Anyone who has ever owned a home knows the feeling of moving into a clean, empty space.  Initially, everything is in order, and everything has a place.  Over time, however, things begin to change… clutter starts to collect, carpets begin to wear, small things start to break, paint starts to peel, etc.  Left its own devices, a home that is not maintained will eventually collapse and become part of the dirt as it is weathered and worn.

Home ownership has a number of striking parallels to CRM custodianship.  Initially, we architect things exactly the way we like them and we load our clean, fresh data into the system so we can begin using it.  Over time, despite our best intentions, the quality of the data starts to diminish…duplicates emerge, incomplete records are entered, new attributes are added without backfilling into existing records, other functional areas make changes to the system that create inconsistency.  As the pattern continues, the usefulness of the system begins to decline because the outputs are unreliable.  Eventually, user adoption is negatively impacted, collaboration is lost, and “the system” is blamed as a failure.

There has been much written on the topic of how much bad data can cost an organization.  I recently did a Google search on the “Cost of bad CRM data” and received almost 2.5 million results.  I have not read them all, but I know that this is a significant issue, but one that can be managed.  The cost can be illustrated by asking questions like:
-    How much time is spent following up on unqualified leads?
-    How much marketing effort is spent marketing to stale contacts?
-    What is the bounce-back rate for campaigns?
-    How much time is spent trying to segment data for marketing?
-    How do you reconcile duplicate records?
-    Can you accurately score your leads?
-    Is there really a single view of the customer?
-    How much “automation” are you able to get from your sales automation tool as result of bad data?

One rule of thumb that we often use to illustrate the cost of bad CRM data is the 1:10:100 rule.  This rule proposes that for every dollar spent on proactive data maintenance would equate to $10 spent to reactively clean up.  To ignore the problem and continuously work around dirty data bumps that number up another factor of ten to $100.  In other words, prevention is key and procrastination is very costly.  Furthermore, we know that, on average, up to 25% of personal information (phone numbers, email addresses, etc) go stale on an annual basis.  Without continual updates, the cost of doing nothing is high.

The good news is that there is a way to keep your cloud based CRM system out of the dirt through a well planned and managed data maintenance strategy.  This critical step can make the difference between long-term CRM success and short-term fanfare. 

Governance
The first step in a data management process is governance.  The role of governance is to define for your organization the standards that will be required of your data.  This includes the creation of business rules and definitions that will be used to cleanse and monitor results.  For example, the governance group shall define:
-    How will data quality be defined?
-    What criteria will be used to define a duplicate contact?
-    What distinguishes a lead from a contact?
-    What level of activity (or inactivity) will be used to define whether a record is stale?
-    What is the strategy to deal with stale records?
-    What defines a complete record?
-    What type of data enrichment processes or technologies will be used?
-    What is an acceptable bounce back rate?
-    How will leads be scored?
-    What are the acceptable thresholds of duplicates as a % of the overall database?
-    How will data be segmented?
-    What is an acceptable rate of incomplete records?
-    What is the threshold for timeliness?
These sample questions provide some direction as to the type of governance policies that need to be in place to align the data strategy with the business goals, set benchmarks for performance, and create standardization.

Analysis/Profiling
Prior to building a house, an architect creates a detailed blueprint of the structure. Unfortunately, most data quality projects don’t take this same approach to building better data. Data profiling helps you determine the current state of your data and enables the discovery of issues.  These issues might be related to structure, completeness, redundancy, relationships, etc. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your data, particularly as they relate to the metrics that have been established by the governing body, profiling gives you a starting point for making substantial improvements.

As part of profiling, it is helpful to blueprint your CRM system to identify trends and high level inconsistencies.  The longer the system has been in use, the more likely it is that there are data discrepancies that have gone unnoticed over time.  These issues may range from major architectural problems to invalid pick-list entries or orphaned data element.

The ability to profile data and conduct a through analysis is as much related to the experience and ability of the analyst as it is the tools that are used.  Each situation and strategy requires careful consideration so be cautious of any silver bullets in this area.

Cleansing
Once patterns have been identified, the next step is to prioritize and address the highest impact issues.  On an initial pass, it may be necessary to assess the dependencies that exist between fixes and quantify the value behind addressing individual problems before you dive in.  Every decision has an opportunity cost associated with it, so it makes sense to make sure you are getting the highest value for your efforts.

Data cleansing is a general term merging duplicate records, purging/archiving outdated or invalid data, and generating exception files for those records that require some manual inspection.   Overall, this process is akin to housecleaning in that, the more often you do it, the less painful it is.  If you are the type that procrastinates all year until it is time for Spring cleaning, chances are it takes significant time and energy to get through the entire house.  However, if you develop a disciplined pattern of reviewing and cleansing on an ongoing basis, the process becomes much more manageable (and less disruptive to end users).

I alluded to the fact that some cleanup is manual.  This is a fact that is most commonly seen for de-duplication of data.  Two contacts exist with the same name, address and phone number; which is the “master”?  Sometimes these cases require manual inspection and such an effort should be built into your plan and governance policy.

Integration
One of the best ways to maintain clean data after an initial clean up is a sound integration and automation strategy.  Integration to a back end system helps to define and maintain integrity, uniqueness, and completeness of data.  The fact that some data records are often maintained in multiple systems is useful in establishing checks and balances, but be sure to clearly identify the system of record for all data components.

Common examples of data integration include product master integration or integration with an external marketing automation tool.  Both of these prove to enhance the end-user experience by establishing a single access point for all customer data.

Enrichment
Data enrichment extends data quality and integration by supplementing existing data with additional information from external sources.  The power of web services makes enrichment easy and establishes a synergy between your own organizations data and that of a third party.  For example, D&B, Hoovers and Jigsaw all offer data solutions that intelligently synch with your CRM solution to provide users with IP that they don’t have to source!

Data enrichment represents the best of both worlds when it comes to CRM and web services.  However, too much of a good thing can have a price.  It is the role of the governance team to provide direction to the organization as to which external data sources will be used for enrichment, how they will be used, and who is authorized to use them.  A sound strategy will help establish meaningful customer interactions and prevent abuse of your customers’ information.

Monitoring
Data quality issues are not solved once the system is set up.  Just like owning a home, it is necessary to continually observe changes, identify needs, and prioritize projects.  Maintaining high quality data requires diligence to prevent the atrophy of your solution and your end-user confidence.

The process of monitoring data should be supported by a series of key dashboards that support the data quality metrics of the organization.  In addition to these know metrics, the work to establish new standards should persist as changes to the CRM strategy require.  The house you move into today may not support your needs a few years from now, so it makes sense to keep your eyes open for changes that will impact your strategy, impact your data, and impact your approach to ensuring that your organization can successfully transform that data into information and knowledge.
 

I recently had a conversation with the VP of Sales at a large manufacturing company.  For the purposes of this discussion, I will call him John.  John and his sales organization have never had a centralized, collaborative CRM system before and they are about to begin a salesforce.com implementation.  Among the goals of the project is the need to consolidate the many point solutions they have used for managing their customers over the company’s 40-year history.   They recognize the need to establish consistent processes for the sales team and want to leverage workflow capabilities to improve communication.  After a series of fruitful meetings, John mentioned that he is working with IT to purchase mobile devices for the sales team because he has received a lot of demand from the team, and wants them to be as productive as possible with the new CRM tool.

The scenario described above is very common.  The benefits of leveraging mobile technology for a sales rep include increased productivity, more timely information, access to real-time data at the point of contact, and access to information without the overhead of lugging a clunky laptop.  All of this is theoretically sound, but don’t let your mobile strategy define itself without thoughtful consideration of questions that are sure to be raised as part of your implementation.  Addressing these issues proactively will allow you to separate fact from fiction and apply a mobile strategy that fits your organization and your users so that you can realize success.

Who are your users?
The diversity of the user base is a great place to start in defining a strategy.  It is common to have a mix of technologist and technophobes within the same sales team.  The technologists tend to demand all of the latest and greatest tools and technology as a means of making themselves more productive.  Without it, they claim that their efforts are diluted and they are bogged down with administrative overhead required to access information or log calls.  On the other hand, the technophobes will resist any sort of change, especially when it comes to technology, by claiming that the time spent to manage all of these new tools and gadgets will negatively impact the time they spend in front of the customer.

When it comes to mobile, you are wise to know your audience.  If your team is not accustom to using mobile technology for email and basic calendar management, you may want to take steps to introduce the device before you make it a critical component of your CRM strategy.  Users who have leveraged these tools in their personal lives or at a past job will be much more comfortable in adopting this technology as part of their work.

When it comes to people, it is also important to note that strong demand for a Blackberry, iPhone or other device from users who do not currently have these products, may be a red flag.  The grass may seem greener on the other side of the fence for those who have bought into the idea that these tools will make them more effective.  I recently worked with a sales group that insisted that they needed offline capabilities because they weren’t always “connected.”  Once we provided the offline functionality, they demanded mobile devices because they found it cumbersome to “lug around heavy laptops.”  Once they received the mobile device, they complained about the small screen and the difficulty of entering data with a small keyboard.  This is exactly the type of situation we want to control by proactively managing a mobile strategy.

How mature are your processes?
As the saying goes “Process before technology.”  Change management is a key component to any CRM implementation.  The introduction to new systems represents a disruption, and optimizing or changing processes will require that users have a clear understanding of their role and expectations.  The process of change must be managed deliberately to ensure that users are not left behind as they adjust to their new way of working. 

If process change is part of your implementation, it is common (and a good idea) for the mobile implementation is postponed to a second phase.  It is important that users are familiar with the goals they are trying to achieve before they take on learning how to manage multiple entry points. 

What do users need to do to get their job done?
It may seem obvious, but it is critical to give objective consideration to what your users need to accomplish using their mobile device.  A clear definition of use cases serves as the basis for streamlining key processes and maximizing efficiency for end users.  When defining mobile needs, many companies make the mistake of setting an expectation that anything that can be done with a laptop should be possible with a handheld, and this is simply not realistic.  Use case definition should help to separate fact from fiction when it comes to defining what functionality needs to be available.

The reality of a handheld is that the physical size, speed and ergonomics are significant challenges for some users.  These factors make processes that require consuming or reading data better candidates than those that require entering data.  This is especially true of complex data entry processes where there are many fields or pages to navigate.  This is not to say that call logging or data entry are not candidates, but scrutiny should be applied to processes that required extensive typing or scrolling as users will become easily frustrated. 

A failure to keep it simple when it comes to mobile will also likely equate to poor or incomplete data.  Typing on a small keyboard can be time consuming.  Moreover, navigating multiple screens can make a simple task daunting.  The resulting behavior for end-users is to cut corners, enter the minimum amount of data required, or neglect to enter anything at all.

What device suits your needs?
Mobile devices are not all created equal and there is no one answer to which is the best.  The strategy established must be consistent with the goals of the organization and the tools must be right for the job.  A thorough analysis of the right device should include alignment with the mobile use cases, feature functionality of the device, device-specific feature support offered by your CRM software, customization capabilities, and the service network.

How will security be maintained?
Finally, the need to secure your data and protect the intellectual property of the organization must be considered.  Users may demand access to ALL data through their mobile device, but the strategy must consider the risk of a lost or stolen device.  For ease of use, most systems do not require that users enter a password each time they are accessing their CRM application on the mobile device.  For this reason, it is important that data is evaluated by sensitivity so judgments can be made about what will and what will not be accessible.  Furthermore, a password policy on the device itself should be mandatory if there is risk of a breach.

This is not an exhaustive list of mobile strategy components, but does represent some key points of consideration.  The cost of implementing a mobile solution is not insignificant, so these basic questions will help to proactively plan rather than having to backtrack and repeat.
 

Companies taking on a CRM initiative, whether it a new concept or simply a new system, wisely leverage outside help for technical expertise and strategic best practice. Each situation, organizational culture, and level of readiness presents its own unique set of circumstances, but there are some universal truths when it comes to implementing CRM. One of the highest value items on the priority list should be education and change management.

It is generally accepted by those who have extensive CRM experience, that the “if you build it they will come” mentality does not work. As a result much has been written and published on the topic. However, for some reason, this tends to be the first part of an implementation that companies feel comfortable scaling back or omitting all together. I’m not certain whether it is a budget consideration or simply de-emphasized due to a focus on seemingly more pressing issues like technology and data. Whatever the case, my goal is to extend a not-so-subtle reminder that this is an essential (if not the most essential) part of your project.

To stress this point, it is helpful to map some of the key benefits of CRM training to specific adult learning characteristics identified by Malcolm Knowles, the father of adult learning.

1. Adults need to know why they are learning something before they invest the time. The “Why” is at least as important as the “How” when it comes to establishing strong user adoption and acceptance. The change management plan and the training curriculum provide an opportunity to explain to users why the company is investing in CRM and what advantages it will offer for both the company and themselves personally. These initiatives are not about the system, and the focus is not on the technology no matter how intuitive the system might be. A context needs to be established based on the business climate, market conditions and company performance goals. The insight into the strategic nature of the project will help establish a common goal and dispel the notion that big brother is learking.

2. Adults enter a learning situation with a self-concept of themselves as self-directing, responsible grown-ups. When children learn, they respond to adults because of the inherent credibility that an adult teacher displays. Adult learners are much more discriminating, and in some cases, skeptical. It is important that the training environment be able to answer the questions of “What’s in it for me?” related to this new system or process. For a sales person that has made a career out of tracking their contacts in a Rolodex and closing deals on the back of a napkin, they are going to need to understand the value for them as they are being asked to collaborate.

3. Adults come to a learning situation with a wealth of experience and a need to contribute. The training environment for CRM is as much for sharing and discussion as it is for direction. New users feel a sense of ownership and contribution being able to talk through their most difficult use-cases and being able to identify how they will address them in this new environment. Without this forum, there is often the assumption that “this won’t work for me” or that nobody cared enough to involve me.

4. Adults are more responsive to internal motivators such as self-esteem than they are to external motivators such as salary. The training sessions serve as a test run. Some managers take the approach that their end users will be able to figure things out soon enough by themselves, but they are discounting the value of a first impression. Allowing users to struggle with a new system or process will most certainly stir negative emotions in the adult learner and will de-motivate them in the long run.

It is possible that the management of a new CRM initiative acknowledges all of these factors, but still cuts training from the project due to budget constraints. Although this seems reasonable in terms technically getting a system in place, I submit that it is counter-productive to your plan and your project’s NPV. The reason? I am certain that ROI cannot be achieved on a system that nobody is using, and user adoption WILL suffer without a well-established training program. I have no good answer for the philosophical question “If a tree falls in the woods and there is nobody to hear it, does it make a sound?”, but I do know that a superbly built CRM system with no users will yield no value to the organization.

For many companies exposed to sales automation tools for the first time, workflow is identified as a key driver of success. After all, allowing a system to monitor your data and intelligently notify appropriate parties that they need to take action is an attractive proposition. In this way, workflow puts the “automation” in Sales Force Automation (SFA). As attractive as this feature may be, there are some guidelines that should be considered before going overboard with workflow.

First, workflow should be used as a means of complimenting your business process; your business process should not be dependent on workflow. The old adage of “process before technology” is important to remember as you want your saels organization to understand and comply with the processes that have been defined rather than relying on a the system to execute a process for them. This approach, although commonly controversial among sales teams, will assure them a wider visibility to the business and allow them to think before they act. If sales could be scripted into a series of workflow rules we would not need sales people.

A best practice is to leverage workflow for transactional processing and cross-departmental communication. CRM is largely about collaboration, both internal and external. Workflow can be invaluable to ensure that communication is happening consistently.

Second, there is an inherent problem with email as a workflow output. We have been conditioned to see sending as email as an endpoint that allow us to check off that a communication has been sent and move on to our next obligation. It defies ownership in some respects and can be dangerously overused; especially when there is the assumption that the email recipient will follow through as expected. Even in 2009, there is value in human-to-human interaction, follow up and diligence. If email is used as the sole mechanism of communication, problems will not go away; they will just become automated!

Third, be careful not become carried away with workflow (particularly email). Receiving notifications for every new opportunity entered in the system does not elicit the same response from a recipient on the 100th notification as it did on the 1st. Be weary of the fact that a white-noise effect can exist so too much of a good thing can cloud the message.

Take the approach of using automated workflow for exception notifications to help bolster their effectiveness. Define critical instances where a process is NOT being followed and alert impacted parties of that fact. To remember this rule, keep in mind the analogy of the “out of office alert.” Would it be effective to notify the sender of an email that the recipient is IN the office every time they sent an email. I think the clear answer is No; it would be annoying. Instead, we send an out of office reply to the sender when the expected condition is false to elicit the appropriate response.

Finally, when designing your workflow strategy, leverage alternatives to traditional task and email notification. Consider custom views and reports as an effective way for users (who understand the business process) to easily extract the information they need from the SFA tool. These designs have a primary benefit of being more effective and a secondary benefit of driving users into the SFA application and out of email.

This post is part 2 of the "What’s in it for me discussion." Part 1 is here.

Provide the visibility they need to further penetrate existing accounts (farming vs. hunting)
The collaboration gains in a CRM implementation will support the ability for users to see beyond their own functional area and into upstream and downstream processes that affect the customer.  Sales can leverage the institutional memory of the organization to further penetrate existing accounts.  It is generally cheaper to retain a customer and “farm” for new business than it is to “hunt” for new customers, so it makes sense that they benefit from some of the tactical information that is captured in CRM as well as the more strategic elements.

Pricing analysis and other deal metrics
A CRM tool can become a training tool to allow average performers to learn from the rainmakers.  The visibility into pricing strategy, call frequency, and account planning can all prove as useful.  Do you ever wonder what makes the same people out perform others month after month and quarter after quarter?  Is it merely a function of their account portfolio or is there some skill involved?  I bet the lesser performing members of the team would appreciate some insight that would allow them to develop their book of business, but don’t have the opportunity to learn from the masters.

In the event that the detailed deal information is sensitive, sales managers can summarize key data and highlight trends in performance. 

Institutional memory
Seasoned sales professionals know the pain of realigning territories and inheriting new customers.  Maybe this pain is the result of an organizational change, new sales strategy, or through the attrition of their peers.  The pain is the result of an inability to effectively capture the institutional memory that comes from working an account, establishing relationships and servicing the needs of the customer.  The inheriting of someone else’s customer often means starting from scratch and the reality of needlessly rebuilding a report. 

CRM is the virtual milk-crate that allows a sales person or customer support representative to learn the history of their customer quickly and avoid getting blindsided by an unknown issue.  Being educated on an initial call can impress key contacts and drastically shorten the runway between your first contact and the next sale.
 

The successful strategy for CRM implementation in your organization needs to be well thought out and aligned to your culture, business needs and problems. However, there is significant value to examining what has worked (and not worked) for others that have blazed this trail before you. This two-part post will address some of the guiding principles and success factors that you can use within your own organization if you are looking to implement some aspect of CRM or if you are finding a need to re-implement CRM after a failed effort.

First, I think it is helpful to establish that CRM is not software. Instead, it is a mindset and a culture that is reinforced by a set of defined business processes while being enforced, automated, and supported by software. This definition lends some comfort in knowing that the major hurdles are not technical, however, one must come to terms with the fact that leading people-change is much more difficult than building technology.

Affecting real change in people requires an understanding of what motivates them. Whether it is opportunity for advancement, meaningful work, money, power, or any other factor that motivates people, we must find a way to tap into those things for change to persist. For the purposes of this discussion, we will assume that money and the ability to close more deals are the key motivators of a sales force. Sales people are generally thought to be “coin operated” in terms of their motivations so the validity of this assumption should hold up.

Allowing sales people to make more money means that they need to close more deals, and your CRM program should be designed to allow them to do so. If the sales organization is convinced that this is the case, they will advocate the system, comply with the processes and show the results that align with your business goals. Simple, right? Well, although this is the logic, I think that a bit more exploration of the specific of “How” CRM will accomplish these goals is in order. After this discussion, you should feel comfortable answering the question “What’s in it for me?” The answers will help to refine your strategy to prevent your CRM implementation from simply being a scoreboard that allows management to see that is something happened, and instead become a tool that the sales organization uses as a tool to score (close deals).

Spend more time selling
The number one concern that I hear from sale people faced with using a new CRM system is that the overhead that comes from managing their work within a system is going to take away from the time they spend in front of customers. In fact, this should be one of the primary benefits of CRM to the end user. The “Automation” aspect of Sales Force Automation (SFA) is the foundation of any CRM tool. Sales people will have the ability to generate sales letters, access marketing collateral, RFP responses, product info, presentations, demos, and a host of other information at the click of a button. Without a tool in place and processes to support it, they are likely spending countless hours manually generating these outcomes or digging in multiple sources in an attempt to locate them.

Process guide/best practice deployment
A customized selling process needs to be defined from the bottom up and then the top down (not the reverse). The rainmakers in your organization are uniquely qualified to help define best practice and the CRM system will facilitate the deployment of those practices. Those in the sales organization who help to define the process by which the company will drive sales are often invigorated by the opportunity to have such an impact that the lesser performing folks have difficulty arguing with results. Furthermore, the CRM system will offer the ability to institutionalize best practice and centrally manage its effectiveness. When the time comes for a change, that change can be managed centrally as well.

Establish link between sales and marketing
Believe it or not, many organizations struggle to establish a synergy between the marketing and sales functions. If you are nodding your head, read on. Marketing should be seen as an ally to Sales because lead generation fuels opportunities for new deals. However, Sales is often frustrated by the unqualified leads that get passed on from marketing and reacts by dismissing the validity of those leads. In reverse, Marketing is frustrated by their inability to demonstrate their effectiveness because the Sales organization is not following up on the leads that they generate.

CRM can help bring science to this issue by introducing lead scoring and lead qualification criteria that leverage empirical data to support their effectiveness. The result is better leads that increase the potential for a sale. For the salesperson, the odds go up, and they find themselves working smarter rather than harder to bring in a new customer.

For CRM users and strategists, the inherent value of centralizing customer data for the purposes of collaboration and presenting a single face to the customer is well understood. The goal is to break down functional and individual silos to bring value to the customer relationship and encourage an open means of communication, management, planning and support. Current and historical customer data represents tremendously valuable intellectual property and institutional memory that lives beyond the attrition of any individual in the organization.

Having said that, what happens when the vision becomes a reality? What happens when this valuable IP is readily accessible at the fingertips of your sales reps? These questions are often met with a feeling of gratitude and accomplishment at first, but that feeling is soon followed by a sinking feeling that resembles that of the first time you realized that you left your teenager home alone for the weekend. You want to trust that they will do the right thing, but there is that part of you that is not so sure.

How does an organization balance the benefits of deploying on enterprise CRM solution with the challenges protecting corporate IP? If you open up your data to be completely “collaborative,” are you being reckless? If you lock it down into silos, are you any better off than you were before?

Remember your objectives
Before you hit the panic button and lock down the system to the point where there is no possibility for collaboration, remember your core objectives. The security model can be no more restrictive than the business processes that have been established. For example, customer service cannot better service the customer without any visibility into the activity surrounding that customer. When designing your system, include thoughtful steps to ensure that users have enough information to service their customer base, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they need the keys to the entire castle. Categorize the data needs of individual and groups of users to make sure you are striking the correct balance.

Separate real security issues from paranoia
There are legitimate security concerns that impact the competitive position of the organization. There may also be legal obligations imposed by regulation or commitments to customers that must be honored as part of your design. These issues need to be accounted for in your requirements, and your CRM system’s security model must be robust enough to accommodate them.

A separate class of concern arises out of paranoia of what might happen if customer information is viewed, shared, printed, downloaded, or stolen. Security breaches are much more likely to come from an internal source than an external one. The decisions made to address this type of concern need to weigh the risks against the opportunity costs of locking down the data. The answers are generally not black and white, so be prepared to compromise and live with at least some level of risk.

Leverage technology
The tools used to manage customer data will allow you some flexibility to be creative in the information you choose to share vs. protect. As part of your data categorization effort, identify whether it is necessary to secure entire classes of data, only certain records, or maybe just particularly sensitive data fields. The trade-off here is that, the more exceptions you make, the more complex the administrative effort is going to be maintain the system.

Trust, but verify
When addressing change management, we generally try to suppress the notion of a CRM system being used as “Big Brother” to the sales force. However, there is some validity to the need to monitor activity and look for behavior that may create cause for concern. The use of activity reports and logging of usage information can be helpful in identifying trends.

When security concerns still remain, some organizations have drafted non-disclosure agreements and usage policies for all of their CRM users to sign. As a last resort, this can provide your organization with some legal protection and also helps to reinforce the sensitivity of the data with the users.

CRM implementation strategies are often decorated with goals like establishing “Holistic view of the customer”, “360 degree view of the customer”, and “One-stop shop”. These are ambitious goals when you consider everything that is required to effectively identify, secure, service, and maintain a customer. Ambitions should not be squelched by the enormity of the effort, but keep in mind that it is always better to work smart than it is to work hard.

In anticipation of building the perfect system for your sales organization, it is important to manage some common risks.

People don’t like change
I admit that this is a generality, but chances are there are a number of salespeople in your organization that fall into this camp. There are very few sales people that are excited to change the way they work in favor of a new process or new software that is going to change their life, particularly if they have not been exposed to CRM before. Whether they embrace change or not, there is a practical limit to the amount of change that can be absorbed at one time, so maintain sensitivity to this with a solid communications plan, a prioritized roadmap, and lots of training.

An inch deep and mile wide
By trying to incorporate a lot of functionality into your CRM tool, there is always the risk of sacrificing richness of functionality just to get everything under one roof. As the saying goes, “If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well.” This is not to say that you should spend time over-engineering your system, but rather invest the time to understand what features and functions are most important to your users and ensure that they are incorporated.

Artificial intelligence
There is a balance between building a system that helps your organization effectively manage their customer relationships and that which completely eliminates the possibility of human error. You customers cannot be managed solely by technology, so avoid the trap of trying to build a system that is laden with alerts, email blasts, and security that is targeted at preventing users from ever making a mistake. Trying to anticipate every possible user error is guaranteed to slow progress and introduce technical over-engineering. This time would be better spent on your change management and training plan.

Reinventing the wheel
Some systems and applications just work well and are not worth the effort to rebuild or re-engineer into a single tool. For example, most CRM tools come with some ability to send email through the application; this does not mean that you should make plans to rid your salespeople of their email system.  In the same way, spellchecking ability should not be a queue to get rid of your word processing application. Instead, look for ways to integrate your legacy applications to leverage what they do best while making for the most intuitive use-model as possible for your users.

Replicating data
In the world of the web, the term integration does not always mean replicating data. Sure, there are some valid reasons to use ETL tools to move data from one data store to another, but each integration case needs some analysis. In the SaaS world, it is faster, cheaper, and more effective to integrate at the user interface layer through mash-ups and dashboards. When possible, leave the data where in the data warehouse or the system of record, and leverage services to access the data and visual tools to represent the data in your CRM application.

You CRM system can be a powerful enabler for you sales people and your organization as a whole. A solid vision will be a valuable tool in guiding the path to long term success, but consideration of these stumbling points should help accelerate your progress.

What do Siebel, RightNow, Oracle CRM, Microsoft Dynamics, and Salesforce.com all have in common? The answer is that none of them will change your business and further your CRM effectiveness all by themselves. If you are looking at any of these systems as being the savior for your organization, you are going to find yourself disappointed unless you augment your system with some conviction.

The benefits of CRM are well documented. Business of all sizes have, even in a down economy, made the investment in technologies and processes that will allow them to be more efficient, more effective, and more ROI focused in their sales and marketing activity. The recent economic slide has practically required that business leaders get serious about nurturing their existing customers and establish a sound plan for attracting new ones. However, the implementation of a CRM system does not, by itself, make for a CRM strategy.

The business problems (or opportunities) that drive the implementation of CRM foster deep-rooted convictions of the organization. These convictions represent the foundation from which the CRM strategy needs to be derived. Examples of common convictions include:

• customer retention
• margin retention
• market penetration
• growth rate
• reduction in sales cycle time
• response rate on new leads
• improved service levels
• competitive strategy
• market intelligence
• management of key sales activities
• and on and on and on….

The decisions that you make as part of your CRM solution implementation need to be targeted at accomplishing your strategy as you have defined it. User adoption and overcoming technological hurdles are important, but must not overshadow the core business needs that drive you to this investment.

When establishing your roadmap, make sure to communicate, design, train, reinforce, and manage to your convictions. Make no mistake that your success or failure is going to be more a function of your strategy in accomplishing these goals than it will by features and functionality of your software purchase.