Readiness

CRM success does not just happen.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software creates a central

repository for all customer-facing activities, from marketing to sales to

customer service/support. The benefits of having this single view of the

customer are many, yet certainly different from one company to the next.

Company A may benefit from having its sales force know about a pending

support issue or shipment delay. Company B may benefit from being able to

drive sales from consistent marketing activities to target prospects. Company

C may benefit from establishing a consistent and reliable forecasting system.

Companies that have never had an enterprise-wide system for managing

prospect and customer information will need to focus on several issues prior

to software selection and implementation.

Some of these ìreadinessî issues include:

• Measurements of success

o An investment in CRM is made to achieve specific goals that

are both measurable and attainable. Some of these goals may

be revenue related, but many could be unit-based, or related to

customer satisfaction. Some examples include:

! Increase average deal size to over $100,000

! Maintain a close ratio of 60%

! Resolve 90% of customer service issues on the first call

• Executive Sponsorship

o CRM applications, even more than Enterprise Resource

Planning (ERP: accounting, distribution, manufacturing)

applications, affect multiple and sometimes distant departments

across the entire company. For this reason, and because

selecting, implementing, and maintaining a CRM application is a

lot of work, there needs to be clear leadership from an executive

sponsor, preferably the President or CEO

 Organizational commitment is also needed from the executive

level through mid-level management to front-line staff.

Process

o Unlike ERP implementations, where processes such as

Accounts Payable, Order Entry, and Manufacturing are well

defined, sales and marketing processes are sometimes ad hoc.

There are ìeagleî sales reps who consistently outperform their

peers, for example. Is the reason luck, or perhaps the process

that the eagle rep performs is different? With a CRM system,

processes will need to be consistent, because they will be built

into the CRM system. Some examples of processes to be

examined would include:

! Marketing

• Campaign management

• Lead qualification

• Lead distribution

• Channel (third party distributor/sales) issues

! Sales

• Sales process
• Sales methodology

• Territories

• Forecast process

Forecast methodology

! Service

• Service process

• Escalation procedures

• Organizational

o All departments that are part of the CRM effort should be

involved in the buying process, from requirements definition

through to selection and implementation. Key players in each

department need to be leaders for their peers.

Making a Plan

The ultimate goal of the software selection process is to make an appropriate

software selection, balancing cost, complexity, functionality, manageability,

scalability, technology, and other factors.

The software selection process has two phases. An example is below:

Phase 1: Requirements Definition

• Develop a requirements definition document by

o Interviewing/meeting with business process owners and current

software users including staff, mid-management, and

executives.

o Identifying potential areas of process improvement as a result of

removing constraints imposed by current systems

o Writing the requirements definition document

o Reviewing the document with process owners and executives

• Produce a final requirements definition document for prospective

software vendors in order to minimize duplicate and repetitive work on

the part of the client as well as software vendors

• Define goals and measurement criteria to assess project success

Phase 2: Software Selection

• Vendor Selection and Evaluation

• Develop list of potential vendors

• Narrow to ìshort listî

• Distribute requirements document for comment/response by

potential vendors

• Evaluate vendor responses

• Select vendors for solution presentation

• Vendor Requirement Definition/Solution Presentation

• Work with ìshort list vendors to confirm their understanding of

requirements

• Develop demo script based on requirements document

Plan, schedule, and ìrunî the Solution Presentation (demo)

process

• Explore hosted (ASP) vs. non-hosted alternatives, if appropriate

• Proposal Review/Contract

• Work with vendors to resolve any issues remaining from

solution presentation
• Review proposals

• Plan, schedule, and run proposal review sessions

• Negotiate contract, including project scope, software license

and professional services pricing, contract terms and conditions,

hosting Service Level Agreement (SLA) if applicable, and other

matters

Evaluating the Alternatives

Adler PPT has developed a software selection methodology that can be applied

to any type of business management software. It has particular relevance to

CRM and the unique issues that are a consequence of diverse, decentralized

environments. There are 8 key issues to be considered:

Functionality: Software features to automate business processes in

marketing, sales, and customer service/support

• Usability: User experience in both learning and using the software

• Solution Realization: Cost of software license, maintenance, support, and

implementation, implementation strategy and assistance, evaluating the

software vendor

• Integration: ìOut-of-the-boxî integrations included with the application or

available from the software vendor

• Technology: Software architecture tools for customization, tailoring, and

custom integration

• Internal Technology Support: Internal company application support

resources

• Access: How centralized or decentralized a company is for software access:

Will all users access the system from a single location, or is their a mixture of

in-house and remote users?

• International: Software features for international use

Each spoke of the model contains additional levels of complexity. Currently,

Adler PPT has compiled a database of over 275 considerations for CRM, all of

which are driven by a companyís unique needs. Some companies, for example, may have no current or
future international business considerations. For other

companies, only solutions with an international scope may be considered.

Adler PPT focuses on each companyís unique requirements to drive the creation

of the ìshort list,î and ultimately to narrow the potential software solutions to only

those that meet the business process needs (functionality) as well as the other

requirements in the model.

At the next level of the model, the graphic representation would be as illustrated

below:

. Implementation

Finally, implementation is also a key element in CRM success. Even the

most modest of CRM software initiatives can and should benefit from

focused, professional consulting assistance. After all, a business may

implement a CRM or ERP software package once every 7-10 years where

consulting firms will perform dozens of implementation every year.

An implementation plan should contain a Statement of Work containing at

least the following elements:

• Project Approach

o General information about how the consulting firm will

accomplish the work, including project status reporting

frequency, form, and content

• Project Plan

o This could vary in form depending on whether the

implementation is simple or complex, but generally should

consist of the major tasks in the project. Often a timeline is

included with the start date of the project as well as the

expected Go Live date.

• Project Deliverables

o This section should state the result of the work performed.

Some examples could include:

! Installation of database and software on server and (x

number of) workstations

! Any data conversion to be performed

! Any custom or modified reports

! Any training

! Customizations, if any

! (Depending on style, some of this content could be

included in the Project Plan)

• Customer Responsibilities

o Items that the customer is responsible for, such as providing a

Customer Project Manager and his/her responsibilities.

• Consultant Responsibilities

o General information about the implementerís responsibilities for

the project
• Project Assumptions

Contains assumptions that the implementer made in preparing

the statement of work, such as definition of ìout of scopeî work,

what hardware and software is to be provided by customer, etc.

In addition, at a minimum, the contract with the implementer should

contain specific information on:

o Billing rates and billing frequency

o Payment terms for services, software, and maintenance, as

applicable

o Terminology regarding notification if project will exceed estimate

o An itemized listing of software, services, billing rates, etc.

o Timeline for starting the project as well as estimated date of

completion

The contract should refer to statement of work as well as the proposal

so that there is no doubt as to what is included vs. what was

discussed. The contract should be signed and dated by both parties.

In conclusion, a successful CRM software selection and implementation bring

together elements of business goals, organizational involvement, and process

definition and improvement prior to examining specific software features.

Together, people, process, and technology must be unified to achieve

success.