How to successfully implement a CRM-system.Part one.

Much has been written about the fact that customer relationship management is an integral part of a successful business. It has also been written that CRM systems are a necessary tool for effective customer relationship management. And all this is true, as well as the fact that more than 60% of projects to implement CRM-systems do not justify the investment made in them. But this wiil not happen if you need best moving software.

PROJECT SUCCESS = RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN ITS IMPLEMENTATION

CRM-system - is a tool for long-term use, the life of which is calculated for 5 years or more. Therefore it is obvious that on the payback period of the project will be influenced by factors arising at different stages. This article will consider those that ensure the success of the project at the stage of Implementation and largely determine the prospects for return on investment at the stage of "Operation". 

So, for the "Implementation" phase we can distinguish two groups of such significant factors: 

1. Approaches to project organization: 

• Job Model; 
• Professional project management; 
• Project team; 
• Attention to the project from the company's top management. 

2. The composition of the design work: 

• Integrate CRM-system with other information systems of the organization; 
• Filling the system with primary data; 
• Management of knowledge accumulated and formalized during the project; 
• Ability to create a closed management cycle. 

In the first part of this article we will look at the factors that affect the whole project and arise during the preparation phase of the project. 

Model of work in the implementation of the CRM-system 

Despite the apparent simplicity of this point, many people underestimate the impact of this factor on the return on investment in the project. At its core CRM-technologies are technologies to support relationship management processes with people, and they need to be implemented in the same way as building relationships with people - gradually, smoothly and continuously. This is a key difference between CRM-technology implementation and most other technologies in the automation of business processes. 

The principle of "implement everything at once" is a bad ally in CRM-projects. If you go the classic route: 

• write a detailed terms of reference for a global CRM system, 
• perform the development of this most comprehensive system, 
• conduct a global implementation of the system, 

then, with high probability, you will confirm the sad statistics of implementations mentioned in the beginning of the article. 

Interactive method of project implementation will be more effective, which implies that the project team (supplier and customer representatives) actively interact with each other, discuss methods of project tasks implementation, prototype variants of future solutions to select the most effective and reject those that would be unacceptable for some reason. 

This approach solves two important problems: 

• Involve key company personnel in the project and minimize the risk of personnel resistance to the use of the CRM system at the earliest stages. 
• Minimize the impact of uncertainty that existed during the conceptualization phase of the CRM system, especially in technical and organizational issues. 

Compared to the traditional approach, this way looks more cumbersome and complicated, but in practice this approach leads more quickly to a positive result, of course, if a number of other conditions are met: 

• clearly spelled out and understood the purpose of the project (this problem is solved at the stage of selecting the CRM-system); 
• the roadmap for the project (the set of high-level tasks and their relationship between them, too, is developed at the stage of project preparation for the implementation of the CRM-system); 
• the process is managed by an experienced project manager. 

Professional CRM project management 

Another issue, the importance of which is often underestimated, is who will manage the project: to coordinate the work of all parties involved, monitor project risks, timely and clearly report to the project sponsor about its status, to offer solutions to problematic issues and "smooth over" the sharp edges in the relationship between project team members that inevitably arise during the project. 

If your organization does not have a specialist who has experience in implementing several CRM-projects, and enough time to continually analyze the status of the project and coordination of work, it is better to delegate this task to an external service provider, so as not to miss the moment when there is a dangerous for achieving the project goals: 

• Focus efforts on more understandable and well-known tasks, rather than on those that are necessary in terms of achieving the strategic goals of the project. In other words, improve what is already working well. 
• Engage in standardization and automation of processes which due to some objective circumstances change dynamically and the time and effort spent on their standardization will never pay off due to the high dynamics. 
• Refuse to perform critical project tasks, but not obvious, from the point of view of specialists who do not have much experience in implementing projects. For example, the initial filling of the system with data or the preparation of training programs. 

Forming a balanced project team 

If the preparatory work is done correctly at the stage of selecting a solution, then by this point you know exactly what competencies are needed and have an idea of who can provide them. 

For objective reasons, the project team is a "living" team, in which both planned and forced replacements occur. However, despite all the "replacements," the team should remain balanced in terms of competences in order to successfully complete the set tasks on time. 

There are always several options for obtaining the necessary competencies, each of which has its own strengths and weaknesses that must be taken into account: 

• In-house specialists 

No project to implement CRM-technology can be successful without the active participation of leading experts of the customer. An indisputable advantage of in-house experts is a good understanding of the peculiarities of doing business in their organization. Unfortunately, in-house experts often do not have a sufficient breadth of knowledge of possible methods of solving problems. But the biggest problem of involving their own specialists in projects is their employment in operational work, which has a negative impact on meeting project deadlines and the full documentation of knowledge on the project. Therefore, take care to back up your experts with a resource to help systematize and document knowledge, as well as compensate for the lack of knowledge of technologies and possible methods of solving actual problems. 

As for your own IT professionals, they are usually well versed in the intricacies and capabilities of working systems, but do not always have a deep knowledge of the capabilities of the technologies being implemented. This factor can be easily compensated by training. But when making a decision to train specialists you must always estimate the risks of keeping them on staff. Otherwise you may be left without the carriers of "secret" knowledge during the operation of the CRM-system, and in combination with the traditional problem of developing technical documentation for internal projects, all this combined can jeopardize the effective operation of the CRM-system during the required period. 

• Freelancers 

For any kind of task, it is possible to find lone specialists on the market who can compensate for the lack of specific competencies. Almost always such specialists are cheaper than specialists from integrator companies, and this is their advantage. But, more often than not, such specialists suffer from a disease that can be called "lack of documentation on the results of work. If you do not take care to organize a quality documentation process yourself, you can significantly complicate the maintenance and modernization of the system in the future, and thus threaten the return on investment in your CRM-system. 

• Contract with integrator 

The main difficulty is that even well known integrators with a large number of projects do not always offer qualified specialists for the project. But an indisputable advantage in favor of choosing a company-integrator is the legal responsibility for the results of the work and the ability to enter into a contract for the maintenance and development of the system on a long-term basis. 

When selecting a project team, it is necessary to evaluate specific performers based on the impact they have on the following project parameters (in descending order of importance): 

• The possibility and cost of subsequent support and development of the developed solution; 
• The quality of work; 
• Budget; 
• The speed of work. 

Yes, no matter how blasphemous it sounds, the budget is only in third place, because poor-quality work is not needed for any money, and the inability to modify the system after implementation is guaranteed to be detrimental to return on investment and make pointless spending a budget at the stage of implementation. Unfortunately, most often forget precisely about the first point, and as a consequence, investments made in the project come under threat at the stage of using the CRM-system. 

Attention to the CRM project from senior management

But even though there is a professional and experienced project manager, the participation of the company's top management in the project is essential. There are several reasons why the company's top management should pay attention to a project: 

• First, any change in the usual methods of work inevitably causes a defensive reaction on the part of those people affected by the change. It is naive to believe that a project manager can quickly deal with conflicts on his own without the support of senior management and influence the company's line managers, who do not report to the project manager;
• Second, almost all medium- and large-sized projects are likely to face situations where significant parameters of the project need to be changed: the amount of work performed or new deadlines need to be approved. Naturally, such major changes should be agreed with those who are personally responsible for the return on investment;
• Well, thirdly, the interest and involvement of the company's top management in project management best demonstrates the importance of the project for all employees, which has a beneficial effect on the project team's motivation and its desire to successfully complete the project.  

The next part will consider the second group of factors affecting the payback of the CRM-project - work on its implementation.