What Northwave advise before implementing a CRM system?
6 important points you should consider before implementing a CRM system
Know exactly what you want to accomplish
A lot of times customers don't understand what they want or which CRM system will be best for their company, And, of course, if you don't understand what you want, you're not likely to get it.
Obviously, you want CRM to help the bottom line. How do you want CRM to do that? Do you want to increase sales to existing customers? Do you want to capture more customers? Do you want to integrate your marketing and customer-support efforts with sales? Do you want to increase customer satisfaction with better customer service? Are you looking for a single view of all your customer relationships for strategic planning? Do you want to track sales performance more closely? Do you want collect data to support and direct marketing campaigns?
CRM can do all these things, and it has helped companies make money by doing them. But if you don't know exactly what tasks you're tackling, it's hard to accomplish them. Avoid suffering from dashed expectations because your CRM software doesn't do what the various interest groups in your organization thought it was going to do.
Decide on Your Precise Goals as Early as Possible
You'll probably have several reasons for implementing CRM, so you'll need to rank them. Usually this is an exercise for top management. Management support is critical; they need to know exactly what they're supporting and why.
Figure out how big your CRM effort is. CRM is not a one-size-fits-all application. Different vendors tend to aim at different-sized companies. For example, implementing CRM in a smaller company puts a greater premium on flexibility. It's hard for a large company to achieve the same kind of flexibility that comes easily to a small company. Products aimed at large companies, on the other hand, tend to assume a much more detailed planning and implementation policy.
Note that the effort is not always related to the overall size of the company. A single division or field office of a very large organization may be better suited to using one of the CRM systems focused on smaller companies. However, if you're implementing CRM in a small division of a large company and considering rolling it out companywide later, you may want to use software that's designed for the size you're planning to scale to, rather than what's appropriate for the initial deployment.
Development
This phase can include any or all of the following activities, depending on your implementation plan:
-
Setting up hardware and installing software.
-
Installing Microsoft CRM in a limited use and test environment.
-
Testing Microsoft CRM.
-
Importing or migrating data.
-
Customizing the application and the reporting features.
-
Integrating Microsoft CRM into existing systems.
Look at Your IT Interfaces
You're probably going to want your shiny new CRM system to integrate with existing applications, such as accounting and your supply chain. Preplanning is the time to start looking at what applications you want to support, the kinds of information you'll want to exchange and the kinds of data formats you'd like to use. Note that this step is about starting to look at the IT issues, not about nailing anything down. You won't be able to get specific until you're further along in the process.
Know Your Existing Business Processes
Before you automate anything, you need to know how it works. You need to be able to draw a diagram showing the workflow of every major process your CRM will touch: what happens; who does it; how the work moves from one stage to the other; and that, yes, things really do work the way you think they do.
This isn't easy, but you'll find that documenting your processes will pay off even if you never implement CRM. By examining workflow you can find ways to speed up processes and make sure things don't fall through the cracks. Once you implement CRM, these workflow diagrams will be the basis of your effort. They will show you exactly what you're automating — or where you're changing it to make it more efficient.
Most CRM packages come with predefined workflows for common processes. However, you almost always want to use your own workflows rather than the stock ones. In making necessary workflow changes, you want to preserve the existing businesses processes that work. That's hard to do if you don't have a clear understanding of your current workflow.
If your staff can work with CRM in much the same way they did without it — or ideally, work in a better way that produces obvious benefits to them — you can both increase their comfort level and make them more willing to buy into the CRM system.
Post-Deployment
Although users may be given training and job aids to help them get accustomed to a new product, if they do not use the product, the organization will not realize its return on investment. A successful implementation plan should include change-management efforts and post-deployment follow-up to determine if your work force is using Microsoft CRM. Deploying a CRM system may involve significant change in process and daily tasks for members of the organization. A successful deployment ensures that issues and areas of resistance related to this change are identified and addressed through training, coaching, and other change-management practices.
Department managers must be on hand to set an example and support the implementation, both by talking about it and using it. Executive managers must demonstrate an on-going commitment to show that using Microsoft CRM is a permanent change.
And Finally: Don't Start with the Technology
There's a natural tendency to look at CRM as a technology and to want to start talking about software immediately. In fact, the technology is just about the last step. At bottom, CRM is about process. It's about developing processes that will let all your customer-facing operations run more efficiently and profitably.
Northwave Software can help with the above through our RC&A (Requirements Capture & Analysis) process enables the development of a detailed understanding of your requirements, business processes, workflow structures, technical infrastructure and required solutions. Armed with this information we will create a full business focused, functional and technical specification of your project to meet your needs.
To achieve this one of our Business Analysts will work with your team to get "under the skin" of your business - to get to the bottom of exactly what it is you need to make you business more successful.