with telephony and websites come ready made. This is the fastest route.

A CRM on top of the accounting system. Convenient when the books are already there and the real pain is the handover between sales and accounting. Customers, contracts and stock then live in one database.

A custom system. Needed when what was built inside the foreign CRM over the years stopped being CRM: a partner portal, a customer portal, complex pricing and approvals. Carrying that into an off-the-shelf product means hanging customisations on it all over again. When a build pays off is covered in custom build or off-the-shelf.

Where the time goes

Data migration. The objects and fields of a foreign CRM do not line up one-to-one with a local one. You need a mapping table and several trial runs. In a project budget this is usually five to fifteen per cent; there is more in migrating data from an old system.

Integrations. Every integration the old CRM had gets built again. The slow ones are those set up long ago by an employee who has left, or those with a foreign service that has no local counterpart.

The sales team’s habits. Managers worked in one interface for years. If the button they need sits somewhere else in the new system, they spend the first weeks recording deals in a spreadsheet. So the team is switched over in one day, with somebody on hand for the first fortnight to answer questions.

The order of the switchover

Configuration and migration on a test copy, trial use by two or three managers, the final export over a weekend, then a reconciliation of the number of customers, the number of deals and the value of open ones. The old system stays available for reading while anybody still refers to it, if the subscription allows that.

Common questions

How long does the move take? For a sales team on an off-the-shelf CRM without complicated integrations, one to two months is usual. If a platform is being built instead of a CRM, it is a project of several months with a staged launch.

Can email and call history be carried across? Emails and notes move if they could be exported. Call recordings usually live with the telephony provider and are moved separately or left in an archive.

What if access to the old CRM is already gone? Look for what remains: backup exports, integrations that were copying data into accounting or email, reports saved as files. Part of the history is usually lost in that situation, and what matters is recovering at least the customers and the open deals.

The rule

Export the data from a foreign CRM today and check the export with your own eyes. Choosing the new system is worth doing after the customisation list has been cut down to what is actually needed.