The document discusses key aspects for a successful CRM system implementation, beginning with adopting a customer-focused philosophy throughout the organization. It emphasizes defining clear business goals and involving employees and customers in reviewing processes to identify problems. The implementation should have a project team and steering group to guide selecting a CRM system that supports new customer-focused processes, as defined in a business requirements document. After implementation, a review should assess if goals were met and identify further improvements.

1. Successful CRM systems start with a customer focused philosophy
By Richard Bowden PhD, C.Eng.
RB Consulting (www.rbconsulting.ie)
Increasingly, organisations from different business sectors are using customer
relationship management (CRM) systems to help boost sales and revenues.
Depending on the approach that they adopt in selecting and implementing such a
solution, they may have mixed results in terms of their sales and revenues. In this
article, I discuss various aspects that will help to ensure a successful implementation
of a CRM solution that provides practical business benefits.
There are many perceptions of CRM systems, ranging from a sophisticated contact
management system to a sales planning and management system and that CRM
systems are primarily a tool for Sales functions. CRM systems do indeed encompass
these important customer and sales related functions, but CRM systems can have a
greater scope and consequently a greater contribution to the success of a business and
its’ relationship with its end-customers. An appropriate CRM system can bring
benefits throughout organisation, covering marketing, sales and customer service
functions as well as facilitating better exchange of customer information with the
various back office functions such as invoicing and distribution. To achieve this scope
and impact, when an organisation is considering implementing a CRM system, it
firstly needs to realise that customer relationship management is a philosophy as well
as a system and that philosophy needs to be adopted in all aspects of the
organisation’s business as a first step. The true CRM philosophy is a tried and trusted
one that involves putting the customer first. To implement the philosophy, an
organisation needs to view every interaction or task that impact on a customer through
the customer’s eyes in terms of whether it adds any practical value to the relationship
with the customer. It is important not to underestimate the scope of this review as it
not only includes activities where customers interact directly with an organisation, but
also those back office administrative activities that are deemed necessary in fulfilling
customers’ orders or queries.
To help define the ‘success’ that the organisation is aiming for with the customer
focus review and the new CRM system, a set of clear and concise business goals
should be defined. These goals can include specified targets such as growth in repeat
customers, faster turn-around of customer service queries, improved success rates
from marketing campaigns. Later, as new process changes are being implemented and
after the appropriate CRM system is implemented, these targets can be measured to
assess the progress that the overall review and implementation is achieving.
Another key element in this review is the involvement of the ‘right’ contributors to
ensure no innovative changes are missed. The ‘right’ contributors include employees
that work with the processes on a daily basis, as well as the customer of the various
processes under review. As organisations have developed, the definition of customer
has broadened as well to include not only the traditional end-customer, but also other
internal employees who await the completion of a process or receipt of information
before being able to complete their own activities. Seeking feedback from customers,
internal and external to the organisation, can help to highlight problems which were
previously unnoticed, due to the daily routine in the organisation, where everybody
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2. just got on with their responsibilities unaware of the impact on the quality of service
to the end-customer. Another important contribution to the review can be made when
the organisation takes time out to review and learn from the latest best practices from
its own business sector, its competitors and other business sectors with similar
processes.
As organisations’ business processes become customer focused, there is an added
benefit for the organisation’s employees in that processes inevitably become
streamlined and any unnecessary administrative overheads are removed. So
employees can benefit by focusing on more value adding activities. In today’s
business world, compulsory regulation and compliance measures are impacting more
and more on business processes. However with a true customer focus, alternative
ways can be found which ensure that the main principles of the regulations are
maintained, but reduce or even eliminate any unnecessary impact on the customer.
As with any organisation-wide project, it is important to ensure that the team charged
with the implementation has appropriate representation from the organisation’s
internal functions and that team is being lead by an individual who has an in-depth
understanding of CRM concepts and the benefits it can bring to the organisation. In
addition, this implementation team and its leader should have access to a project
steering group which would consist of the organisation’s chief executive and each of
the internal function’s representatives on the senior management team. With the
planned process changes and the implementation of a new CRM system, this steering
group will provide the necessary authority and support for whatever measures are
necessary to ensure a successful outcome to the project.
With the appropriate project team and steering group in place, the next component to
assist the progress of the customer focus review and implementation of a CRM
system, is the establishment of an effective decision-making framework. The
decision-making framework maps out the various roles and decision-making and
communication responsibilities of the steering group and project team, as well as the
organisation wide communication processes that will be used on the status of the
project. Such a framework helps to ensure that any decisions made as part of the
review and implementation are made in a comprehensive manner and are effectively
communicated throughout the organisation.
In selecting the appropriate CRM system for their organisation, the project team need
to ensure that the system can support the new customer-focused processes. By
compiling the detail behind the new customer focused processes into a business
requirements document, the project team have the correct checklist with which to
assess the relative fit of different CRM software solutions to the organisations’
specific needs.
At this point, the project team with the support from the steering group may decide to
proceed with implementing some or all of the process changes while they are in the
process of selecting the appropriate system. While the appropriate CRM system will
support employees in working in a more customer-focused fashion, it does not have to
delay the implementation of the planned process changes. From a change
management perspective, this can be beneficial in that employees can familiarise
themselves with the new process changes initially and then at a later stage be more
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3. prepared for the implementation of the new CRM system. If such a decision is made
to proceed with implementing the redesigned business processes, then an appropriate
implementation plan should be drafted which contains milestones for:
Updates to internal manuals with details on the new redesigned processes
Training the appropriate employees
Communicating appropriate information with end-customers and suppliers
Any preparatory tasks such as changes to end-customer documents
Practice runs of the new processes
Going live with the new processes
The implementation of new processes is a topic which merits an article in it’s own
right, but one of the key decisions in this area is the method of implementation. This
may be completed on a phased basis or on a ‘big-bang’ approach, depending on the
number of processes impacted and the potential impact of change within the
organisation on it’s regular day-to-day business.
To ensure that the assessment of different CRM solutions is completed
comprehensively, the implementation project team should use a structured tender
process, based on the specified business requirements. In addition to the business
requirements, a list of technical requirements should be drawn up to ensure that the
CRM system will operate and integrate with the other systems in the organisation’s IT
environment. Typically, the technical requirements can include:
The operating software system(s), database system(s) and hardware
platform(s) in use within the organisation
Web/user interface design standards (if applicable)
Data integration requirements with other systems in the organisation
Likely transaction levels that occur in a regular business cycle within the
organisation
A structured tender process involves the use of a comprehensive set of selection
criteria, encompassing degree of fit with business and technical requirements, degree
of customisation needed, analysis of the different cost factors as well as assessments
of the quality and experience of the system suppliers. By scoring the various suppliers
and systems according to the selection criteria, the list of suppliers can be reduced to
final two or three likely candidates. The tender process then progresses to the review
of ‘proof-of-concept’ demos from each of the final candidates, visits to reference sites
and final discussions to clarify each proposed solution’s fit to requirements. Using
this detailed analysis, the implementation team will be in position to make a
recommendation to the steering group for its choice of the appropriate CRM system.
After an appropriate period of time when the implementation is complete, usually
three to six months, a post implementation review should be undertaken. This review
will focus on how well the desired business goals and benefits identified at the start of
the project were met by discussing the impact of the new system with the users on the
day to day running of the business and measuring the changes in the identified targets.
The conclusions from this review can lead to variety of recommendations including
extra user training, further system or process enhancements to support the business
better and potential new uses for the system. Ideally the business goals can form the
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4. basis of a set of business metrics that can be used on an ongoing basis to ensure that
the CRM system supports and enhances the customer focus of the organisation.
With the definition of a customer broadening and the inclusion of all processes either
directly or indirectly impacting on the customer’s experience of doing business with
an organisation, the potential for the appropriate CRM system to be more than a point
solution becomes evident. From planning marketing campaigns, to sales pipeline
analysis to the management of after-sales care to ongoing customer contact, the right
CRM solution can encompass all these functions and ensure that the information is
shared between front office sales and marketing functions and back office finance and
administrative functions. The implementation of any system within an organisation
can be a challenge, but with the appropriate focus on process, technology and change
management, it can be managed in an effective manner.
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