CRM Success Rule #11 - Plain Old Conviction - April 16, 2009 at 4:02 pm

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.