A CRM Roadmap Outlines Success
“Ready, Fire, Aim” defines too many CRM implementations.
The excitement of implementing a CRM software solution can lead to prematurely launching the initiative. Failure to build a CRM Roadmap is one of three key problems we have identified as the reasons Why CRM Fails (free CRM white paper). A detailed CRM roadmap will help you with your implementation by accurately projecting the cost, the resources needed, the time necessary for a full implementation, and the benefits your business will receive from CRM.
Potential risks mitigated by a comprehensive roadmap are:
- Failure to link business and marketing strategies to CRM
- Technology incompatibility
- Poor definition of business requirements
- Poor training/rollout
- Weak sponsorship/lack of sustained support
In order to build a CRM Roadmap, you will need to analyze your existing marketing and business strategies and define how they will integrate with CRM. This part of the process also allows you to assess and fine-tune your existing strategies as well as develop new business processes to better meet the needs of your customers. This is an essential step in preparing for a CRM initiative and the time invested will reap huge benefits in the end. We often tell our clients, “If you are going to invest a dollar in CRM, invest it in your business strategy.”
By identifying your core business processes while developing your CRM Roadmap, you will be in a position to choose the right software solution to meet your needs. When this stage is bypassed, a software solution which may work well for other companies will provide headache upon headache as you try to customize what another solution may have done out of the box. While customization is necessary for most implementations, you should start by choosing the software which most closely aligns with your needs at its most basic level.
Detailed in your roadmap will be the CRM training required for all levels of users. Since you have already focused on your core business processes as part of building your CRM roadmap, you will be able to include these processes as part of the training. By including process training along with use of the software, your end users will more quickly adopt the new system and more closely align their practices with the goals of the CRM initiative.
Because a CRM roadmap contains all of your plans for integrating a philosophy of customer relationship management within your current and newly established business processes, you will be able to outline the level of support needed prior to implementation. This increases the likelihood of sustained support, as the time frame and responsibilities have already been determined and agreed to. A roadmap ensures each stakeholder knows what they are committing to and makes it much more difficult for them to resist the changes necessary to successfully implement CRM.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed!
