Short Term Goal: When installing SuiteCRM for the first time in my enterprise, I would like to customize it as per end-user’s requirement. What is the best way to proceed, amongst these options:
Install it, learn how to use it, learn how to customize it - all inhouse
Get an external consultant/agency to come and implement & customize SuiteCRM for us
Proceed with Option 1 but with support from SalesAgility
Some other option
Org size: 10,000. Number of potential CRM users: between 300 and 500.
Longer Term Goal: Find out what I would need - SuiteCRM or one of SugarCRM’s pricy versions?
For what it is worth, we went with your option 1 but note that it is for a MUCH smaller enterprise. The money that would have been spent on expensive sugar versions is being invested up front on in house knowledge gained by installing and configuring the product to match the business workflows. So far, so good but I have had to delve into the code and database as well to get some of the results that we wanted.
You have a massive training requirement and need to consider how you are going to provide that service. For such a large project, I would be grabbing as much help as I could afford but at the same time, learn as much as possible during the process. Make sure that any consultants you hire provide written documentation of all changes they make to the code base, database as well as application configuration settings, custom fields etc so that you are able to repeat the process yourself from a clean install.
As for the pool of consultants, SalesAgility appear to be the only company specifically providing consulting and support for SuiteCRM, but it is their product after all.