CRM Guru Blog

Inherent tensions exist between marketing and IT. This is often compounded by lots of cross-talk, with each function on different channels. When tension becomes unresolved conflict, CRM strategy is impossible to execute. To avoid clashes, it helps to understand that CRM is not just about the exchange of information, it’s about the exchange of relationships. And every effective relationship includes a fair amount of conflict. The key is in how you handle it.

Conflict as a Catalyst
Conflict is a fact of work life. It can be especially pronounced when the two parties involved see the world from different lenses, as is often the case with marketing and IT. Conflict can be the catalyst for creativity resulting in innovative, productive teams. It can also be the catalyst for emotionality, polarizing people and generating counter-productive behavior. Let’s look at the following scenario to see how conflicts can be managed.

Continue reading “CRM Clash – When Marketing is from Venus and IT is from Mars”

The total Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market will reach $18.1 billion by 2006, representing an annual growth rate of 29.9 percent, according to the 2005 CRM Market Forecast and Analysis prepared by IDC, the world’s leading provider of information technology data and analysis. It is highly unlikely, however, that the CRM market will reach the level of growth predicted. A recent study by the Gartner Group concluded that, "Most CRM initiatives fail to deliver the expected value because enterprises have not mastered this rapidly evolving business competency at a strategic level." CFO.com reported in 2004 that in 85 percent of all cases, CRM users could not show any quantifiable results and 12 percent of all installations were complete failures. CRM is extremely challenging and to justify the multi-billion dollar price tag, companies must use it as both a discipline and as a predictive tool.

Because of its customer-centered approach and its dependence on data instead of intuition, CRM can be considered a first cousin to Six Sigma. CRM systems provide quality professionals, as well as the sales department, with the opportunity to better understand customer wants and needs.

Continue reading “The Disciplines of CRM”

You’ve already decided to implement CRM but you still dont know which flavor suits your needs. An on-premise solution with Salesforce.com CRM or another vendor, or perhaps a hosted CRM service. How do you select the best deployment method?

Is a hosted solution the best option?
Its true, hosted solutions offer a fast deployment, but where they really add the most value is after deployment.

Continue reading “Hosted or On-Premise CRM? (Part II)”

CRM buyers, already burdened by understanding the differences in functionality between applications, the complexity of integration requirements and the various costs associated with the product are now facing another variable — how they purchase the software.

Traditionally purchased in bulk licenses with maintenance and support costs added on from year to year, CRM has also been available for several years as a utility where companies pay for the software on a per user per month basis. And last month, Sage Software, a subsidiary of the London-based Sage Group plc, spiced up the selection process when it unveiled a rent-to-own option. The program rebates users 50% of their hosted subscription fees if they move from Sage’s hosted software to one of its on-premise suites within 12 months.

Continue reading “How Do You Want Your CRM?”

Everyone will have to integrate
"If there’s an enterprise-level strategy in place, then there is going to be integration," Greenberg says. The only alternative is throwing out everything, which is highly unlikely given the money companies have invested in legacy systems.

Integration is necessary whenever a newer system is fed data from these older systems — in other words, almost all the time. It may come as a surprise to some, but even sales force automation requires integration because its success can be dependent on data from financials, inventory management, billing and procurement applications.

Continue reading “CRM Integration is Integral”

The best-designed CRM system in the world is useless if you can’t get your employees to actually use it. And yet companies routinely underestimate the time and expense that this crucial step to CRM success requires. In fact, AMR Research senior analyst Louis Columbus says that if you broke out a pie chart for the average CRM effort, you’d see that at least 70% is spent on change management and 30% is spent on software.

Continue reading “Five Key Steps to Increase CRM User Adoption”