Should We Build Our Own CRM? 

Honest answer: building the CRM is the easy bit.

Running it is the nightmare.

A few things I'd push hard on before you commit:

  1. Costs - V1 with AI might be quick and cheap, but then you own it forever. Hosting, security, backups, integrations breaking every time an API changes, bug fixes, sales asking for "one more feature". Add up 3-5 years of engineering time and the "saving" disappears fast.

  2. Warm IPs - if your CRM sends email, you need your own sending infrastructure. New IPs have zero reputation, so you're warming them slowly over weeks. Rush it and Gmail/Outlook throttle or block you. The big players already have warm, well-managed IP pools.

  3. Deliverability - this is a full-time job in itself. SPF, DKIM, DMARC, bounces, complaints, suppression lists, Gmail and Yahoo's bulk sender rules etc. One bad campaign can tank your domain reputation, and that hits every email your team sends, not just marketing.

  4. Compliance - GDPR and PECR all sit with you. Consent records, DSARs, right to erasure, retention, data residency, breach reporting. Then procurement asks for your SOC 2 / ISO 27001... The regulator won't care that "AI built it".

  5. Protection - with a large provider you get SLAs, uptime guarantees, DPAs, indemnities and PCI-compliant handling on transactions. When something breaks, there's someone accountable. Build your own and all that risk sits with you.

  6. Key person risk - having a Head of AI is brilliant, but what happens if they leave and nobody else fully understands the system running your revenue? ;-)

What I'd do instead: look at the AI leaders within the business building on top of the CRM (enrichment, scoring, agents, automation), not rebuilding the plumbing underneath it.

Then use "we're thinking of leaving" as leverage at renewal, or look at HubSpot, Attio or Pipedrive. You'll probably get most of the savings with a fraction of the risk.

The behemoths aren't going anywhere soon. The ones that win will be the ones that embrace AI faster.


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