Hello, this is Matsubara, CRM Evangelist.

"CRM is something that large corporations use."
"It's still too early for a small company like ours."
—I often hear comments like this from the managers of companies with around 20 employees.

This time, we will use this "20 employees" size as a central point to examine from multiple angles whether CRM is truly necessary.
In fact, I believe this scale is the hidden turning point where the benefits of CRM implementation are most likely to become apparent.

table of contents

1. Why focus on the number "20 people"?
2. A review of the misconception that "CRM is only for big corporations"
3. Five challenges that are likely to occur in a company with around 20 employees
4. The paradox that CRM is effective precisely because the company is only around 20 people.
5. Essential and unnecessary features for a team of 20 people.
6. Estimate the costs in detail.
7. Concerns specific to a team of 20 people and how to address them
8. Designing authority structures in organizations where employees often hold multiple positions across departments.
9. Scenarios for each growth phase: 20 people → 30 people → 50 people
10. Compare this to other group sizes and confirm the position of the 20 individuals.
11. Roadmap to Implementation (3-Month Plan)
12. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
13. Summary

1. Why focus on the number "20 people"?

There's a reason why we're specifically mentioning the number "20 employees."
In fact, Arcus Japan Co., Ltd., the company that provides EMOROCO CRM Lite, is a company with only 20 employees (including full-time partners) as of April 2026.
In other words, we ourselves are creating products while experiencing firsthand the challenges that a company of this size faces.

With 20 employees, unlike a company with just a few people right after its founding, we've reached a size where multiple departments and teams begin to exist, but we're not large enough to have a dedicated IT department like a large corporation.
I believe this "intermediate size" is the group that struggles the most when deciding whether or not to implement CRM.

2. A review of the misconception that "CRM is only for big corporations"

First, let's address some common misconceptions.
When people hear the term CRM, many imagine "an expensive system implemented by large corporations."
In fact, some CRM systems are very feature-rich and also very expensive.

However, this is only a part of the CRM concept.
In recent years, there has been an increase in low-cost CRM systems that can be designed to suit a company's specific business needs without requiring any coding.
EMOROCO CRM Lite starts at ¥1,500 per user per month (minimum 3 users), with no initial setup fee.
The misconception that "CRM = large-scale and expensive" is not necessarily true in today's world.

3. Five challenges that are likely to occur in a company with around 20 employees

Companies with around 20 employees tend to experience the following challenges in particular:

Problem 1: One person is holding multiple roles.
In a company of around 20 people, it's common for sales staff to also handle customer support, and for general affairs staff to also manage accounting.
Because the workload on each individual is high, it becomes difficult to even find the time to organize information.

Issue ②: The impact of personalization is relatively large.
In a company with around 100 employees, the information held by a single person is only a small fraction of the whole.
However, in a company with around 20 employees, it's not uncommon for one person to be responsible for a significant portion of the company's total customer base.
If that person leaves the company, it will have a significant impact on customer relationships throughout the entire company.

Problem ③: Lack of an IT department, making decisions on tool implementation dependent on individual judgment.
Companies with around 20 employees often lack a dedicated IT specialist, and the selection and implementation of IT tools tend to be left to the discretion of management or employees who happen to be knowledgeable.

Challenge ④: An "information explosion" unique to the growth period occurs.
Companies with around 20 employees are often in the midst of business growth.
When the number of customers, projects, and business partners increases rapidly, manual management using tools like Excel quickly becomes unsustainable.

Issue 5: Due to dual roles, the frequency of information sharing is surprisingly low.
One characteristic of a company of this size is that it's easy to assume that "since we're on the same floor, we should be able to share information verbally."
In reality, because everyone is busy and juggling multiple roles, information sharing is often less effective than one might imagine.

4. The paradox that CRM is effective precisely because the company is only around 20 people.

Here, I'd like to share a perspective that many business leaders overlook.
CRM actually has an aspect where "the benefits of implementation are more easily seen precisely because it's on a smaller scale."

・Larger companies have already implemented some kind of system.For companies with over 100 employees, some form of sales management system is often already in place, making CRM implementation a challenging "replacement" task. For companies with around 20 employees, however, they are often still using Excel, making a clean, uninterrupted implementation much smoother.
・Because it's a small team, company-wide adoption is faster.For a company of around 20 people, the orientation and training sessions to get all employees to start using the same CRM can be completed in about a day. This is significantly faster than implementing it company-wide for a company with several hundred employees.
・Because the risk of over-reliance on individual expertise is high, countermeasures are also highly effective.As mentioned earlier, because the amount of information each individual possesses accounts for a large proportion of the entire company, the effect of transforming that information into an organizational asset is also relatively greater.

In other words, it's not that "it's too early because it's a 20-person team," but rather the paradox is that "it's precisely because it's a 20-person team that now is the optimal time."

5. Essential and unnecessary features for a team of 20 people.

When a company of around 20 people is considering this, we recommend evaluating its functions from the following perspectives.

Features that should be considered as a priority.

- Centralized management of clients, projects, and activity history (basic function)
- Freely add fields without coding (can be operated even without a dedicated IT staff).
- Visualization using dashboards (reducing the effort required to create reports)
- LINE notifications and workflow notifications (because it's a small team, missed responses are more noticeable).

Features that tend to be over-specced for the time being

- Complex multi-stage approval flows (often over-designed at stages with simple organizational hierarchies)
- Advanced multilingual and multi-site management (for those who do not yet have overseas operations or multiple locations)
• Designing complex permission hierarchies for large organizations

For a company of around 20 people, starting with basic functions and adding features as the organization grows is a suitable approach.

6. Estimate the costs in detail.

Let's try to estimate the costs of implementing EMOROCO CRM Lite in a company with 20 employees.

Monthly fee: 1,500 yen x 20 people = 30,000 yen/month
Annual cost: 30,000 yen x 12 months = 360,000 yen/year
・Initial cost: 0 yen

On the other hand, previouslyLoss simulation if CRM is not implementedLet's apply the estimation model introduced earlier to a group of 20 people.
When you add up the lost opportunities due to missed responses, the handover losses due to personnel changes, and the time costs of preparing reports, you may be incurring hidden losses of several million yen per year, depending on the scale of the business.
We recommend that you take some time to estimate the extent of this hidden loss in comparison to the annual cost of 36 yen.

7. Concerns specific to a team of 20 people and how to address them

Concern ①: Lack of IT-savvy personnel
EMOROCO CRM Lite is designed to be operated without coding, so no specialized programming knowledge is required.
If you have basic computer skills, you can intuitively add entities and fields from the administration screen.

Concern ②: Insufficient time for implementation
3-Step Introduction GuideAs mentioned earlier, starting with the standard features and gradually customizing them to suit your company's needs will minimize the initial implementation burden.

Concern ③: I'm worried whether everyone will be able to use it effectively.
Having a small group size has the advantage of making it easier to hold information sessions and provide individual support.
It's also possible to start with a trial implementation in one team, get a feel for how to use it, and then expand it company-wide.

Concern ④: It's uncertain whether it will actually be effective.
By taking advantage of the 30-day free trial and testing it with actual business data, you can confirm its effectiveness before implementation.

8. Designing authority structures in organizations where employees often hold multiple positions across departments.

In a company of around 20 people, individuals often hold multiple roles, so it's necessary to design authority structures flexibly.
Security role and form permission managementUsing this, you can create flexible designs like the following:

- Grant employees who handle both sales and customer support access to information from both departments.
- Grant additional access to contract and billing information to employees who also handle accounting.
- External contractors should be granted limited access, only to the scope of their assigned tasks.

For a company of around 20 people, the ability to design flexible authority structures that match the actual situation of employees holding multiple responsibilities, rather than the fixed departmental authority structures common in large corporations, is a crucial point.

9. Scenarios for each growth phase: 20 people → 30 people → 50 people

When considering the timing of implementing a CRM system, it's important to also look ahead to future growth phases.

20 people (currently)
We're starting with basic customer and project management, and gradually adding entities tailored to our company's operations using a no-code solution.

30 people (growth period)
As departments become more clearly defined, it becomes necessary to fine-tune the authority structure.
If a CRM system is already established at this stage, the organization can smoothly adapt to expansion.
Conversely, if you continue using Excel at this stage, information fragmentation will progress rapidly.

Approximately 50 people (in expansion phase)
This could result in the creation of multiple sales teams and multiple locations.
This is the time to consider more advanced features such as multi-tenancy and self-hosting.

Establishing a foundation early on with a team of around 20 people is also an investment to prevent potential disruptions during future growth phases.

10. Compare this to other group sizes and confirm the position of the 20 individuals.

Let's roughly compare the necessity of implementing CRM based on company size.

As this comparison shows, a team size of 20 people is by no means "too early"; rather, it is one of the sizes where the benefits of implementation are most likely to be seen.

11. Roadmap to Implementation (3-Month Plan)

Here is an example of a 3-month roadmap for a company of 20 people to implement CRM smoothly.

Month 1: Start
I'll sign up for a free trial and try registering information on my main business partners using the standard features.
One or two staff members will primarily be responsible for checking the user experience.

Month 2: Organizing
Import existing Excel data and add fields tailored to your company's operations.
The authority structure will also be adjusted at this stage to reflect the actual situation of those holding multiple positions.

Month 3: Make use of it
All employees will start using the CRM and begin utilizing workflow notifications and dashboards.
We will continue to make fine adjustments as we operate the system.

By proceeding in stages over a three-month period, even a company with 20 employees can implement the system without difficulty.

12. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q. Can all 20 people master the CRM from the start?
You don't need to expect to master it perfectly from the start.
A practical approach is to start with basic input and gradually expand your usage.

Q. Do we need to hire a new, dedicated IT staff member?
Because it's designed to be operated without coding, existing employees can manage it in addition to their other duties.

Q. Will there be any resistance within the company after implementation?
BeforeCauses and solutions for the "Data not entered into CRM" problemAs explained earlier, sharing the objective and starting small are key to preventing resistance.

Q. Are security measures necessary even for a team of 20 people?
In fact, the smaller the scale of a business, the less investment it tends to make in security measures, and according to statistics from the National Police Agency, small and medium-sized enterprises account for about two-thirds of ransomware attacks.
It is dangerous to postpone countermeasures simply because of the scale of the problem.

Q. How long will it take to migrate from using Excel?
Using the Excel import function, you can migrate key data in just a few weeks while utilizing your existing data.

Q. If we want to keep costs down, what is the minimum number of people required for a contract?
EMOROCO CRM Lite can be subscribed to with a minimum of 3 users.
It's not necessary for all 20 people to use it immediately; you can start with just a few of the staff members.

Q. If the number of employees increases further in the future, will the CRM system be able to handle that?
Yes.
Because it's designed to be flexible and scalable without coding, you can adjust the entity, field, and permission structure as your organization grows.

Q. Arcus Japan itself has a team of about 20 people. Do you actually use CRM within your own company?
Yes.
As someone who advocates the theory of CRM 4.0, I also put the principles of CRM 4.0 into practice in my own business operations.
Because we are a team of 20 people, we are able to reflect the challenges and innovations we experience firsthand in our product development.

Q. Are there any other points to be aware of when running a company with 20 employees?
Because our organizational structure often involves multiple roles, we recommend designing authority levels based on "actual role units" rather than "department units."

Q. Can I really make a decision based solely on the free trial?
A 30-day period allows you to try out all the main business workflows.
If you're unsure, I recommend trying it on a small scale first.

13. Summary

The answer to the question, "Is CRM necessary for a company with 20 employees?" is a clear "yes."
This scale presents several conditions that make CRM implementation particularly effective: a high risk of reliance on individual responsibilities due to dual roles, a lack of an IT department making tool selection prone to personal bias, and a high likelihood of information overload typical of growth phases.
At the same time, the small number of people also has the advantage of allowing for faster company-wide adoption.
Please keep in mind the paradox that it's not "too early," but rather "now is the perfect time."

EMOROCO CRM Lite costs ¥1,500 per user per month (minimum 3 users) and has no initial setup fee, with a 30-day free trial.https://www.emoroco.com/You can start from there.
IT implementation subsidy eligible tool number: DL07-0022934.

We also offer a monthly newsletter, "ARCUS NEWS," which provides updates on EMOROCO CRM Lite and other useful information for CRM operations.
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Additionally, we publish useful articles about CRM 4.0 on note ( https://note.com/arcuss_crm ), so please check them out as well.

Related article

・Loss simulation if CRM is not implemented
・3-Step Introduction Guide
・Security Role and Form Permission Management Guide
・Causes and solutions for the "Data not entered into CRM" problem
・Customer information of Japanese companies is being targeted from all over the world.
・The Complete Guide to Migrating from Excel to CRM