Stage 2: Addressing Organization and Structure

The second stage of successfully implementing CRM is addressing the Organization and Structure of your company. There is room for improvement in any company and if changes are to be made to corporate workflow and IT systems, there will be corresponding challenges of change management inside the company. These changes can be broken down into the following areas:

• Executive Sponsorship
• Creating a CRM Culture
• Managing Knowledge
• Adjusting internal organizational structures
• Staffing Requirements
• Employee Orientation and Training

Executive sponsorship often makes or breaks the CRM initiative and that is the subject of the next post.

Writing a Project Plan: CRM Success Strategy, Stage 1.6

This is vital.

The Project Plan should include all parts of the job. All business processes, all people, all resources, vendors and technology to be included. A Project Plan is a written definition of what is required, by when and what it will cost; the plan must be agreed to by everyone involved.

There are no short-cuts. "he who fails to plan, plans to fail" is a time proven maxim. If you neglect to spend the initial time getting understanding and agreement. It will cost you more later on: more money, more time, more politics and more strained resources.

A signed agreement to a written CRM Project specification by all parties represented on the CRM Team has several benefits:

• A rigorous analysis of the technical and business concerns of the project will prevent any party from taking short cuts or glossing over any ugly truths
• A clearly written Project Plan reveal the misunderstandings of the CRM Team
• Assumptions are stated up front and center
• Ambiguity is removed
• Having people sign off and agree on the Project Plan forces everyone concerned to actually read and think about the details of implementing CRM
• Vendors can be held accountable
• Internal stakeholders all know the part they play

In summary: Professional Project Planning is the structure of successful CRM.

Creating a Cross-Functional Project Team: CRM Success Strategy, Stage 1.5

So how do you make sure "No one gets left behind?"

If you are going to create and organization that is "Customer Focused" employees are going to have to support CRM internally. Your CRM team should be Cross Functional if the strategy is going to permeate the organization and optimize all points of interaction with the customer.

Management, Executives, Front Line Employees and IT staff all need to be included. I've worked with teams that were truly inclusive and the team worked well together. The most interesting one was when the Union Steward representing 1,200 employees was also the CRM Team Leader.

One thing was for sure with that project. No one was excluded at the CRM team's meetings.

Recognizing CRM is NOT a Technology Project Alone: CRM Success Strategy, Stage 1.4

Some say CRM is "just software." They usually spend a lot of money on CRM software and implementation services and see little Return on Investment.

You need to involve the company in the CRM initiative. Even accounting is touched by the system and they should have a say in the development of the CRM system beyond just approving the system purchase.

You want the whole company behind the CRM plan. No one gets left behind.

Status Quo Analysis: CRM Success Strategy, Stage 1.3.1

Successful CRM begin and improves through analysis.

Analysing the Status Quo provides you with a company benchmark. Once you've done this you can measure the quantative success of your CRM initiative.

You usually starts by looking at the way you currently do business and mapping it out in flowchart form. Writing it down is important but making it visual will encourage discussion and business process innovation.

Think about the "burning business issues" that drag your team’s productivity down and distract employees from your company’s goals; anything that impacts the current day-to-day running of the business.

Also include the strengths found within the current ways you do business. It is important to identify both.

So how do you Analyse the Status Quo of your company? Start by setting up 30 - 60 minyte interviews with your sales, marketing and customer service executive and teams to ask a few key questions:

What is your customer sales and service cycle, from mareting, to sales to service and accounting?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of your company’s current business processes?
What are your reporting requirements?
How would you improve the key business processes you are a part of?
What administrative activities are detracting from your productivity?
Define the factors that deliniate your most loyal customers from regular ones?
What is your competition doing?

ONce you have this done prepare a preliminary report and share it back with the people that you interviewed, get their feedback, make corrections and add this to your project file. We'll refer to it again very soon.

Defining Business Processes: CRM Success Strategy, Stage 1.3

Business processes are the heart of workflow and they can make all the difference in the performance of a company. Look at Walmart, love them or not, they know how to keep finding efficiencies in the business process from ordering product from the manufacturer, getting it delivered to their distribution centers, keeping inventory topped up in the stores and letting manufacturers know about reorders because someone just paid at one of their satellite connected point of sales terminals.

O.K. That's pretty macro view. Here's another component. Sales Processes.

Every company has existing sales processes and infrastructure, some have documented them, some have not. In order to define sales processes it is important to interview key members of the sales team and have all staff complete a questionnaire.

The questionnaire should cover lead generation and follow up, sales methodologies, new business development, account management processes, sales operations, expense management, and sales management reporting. If appropriate, find out what technology is used personally and consider training requirements.

As you see, the process can get pretty granular if it is a complex sales scenario. Some companies also "shadow" sales reps on calls to understand what they do well. These interviews and questionnaires are compiled and used as the basis to find a better way.