SugarCon 2010 - CRM As A Strategy
•
3 likes•580 views
All too often, CRM is thought of as a product or tool, not a strategy. This mistaken assumption can lead companies astray. In this session, SugarCRM co-founder and vice president of products Clint Oram will provide a new framework for how companies should think about CRM. Based on years of experience working with companies of all sizes on CRM initiatives, Oram will distill the steps companies need to take to be successful in customer relations and how to avoid common pitfalls around CRM initiatives. At its heart, CRM is a strategy that demands a clear understanding of a company’s current state, and setting clear, quantifiable measurements for where they need to go.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Featured
Featured (20)
SugarCon 2010 - CRM As A Strategy
- 1. 4/12/10 ©2010 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved. 1
- 2. ©2010 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved. CRM as a Business Strategy Clint Oram VP ProductsCo-founder 4/12/10 2
- 3. CRM – Where Do You Start?
- 4. Customer Relationship Management 05/08/09 ©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
- 5. Customers 05/08/09 ©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
- 6. Goals People Process Technology Customers 05/08/09 ©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
- 7. Goals People Process Technology Customers 05/08/09 ©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
- 8. Goals People Process Technology Sales Marketing Customers Services Services 05/08/09 ©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
- 9. Goals People Process Technology Sales Marketing Customers Services Services 05/08/09 ©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
- 11. Different Stages
- 20. CRM Adoption Curve 4/12/10 ©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved. 20 Unique Differentiation Generic CRM Process Optimized Manual
- 22. Data locked in emails & spreadsheets
- 23. No measurement or visibility 1. Generic CRM Process Optimized Manual
- 25. Source of shared data
- 26. Limited measurement and visibilityGeneric CRM Process Optimized Manual
- 29. Accurate measurement and clear visibility3. Differentiation Generic CRM Process Optimized Manual
- 31. Integrated and scalable systems
- 32. Quickly adapt to changing marketUnique Differentiation Generic CRM Process Optimized Manual
- 33. Where Sugar Partners Can Help You 4/12/10 ©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved. 25 Optimized 4. Unique Defined 3. Differentiation 2. Managed Manual 1. Generic CRM Process Optimized Manual
- 34. Over 6,000 Customers Worldwide 4/12/10 Copyright © 2009 SugarCRM, Inc. All rights reserved. 26 Copyright © 2009 SugarCRM, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2009 SugarCRM, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 35. Local Partners in Every Geography 4/12/10 Copyright © 2009 SugarCRM, Inc. All rights reserved. 27
- 36. Thank You Clint Oram clint@sugarcrm.com
Editor's Notes
- But before we jump into the details, let’s first make sure we are all on the same page here around a common definition of Customer Relationship Management. Plain and simple, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is how a business attracts and retains customers.
- As you focus on gaining and retaining customers, it is important to understand that simply buying a new CRM system won’t magically deliver results by itself. Rather, your company needs to adopt a CRM strategy that includes these key elements:
- First, you have to identify what you’re going after. Lay out the goals for your marketing, sales and services organizations.
- Next, you have to build your customer-facing teams, hire your marketing, sales and customer support professionals who will be on the front lines of building a relationship with your customers
- then define your customer-focused CRM processes, how exactly you will capture new leads, engage in a sales discussion with those leads, turn those leads into customers, and then keep those customers happy
- Finally, then implement a CRM system married to those processes and train your people on those processes and technologyIn short, CRM is a business strategy, not just a software solution. And at the core of every CRM Strategy is one very simple question…”How do I be more responsive to my customers and prospects than my competitors?”
- And as with every business strategy, companies don’t succeed by boiling the ocean but by evolving their processes along the way. In other words, defining and implementing a CRM strategy takes time and focus.
- And in this evolution there are different stages. Before we go into these stages, let’s look at a couple example companies and understand their CRM environment.
- Since we’re here in Australia, I did a quick search for a company that I could use as our first example. Please note that their existing situation may be different from what I’m portraying here.Intero Real Estate Services was founded in 2002 and became the fastest growing company in the history of real estate. Today, we are the #1 real estate company in Silicon Valley and have extended our reach across the country and around the globe. The Intero family now includes over 1,800 agents 40 offices. They say they achieved this success by remaining faithful - in good markets and bad - to the principles of trust, respect, integrity and innovation our founders established at the beginning.Group of independent agents sharing common resourcesNo sharing of sales informationEverybody is keeping their sales expectations closes to the chestVery manual processEvery morning the sales manager expects ax excel report of new and pending sales in his/her inboxThe sales manager goes inputs all this info in his/her master spreadsheet and runs a reportThe sales manager is expected to send an update to the owner by 11 amAfter the update is sent out, the sales manager does the rounds of all sales people and goes out and offers his/her help in closing deals.What do you believe are some of the CRM attributes that apply toIntero?
- The founding of a new kind of localization firmAcclaro is the creation of a team of colleagues who helped pioneer modern translation and localization, transforming it from a niche business in its early days to a thriving and essential international industry. As the industry took shape in the early ‘90s, numerous localization firms were rolled into ever larger, public companies. Businesses seeking more personalized service than these large firms could provide were challenged by the limited experience of smaller agencies and frustrated by a lack of world-class providers. A new kind of localization servicesAs leaders in the field, Acclaro’s founders realized it was time to create a new kind of localization services firm — one that could manage complex projects and provide superb service to nurture lasting relationships and produce tangible results. Acclaro was founded in 2002 to fulfill this vision. Acclaro has offices and affliates on four continents. Sales cycles for their translation services can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to in some cases a few years. As a professional services company, their sales cycles are multi-step with often several decision makers involved. Once a contract is signed, a team of translation professionals engages with a customer to define and deliver on a translation project. With a market place dominated by a few big names that have recently gone on a shopping spree to consolidate down to a few vendors, Acclaro has to work hard to stand out in the marketplace.What do you believe are some of the CRM attributes that apply toAcclaro?
- "Bicycles built by hand for YOU, not the masses”At Anderson Custom Bicycles we specialize in building one of a kind custom bicycles and frame sets. Each is designed and hand built exclusively for you, based upon your unique specifications, wishes, needs, and riding style. All of our bikes and frames are built to order and can be assembled with components selected by the bike's future owner. Anderson sells bikes through a network of affiliate bike shops. They have a specific CAD design terminal where customers can “build” their bike according to their specs. These specifics are then saved and downloaded to a PDF file. As the order is entered into the CRM system, the specifics from the bike are entered in a special module that was created in the CRM system. This special module is integrated with Anderson’s manufacturing's system and all the specs are send to the floor. The customer is assigned a unique customer ID so that they can contact the company in the future for all their other bicycling needsWhat do you believe are some of the CRM attributes that apply to Anderson Custom Bicycles?
- Pear Computers is the leading computer company of the social generation. Its customers can fully customize their new Pear Computer from Pear’s award winning ecommerce website. When a repeat customers logs on to the website, they can see all their past purchases for their convenience. Pear will make recommendations for new products based on the customer’s past purchases. Before the customer places a new customized order, the system first checks on availability and gives the customer an estimated ship date and may suggest a different configuration with a faster ship date. Once the customer places the order it is immediately send to manufacturing thanks to a deep integration with the just in time manufacturing process. They customer gets a tracking number to allow him/her to check up where their new Pear is in the manufacturing process. Once the new Pear is complete the customer gets an automatic update by SMS or email that their new Pear is ready for shipping and they also get a shipping tracking number. Once the customer signed for the shipment, an alert is sent to the customer service team and they place an automated call to the customer to congratulate them on their purchase.This integrated process has allowed Pear to highly differentiate themselves in the market and to rapidly build an extremely loyal “fan” base.What do you believe are some of the CRM attributes that apply to Pear Computing?
- The first stage is what we call the “Manual Stage”. This is where every company starts. Your sales, marketing and customer support teams are just getting started and are doing whatever it takes to just get the job done, no matter what. This typically means: Every employee approaches the job in a different way with no standardized processes or training program in place Customer data is trapped in email and spreadsheets on each person’s desktop As a result, management has very poor visibility into what is going on with customers Which leads to a lot of effort spent on scrambling around, but: no clear path to measurable success, little confidence in hitting goals, and a lot of unhappy customers.This is where many companies first turn to SugarCRM for help.
- The next stage is the “Managed Stage”. This is where you’ve taken a step back from the chaos and: identified repeatable processes, implemented a basic CRM system, and started training your people on a common approach to working with prospects and customers.Your CRM processes are maturing, though many are still manual – which is ok. Repeatable processes will lead to better automation, even if everything is not integrated. You have identified goals, but measuring progress isn’t always complete or accurate. Some of your teams are hitting their objectives, but not consistently. You are better at being responsive to customers than in the Manual Stage, but you leave a lot of customers unhappy. In short, you are beginning to chart a course towards CRM success but you have a lot of work ahead of you. Every SugarCRM customer after purchasing our software quickly achieves this stage. The challenge is to not stop here.
- The third stage in adopting your CRM strategy and driving company growth is the “Defined Stage”. This is where your hard work starts paying off. At this stage, the customer-centric processes that you began defining in Stage 2 are now battle-tested and automated in your CRM system. Your CRM professionals are collaborating within, and across, teams because they now have access to the same data. Management has clear visibility into the processes and has begun predicting future success with accuracy. Your company is more responsive than ever to prospects and customers and your customer acquisition and retention rates have grown.Keep in mind, it can easily take six to twelve months to move from the Managed Stage to the Defined Stage. Progress doesn’t just magically happen. It takes focus and dedication. This is where our local implementation partners can make a big impact on your CRM adoption success and help you accelerate your customer growth plans.
- The fourth stage is called the “Optimized Stage” and is the ultimate goal of a customer-centric company. You now have a dedicated team focused on continuous CRM improvement which is driving marked growth in the company.Your customer processes are now highly efficient and differentiated such that you can align and alter them according to market needs and changing business demands. The systems required by your CRM professionals are fully integrated for both data and process. Management not only has visibility into the current efforts, but can predict future success based on the accuracy and consistency of the data. Your CRM solution is agile and able to easily meet the evolving business needs Achieving the “Optimized Stage” usually requires at least one year of continuous process refinement from when a company first adopts SugarCRM at Stage 2, the Managed Stage. Again, our local SugarCRM implementation partners can help you chart a path to the “Optimized Stage”.
- As I said earlier, CRM is a strategy… a strategy for growing your business by gaining and retaining customers. But before you can set your sights on where you want to go, you have to first identify where you are at. To help you understand where you are at today and where you are going tomorrow, I’d like to tell you about the four stages of the CRM Adoption Curve.
- The first stage is what we call the “Manual Stage”. This is where every company starts. Your sales, marketing and customer support teams are just getting started and are doing whatever it takes to just get the job done, no matter what. This typically means: Every employee approaches the job in a different way with no standardized processes or training program in place Customer data is trapped in email and spreadsheets on each person’s desktop As a result, management has very poor visibility into what is going on with customers Which leads to a lot of effort spent on scrambling around, but: no clear path to measurable success, little confidence in hitting goals, and a lot of unhappy customers.This is where many companies first turn to SugarCRM for help.
- The next stage is the “Managed Stage”. This is where you’ve taken a step back from the chaos and: identified repeatable processes, implemented a basic CRM system, and started training your people on a common approach to working with prospects and customers.Your CRM processes are maturing, though many are still manual – which is ok. Repeatable processes will lead to better automation, even if everything is not integrated. You have identified goals, but measuring progress isn’t always complete or accurate. Some of your teams are hitting their objectives, but not consistently. You are better at being responsive to customers than in the Manual Stage, but you leave a lot of customers unhappy. In short, you are beginning to chart a course towards CRM success but you have a lot of work ahead of you. Every SugarCRM customer after purchasing our software quickly achieves this stage. The challenge is to not stop here.
- The third stage in adopting your CRM strategy and driving company growth is the “Defined Stage”. This is where your hard work starts paying off. At this stage, the customer-centric processes that you began defining in Stage 2 are now battle-tested and automated in your CRM system. Your CRM professionals are collaborating within, and across, teams because they now have access to the same data. Management has clear visibility into the processes and has begun predicting future success with accuracy. Your company is more responsive than ever to prospects and customers and your customer acquisition and retention rates have grown.Keep in mind, it can easily take six to twelve months to move from the Managed Stage to the Defined Stage. Progress doesn’t just magically happen. It takes focus and dedication. This is where our local implementation partners can make a big impact on your CRM adoption success and help you accelerate your customer growth plans.
- The fourth stage is called the “Optimized Stage” and is the ultimate goal of a customer-centric company. You now have a dedicated team focused on continuous CRM improvement which is driving marked growth in the company.Your customer processes are now highly efficient and differentiated such that you can align and alter them according to market needs and changing business demands. The systems required by your CRM professionals are fully integrated for both data and process. Management not only has visibility into the current efforts, but can predict future success based on the accuracy and consistency of the data. Your CRM solution is agile and able to easily meet the evolving business needs Achieving the “Optimized Stage” usually requires at least one year of continuous process refinement from when a company first adopts SugarCRM at Stage 2, the Managed Stage. Again, our local SugarCRM implementation partners can help you chart a path to the “Optimized Stage”.
- I have found that far too many companies get stuck in the Manual Stage, working hard but never seeming to make progress. They find that they are routinely losing new sales deals and losing existing customers to their competitors. Only by defining and investing in a CRM strategy will you be able to climb the CRM Adoption Curve and differentiate yourself from your competitors.It is important to note that true competitive differentiation only starts truly effecting the business once you have reached the Defined and Optimized stages. You will see this in the arc of the curve on this chart. It is too easy to buy generic CRM software solutions that your competitors are also purchasing and find yourself looking no different than your competitors to your prospects and customers. It is only by achieving the Optimized Stage that you truly become “one of a kind” to your customers.
- We’ve just talked about two of our customers in detail and how they climbed the CRM Adoption Curve. Keep in mind, SugarCRM has over 5,000 customers worldwide, many of them top global brands you will recognize. All of them leveraging SugarCRM to manage their customer growth.
- And of course, SugarCRM brings you the best local implementation firms who know your business and will help you climb the CRM Adoption Curve.