Summary

Traditional CRM systems often break as companies grow, not because teams lack skills, but because the CRM models themselves were not designed for evolving workflows, complex data requirements, or cost stability. This article breaks down the technical reasons behind these failures using insights from ORT’s CRM package materials.

1. The Hidden Cost of Low-Cost SaaS CRM

Cheap to start, expensive to grow.

Low-cost SaaS CRM tools work well for small teams, but internal documents show three structural issues that surface once a business scales beyond ~30–50 employees:

Schema Limitations

• SaaS CRM enforces fixed data structures and fixed UI layouts.
• When workflows become more specialized, companies end up using Excel workarounds, leading to “野良データ” (unmanaged, inconsistent data).
• Result: Data siloing → incomplete reports → unreliable insights.

Workflow Rigidity

• Most SaaS CRMs only allow light customization.
• Real-world workflow changes require heavy modification or external consultants.
• Enterprises report 73% difficulty adjusting workflows after initial rollout. (Source: ORT CRM material)

Scaling Costs

• SaaS CRMs scale pricing based on “per user” or “per record” models.
• As the team grows, running cost explodes, even if the actual workflow doesn’t change.

Takeaway: Low-cost SaaS is cheap only when you’re small. Structurally, it cannot scale with mid-size businesses.

2. Why High-End CRM Solves Problems, But Introduces New Ones

Powerful tools come with heavy constraints.

Enterprise CRM platforms like Salesforce solve flexibility issues, but create a different category of problems:

Custom Code Fatigue

• Any meaningful customization requires code-heavy development.
• Companies face:
  • Long development cycles
  • High maintenance overhead
  • Dependency on specialized Salesforce engineers

Vendor Lock-In

• Data, schema, and automation fully depend on the platform’s ecosystem.
• Switching providers becomes nearly impossible.

Slow Onboarding & Complexity

• UI and workflows are feature-rich but overwhelming.
• Admin setup typically requires dedicated consultants.

Takeaway: High-end CRMs are powerful but often too heavy; the complexity becomes a cost by itself.

3. The Risks of Self-Developed CRM

Freedom brings responsibility, and technical debt.

Some companies choose to build their CRM in-house. But internal documents highlight three predictable issues:

Maintenance Complexity

• Every new business change introduces a new set of maintenance tasks.
• Teams become trapped in constant refactoring cycles.

No Validation Layer

• Unless explicitly built, there is no automatic validation or data consistency checking.
• This leads to:
  • Data mismatch
  • Record corruption
  • Trust issues in reporting systems

Lack of Workflow Governance

• Without a standardized workflow engine, each department works differently.
• When teams expand, the system fails to scale.

Takeaway: Building internally offers full freedom, but without a framework, cost and complexity grow exponentially.

4. The Underlying Pattern: Flexibility vs. Stability Trade-Off

Why every CRM model fails for the same reason.

From all technical evidence in ORT’s CRM materials, one pattern emerges: No existing CRM can deliver flexibility without sacrificing stability, or vice versa.

• SaaS: stable but rigid
• High-end CRM: flexible but expensive and complex
• In-house: flexible but fragile and costly

Growing companies need a system that:

• adapts quickly,
• maintains data integrity,
• stays cost-stable as users increase.

This is where Leepai’s architectural model fits, as a system designed to bridge the structural gap between SaaS, enterprise CRM, and in-house development (mentioned calmly, not salesy).

Takeaway: Traditional CRMs fail because they were not architected for mid-size growth, not because users are doing anything wrong.

Conclusion

Traditional CRM breakdowns are structural, not operational. As businesses grow, limitations in schema design, workflow rigidity, cost scaling, and maintenance become unavoidable.

The market still lacks a CRM architecture that balances:

• cost stability,
• high flexibility, and
• enterprise-grade reliability.

Understanding these technical constraints is the first step toward choosing, or designing, a system that grows with your business instead of slowing it down.