What do you want your CRM world to look like after go-live?

Wednesday 21st November 2012

CRM projects are notorious for not quite delivering on the promise. Too often, the effort and commitment doesn’t translate into true business benefit; all the hard work is wasted, the team is disillusioned and you’ve made no progress in modernising or optimising your systems and processes.

The art is to be clear on what you want your world to look like after your go-live, versus what it looks like now. What’s the problem you are trying to fix or the opportunity you are trying to grasp, that demands the need for new ways of doing things? If you’re not clear, the project shouldn’t really be started. If you start, there is every chance of it losing its way or of becoming a “skip”, the repository for random “nice-to-haves” for anyone passing by!

Success, then, should be about outcomes, benefits and change, not just about the technology! To get this right at the end of the project takes investment at the beginning. Identifying business benefits and outcomes as a fundamental part of your approach is as crucial as selecting the right technology toolset. Yes, make sure you select a potent, flexible solution that supports your needs, but understand that you will be asking your teams to work in different ways once your new technology is in place.

Managing that change, and making CRM deliver on the promise, is a lot easier if everyone was clear from the outset what the objectives were, and what they were not.