Digital Scientists®

CRM consultants & specialists

CRM consultants who start with the process, not the product.

Most CRM projects do not fail because the software was wrong. They fail because nobody mapped how the business actually sells before configuring it. We are CRM specialists across every major platform — Zoho, Salesforce, HubSpot, monday.com, Pipedrive and Dynamics — and we will tell you honestly which one fits.

What we do

CRM consultancy, end to end.

Selection, implementation, migration, integration and the ongoing work that keeps a CRM useful two years after launch.

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CRM selection

Most CRM projects fail before any software is bought, because the requirements were never written down. We map how you actually sell and service customers, then recommend the platform that fits — including when that is not the one we implement most often.

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CRM implementation

Configuration mapped to your real sales process: modules, fields, pipelines, permissions and automation built around how your team works, not a generic template applied to your business.

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CRM migration

Moving between platforms without losing history. We map and clean your data, migrate contacts, accounts, deals, notes and attachments, and run the two systems in parallel until you are confident.

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CRM integration

Connecting the CRM to your accounting, quoting, support, marketing and operational systems so data moves automatically and nobody is rekeying information between tabs.

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CRM rescue

Inherited a CRM nobody uses? We audit what went wrong — usually process mismatch or dirty data rather than the software — and rebuild it into something your team will actually open.

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Reporting and dashboards

Custom front-end consoles built over your CRM data, so leadership sees pipeline, forecast and performance the way your business measures them rather than the way the vendor decided to.

Platform-neutralAdvice first, implementation second
Any sourceMigration from any CRM, history intact
No lock-inYou own the system, data and IP
Adoption-ledMeasured on use, not on go-live

Custom front-ends

Your CRM data,
presented how you actually run the business.

Every CRM ships with reporting its vendor designed. That works until the question you need answering is not one they anticipated. This is a working commercial console of the kind we build for clients — switch the tabs and the period to see it move.

Sales & Pipeline Console

Pipeline, forecast, conversion and team performance · UK & Ireland · Europe · North America

Data to 25 Sep 26 · 1,284 accounts · 312 open opportunities · 47 closing this quarter

DEMO DATA
SourcesZoho CRMSalesforceHubSpot
PeriodLast 12 months · all regions · all owners
Closed won£2.84m▲ 11.2% vs last year
Against target97%Target £2.93m
Open pipeline£2.32m▲ 12.4% 312 open deals
Weighted forecast£861k▲ 8.1% weighted
Win rate31.4%▲ 2.6 pts 178 of 567 decided
Average deal£18,240▼ 3.2% 178 deals booked
Sales cycle47 days▼ 6 days first touch to close
Pipeline coverage2.7xCoverage pipeline vs quota

Closed won against target

Revenue recognised on close · dashed = target · orange = same month last year

£0k£105k£210k£315k£420kOctNovDecJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSep
Closed wonTargetSame month last year

Pipeline by stage

Open value and deal count, weighted at stage probability

Qualified£742k · 112
Discovery£610k · 78
Proposal sent£455k · 54
Negotiation£318k · 38
Verbal / closing£196k · 30

What the numbers are saying

Generated from the same queries that drive the tiles above

  • Coverage is healthy at 2.7x — above the 2.5x you need to land quota at the current 31.4% win rate.
  • Average deal size is down 3.2% while volume is up. Mix has shifted toward mid-market; worth checking discounting on the Proposal stage.
  • Cycle time improved six days after proposal templates moved into the CRM. Negotiation is now the longest stage at 19 days.
  • September was the strongest month on record at £382k, 29% above target.

Illustrative figures. The layout, the metrics and their definitions are the part that matters — every one of them is a decision you make rather than a default you inherit.

It does not care which CRM you run

The front end is built on Zoho Creator and Zoho Analytics, and connects to whatever holds your data. Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics — or several at once, which is the usual reality after an acquisition. You do not have to migrate to get a reporting layer worth looking at.

Your metrics, your definitions

Most businesses have a handful of numbers that genuinely drive decisions, and they are rarely the ones a vendor ships by default. Weighted forecast on your own probability model, cycle time measured from your real first touch, margin rather than revenue. If you can define it, it goes on the console.

The build cost is the point

Comparable custom front-ends on enterprise platforms usually mean specialist developers, additional licences and a project measured in months. On Zoho it is a configuration exercise inside a licence you already hold — which is why this is realistic for a mid-market business rather than only for enterprise.

Built to how you operate

This is the principle running through everything we build: the system bends to your process, not the other way round. Where a platform dictates how you must work, a custom application layer puts that control back with you.

Platform comparison

An honest view of the major CRMs.

Every platform here is genuinely good at something. The question is never which CRM is best in the abstract — it is which one fits how you sell, what you need it to connect to, and what you can realistically administer.

Zoho CRM

Best value across the widest feature set

Enterprise-grade pipeline management, automation and analytics at a fraction of the per-seat cost of its rivals — and it sits inside a suite of 50+ applications, so finance, HR, support and marketing connect natively rather than through paid integrations.

Best fit: SMEs and mid-market businesses that want depth without per-seat costs that scale painfully.

Our Zoho CRM services →

Salesforce

The enterprise standard

Enormously capable, with the largest app ecosystem and partner network of any CRM. For complex global sales organisations with dedicated administrators and a real implementation budget, it remains a genuinely strong choice.

Best fit: Large enterprises with in-house admin capacity and complex, multi-region requirements.

HubSpot

Strongest inbound marketing story

Excellent marketing automation and a famously clean interface that teams adopt quickly. The free tier is a legitimate way to start. Costs rise sharply as contact volumes grow and as you add the Sales, Service and Operations hubs.

Best fit: Marketing-led businesses where content and inbound generate most of the pipeline.

monday.com

Work management first, CRM second

Superb visual project and work management with a CRM layer on top. If your team already lives in monday.com boards, the CRM keeps everything in one place. It is less suited to complex sales processes or deep finance integration.

Best fit: Project-driven teams that want light pipeline tracking alongside delivery work.

Pipedrive

Simple pipeline management

Focused, fast and genuinely easy for a sales team to pick up. Deliberately narrow — it does pipelines well and leaves everything else to integrations, which becomes a limitation as operational needs grow.

Best fit: Small sales teams that want a pipeline and nothing more.

Microsoft Dynamics 365

Deep Microsoft estate integration

Compelling when an organisation is heavily invested in Microsoft 365, Teams and Power Platform, with licensing that can work in your favour at scale. Implementation complexity and cost are closer to Salesforce than to the mid-market options.

Best fit: Organisations standardised on Microsoft with internal IT to support it.

Where we land, and why

For most SMEs and mid-market firms,
we recommend Zoho.

Not because we are Zoho partners — we became Zoho partners because of this.

The CRM is not an island

Zoho CRM sits inside a suite of more than 50 integrated applications. Finance, HR, support, projects, marketing and analytics connect natively. A quote becomes an invoice; a won deal triggers onboarding; reporting spans the whole business rather than one department. With most alternatives that same picture is assembled from separate subscriptions and paid connectors.

Total cost is materially lower

Comparable depth to the enterprise platforms at a fraction of the per-seat cost, and Zoho One licences the entire suite per employee rather than per application. For a business currently paying separately for CRM, accounting, helpdesk, e-signature and marketing tools, the consolidation is usually the single largest saving available — our pricing sets out what implementation costs.

It adapts rather than constrains

Custom modules, custom functions and a full development platform in Zoho Creator mean the system bends to unusual processes instead of forcing a rewrite of how you work. This is where it genuinely outperforms tools that look simpler on day one.

Privately held, subscription-funded

Zoho is not venture-funded and does not monetise customer data. It offers UK and EU data residency, which matters increasingly for data protection obligations and for any business handling regulated information — something we cover in AI and data sovereignty.

If a different platform is the right answer for you, we will say so — and we will still help you implement it properly. A CRM that fits badly costs far more than the licences ever will.

Common questions

CRM consultancy questions,
answered plainly.

Do you only work with Zoho CRM?

No. We implement, migrate and support across the major platforms, and we advise on selection independently of what we implement most often. We are Zoho partners and we are open about that — but recommending a CRM that does not fit your business costs us far more in a failed project than it gains us in licence revenue.

Which CRM is best?

There is no single answer, and anyone giving you one without asking about your business is selling. The right platform depends on how you sell, how many users you need, what it has to integrate with, and how much internal capacity you have to administer it. Salesforce is outstanding for complex global enterprises. HubSpot is excellent for marketing-led businesses. For most SMEs and mid-market firms we recommend Zoho CRM, because it delivers comparable depth at materially lower total cost and connects natively to a much wider suite of business applications.

How much does a CRM implementation cost?

A focused single-team implementation typically starts around £3,500. A multi-department rollout with integrations and data migration is usually £9,500 upwards. Retainers for ongoing development and support start at £750 a month. We confirm scope and a fixed figure after a discovery call rather than quoting blind.

Can you migrate us from Salesforce or HubSpot?

Yes, and it is one of the most common things we are asked to do. We map your existing objects, fields and automations to the destination platform, clean the data on the way through, migrate history including notes and attachments, and run both systems in parallel until you sign off. Nothing is switched off before you are ready.

Can you build a console like this over a CRM we already have?

Yes. A custom front end does not require you to change CRM. We build it on Zoho Creator and Zoho Analytics and connect it to whatever holds your data — Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics, or several at once after an acquisition. You keep the system your team knows and gain a reporting layer built around how you actually measure performance.

Our CRM was implemented badly and nobody uses it. Can that be fixed?

Usually, yes — and usually without replacing the software. Low adoption is nearly always a symptom of the configuration not matching how the team actually works, compounded by data quality bad enough that people stop trusting what they see. We audit both, then rebuild around the real process.

What is the Zoho operating system you mention?

Zoho One bundles 50+ integrated business applications — CRM, finance, HR, support, projects, marketing, analytics and more — under a single per-employee licence. It means the CRM is not an island: a quote becomes an invoice, a signed contract triggers onboarding, and reporting spans the whole business rather than one department. For businesses tired of paying for six disconnected tools, it is usually the single largest cost and efficiency win available.

Not sure which CRM is right, or stuck with one nobody uses?

Book a free 30-minute discovery call. We will look at how you actually sell, what the CRM needs to connect to, and give you a straight recommendation — including when that means not changing platform at all.