CRM
3.2 Phase 2: Build CRM project foundations 1.Identify stakeholders first step: identify stakeholders. Stakeholders include any party that will be impacted by the change – this could include senior management, users of any new system, marketing staff, salespeople, customer service agents, channel partners, customers and IT specialists. Their participation in the CRM project may be required at some future point. Research suggests that the early involvement of parties affected by change helps pre-empt later problems of resistance. Vendor experience indicates that the early involvement and participation of senior management is likely to promote a more successful implementation.
2Establish governance structures CRM projects are designed and implemented by people. Governance structures need to be put in place to ensure that project roles and responsibilities are properly defined and allocated. The program director (PD) plays an important role in this structure. Ultimately, the PD has responsibility for ensuing that the project deliverables are achieved and that project costs are controlled. In larger projects the PD will be a full-time appointment.
3Identify change management needs Even small CRM projects can prove challenging in terms of change management. A sales-force automation project might involve centralizing data that is presently kept on individual representatives ’ computers and making that information available to everyone in the team. Representatives will need to learn to share. In a distributed sales-force, these representatives may not have even met each other. If they also have to change their selling methodology, record keeping and reporting habits, there might be some worries, if not outright resistance.
4Organizational culture: The idea of organizational culture has been around for many years. In everyday language, organizational culture is what is being described when someone answers the question ‘ what is it like working here? ’ More formally, organizational culture can be defi ned as: A pattern of shared values and beliefs that help individuals understand organizational functioning and thus provide them with the norms for behavior in the organization.
5Buy in As noted by John Kotter, buy-in operates at an emotional or intellectual (rational) level. Intellectual buy-in is where people know what has to be changed and understand the justification for the change. New technologies are adopted more quickly when users believe that the system will be easy to use. Emotional buy-in is where there is genuine heartfelt enthusiasm, even excitement, about the change.
6Identify project management needs: CRM implementations can place considerable demands on project management skills. A CRM project plan spells out the steps that will get you from where you are now (customer strategy situation analysis) to where you want to be (CRM vision, goals and objectives), on time and within budget. The CRM programme director generally performs the project management role, but sometimes it is outsourced to a consultant.
7Identify critical success factors: Critical success factors (CSFs) are the ‘ must haves ’ that underpin project success. “CSFs are attributes and variables that can significantly impact business outcomes”. CRM consultants and vendors offer a range of opinions on CSFs, mentioning the following: a clear customer strategy that defines your company’s offers, markets and channels; an organizational culture that promotes coordination and information-sharing across business units; an agreed definition of what counts as CRM success; executive sponsorship of the CRM programe’s objectives; availability and use of pertinent, accurate, timely and useable customer-related information; a clear focus on people and process issues, not only technology; starting small with quick wins that are then promoted within the company as success stories; focus on automating processes that have major implications for costs or customer experience; engagement of all stakeholders, including end-users and customers, in program planning and roll-out.
8Develop a risk management planIt has been claimed that a large number of CRM projects, perhaps as many as two-thirds, fail. Of course, there can be many potential causes of failure, ranging from inadequate project management to resistance of end-users to the adoption of new technologies. At this stage, you’ll be trying to identify the major risks to achieving the desired outcomes. Once identified, you can begin to put risk mitigation strategies and contingency plans in place.
3.3 Phase 3: Needs specification and partner selection Having built the CRM project foundations, the next phase involves specifying needs and selecting suitable partners.1.-Process mapping and refinement: The first task of Phase 3 is to identify business processes that need attention – making them more effective or efficient or flagging them as candidates for automation. Business processes can be defined as follows: A business process is set of activities performed by people and/or technology in order to achieve a desired outcome. Put more simply, business processes are how things get done by your company. Processes can be classified in several ways: vertical and horizontal; front and back-office; primary and secondary.
2.-Data review and gap analysis Having identified processes that require attention, the next step is to review the data requirements for the CRM implementation and to identify shortfalls. Strategic CRM uses customer-related data to identify which customers to target for acquisition, retention and development, and what to offer them. Operational CRM uses customer-related data in the everyday running of the business, for example in handling billing queries in the contact center or mounting campaigns in the marketing department. Analytical CRM uses customer-related data to answer questions such as ‘who are our most profitable customers’ and ‘which customers are most likely to churn’?. Collaborative CRM uses customer-related data to enable channel partners to target their communications more precisely. The fundamental issue companies have to ask is: what customer-related data do we need for strategic, operational, analytical and collaborative CRM purposes?