How to Scale: CRM. How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

Transcription

1 How to Scale: CRM How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

2 Contents Introduction... 3 Technology... 3 Questions of Scale... 4 Business Requirements... 6 Pitfalls to Avoid... 8 References How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

3 Introduction Many organizations want to get started with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and buy solutions that work well for them at the time of purchase. Later on they find that these are not powerful enough when the business grows. It is common that businesses outgrow their initial CRM solutions and they need to find ways to scale up. However, not all organizations are savvy about the way that they go about this. Scaling up does not have to be a huge challenge when companies go about it in the right way. Scaling may not be in terms of size. Sometimes organizations want to scale by adding different kinds of functionality such as Mobile CRM or Social CRM. Indeed, organizations sometimes want to scale down also. Regardless of the way in which your business wants to scale, there are approaches to take to make the task easier to perform. Technology Scaling up in terms of Customer Relationship Management system data capabilities is much easier than ever before, thanks to fairly recent advancements in technology. Up until recent years, scaling up would have been an expensive headache that may have included purchasing costly new computer hardware. Alternatively, companies would have had to buy expensive new licenses per person that would need to use the CRM system, or per computer. This has changed as a result of offering Customer Relationship Management systems online, and using SaaS, otherwise known to many as cloud Scaling up and down using the cloud can be achieved with little notice for storage space for CRM data. There are a great many CRM providers out there that will allow your organization to store data in their cloud. You can scale up and down with regard to the amount of space that you require, sometimes with very little or even no notice. This is especially useful for organizations that have to scale up their CRM only around a specific season or day. How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

4 For example, consider a business that sells only Halloween memorabilia. This organization is going to always have a peak in sales and customer interest in the month to six weeks before October 31, and after that, for the rest of the year, customer sales and interactions with the organization are likely to be considerably lower. In the past the organization would have had the choice with its CRM system either to: Buy servers the organization could have had expensive server space sufficient to handle customer interactions around the peak period of interactions with customers each year, which would not be used for most of the time. Or: Offer a lower level of service less server space for the CRM would have meant slower systems and an inability to interact rapidly with at least some customers during the peak period, among other potential issues. Obviously the latter option somewhat defeats the object of having a Customer Relationship Management system in the first place if the system is going to be slow and unresponsive and cause delays to customer service being delivered, especially during the period when the company would be most active. However, the former option was very costly for organizations that only use the space once a year, for just a few weeks. Luckily these days organizations do not have to make such choices. Server space in the cloud can be scaled up or scaled down as required, making the process of scaling considerably easier than ever before in the past. In fact it has been predicted that at some point in the not too distant future, organizations will not even need to purchase servers at all if they do not wish to. Questions of Scale When scaling CRM up or down there are five important questions that should be reviewed. These are: Why What How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

5 When Where How The table below explains each of these in greater depth: Question Factors to Consider Why? What? When? Before scaling up or down it is important to consider why you need to do so, and if indeed you really need to do this. In some cases it could well be better to be more efficient with current resources and focus more effectively on what you should be doing instead. This can be achieved by looking at inefficiencies. On the other hand there may be a really good reason for scaling up, such as that your organization is already very efficient with its CRM but you have many more customers than you had when you purchased your last system. Alternatively there could be a strategy development that drives the change, such as implementing Customer Experience Management, Mobile or Social CRM. The what of CRM scaling will be very influenced by the why (above). For example, scaling to include Social CRM means implementing changes to the system to allow for the business to have Social CRM functionality. It is recommended that when organizations decide to scale their CRM either up or down, working with the employees that use the system is very worthwhile. Employees will know from their daily experience what works well and where the system falls down. Working in these sorts of changes during the scaling process is useful to avoid having to make yet more changes later. There is more on business requirements below. Changes to major systems should not be implemented during peak times for the business, when most customer contact is anticipated. For example, most retailers would not consider implementing a major change to a CRM system right before Black Friday, as this is one of the most important shopping days of the year, and as a result it is also likely to be one of the days of the year when the organization will receive the highest number of calls. How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

6 Where? How? In terms of technology, the where of scaling up or down will mainly be associated with whether this is occurring in the cloud through SaaS or whether it instead will be carried out through in-house hardware and software. In many cases the changes will be made by adding or removing technology such as hardware or software. The business should consider whether it will be developing software or purchasing hardware and implementing the changes itself, or whether it will be buying CRM modules from an existing software provider, or simply increasing the amount of space it needs in the cloud from its current CRM provider. It may even be necessary to change CRM provider. For example, some systems are only designed for small businesses and cannot be scaled up. Business Requirements In scaling a CRM either up or down, or by adding new types of functionality it is important to get the business requirements right at the outset. This will help to make sure that the final changes made will actually meet the needs of the business and that the change will be cost effective. In gathering business requirements, one of the best places to start is to talk with the current and potential future users of the system. They will have the best idea of the sorts of functionality needed and how the system or solution can best meet their needs. They will also usually have a good idea of what will not work. Ultimately it is the end users that will have to work with the changes that are delivered so it is best to get their input. Involving the end users in the process also goes some way towards securing their support for the change because acting in this way makes it feel for them as if they are being consulted with. One problem with gathering user requirements that organizations may come across is that sometimes users do not really know precisely what they want. In this case, a series of questions asking them what they would choose between different options can help to lead the discussion. How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

7 With regard to the business requirements understanding precisely what is needed will most likely save the organization resources. For example, scaling up too far, beyond what is actually required could lead to the business having to spend more money than is needed, or to buy more servers than are needed and to end up paying more for housing this hardware in a data center. These are just two examples of the many kinds of issues that can occur by scaling up too much. Another challenge when scaling up is to try to be fairly strategic about the decision. If scaling the system up to include Social CRM for example, it is likely going to be helpful for the business to think about other changes that may need to be made at the same time. For example, adding Social CRM might require greater storage of data, so adding the capacity to retain this data at the same time is useful, otherwise the organization will be very quickly implementing another change to add storage to the system. It can be difficult to keep track of many smaller changes. Making continual small changes to the system can also be challenging for the users. Additionally, making lots of different changes can potentially lead to some system instability over time, depending on how you are going about the process. It is also best not to take decisions that will create inflexibility in the system for meeting potential future requirements later. It is often challenging to gauge what might be needed at a later date, especially with the rate of change of the business environment. Wherever possible it is best to leave the CRM solution in such a way that flexibility to add different components is possible later on in the process, if you later decide that you need them. Documenting business requirements also makes sure that you avoid missing an important current or near future need for your CRM system which can be included in the same change to scale the system up or down or to add functionality. Scaling up too much can be unnecessarily costly for the organization How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

8 Pitfalls to Avoid When scaling up or down with Customer Relationship Management the exact same pitfalls exist as when implementing a CRM solution for the very first time. These are represented in the diagram below. That means that when considering scaling a CRM approach either in an upward or a downward direction, attention must be paid to a number of different areas, to make sure that the change will be adopted successfully in the organization. Please note that most of these different factors do not need to be considered if the organization is simply scaling up and down using a cloud based solution. Instead these pitfalls can occur when adding new modules to a pre-existing system, developing new software from scratch in-house or purchasing and implementing new hardware to support an existing CRM system, among others. Figure: Why CRM Fails (Source: Alpha FMC) How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

9 Going through each of these areas in turn helps to understand why each should be reviewed before implementing a scaled solution. Governance and sponsorship - in the organization needs to consider who will be responsible for the changes that are to be made to the CRM, and which department/s will be paying the costs associated with the change. There should be a business owner that is accountable for the change in scale of the CRM solution. Usability of the solution if adding new software usability should be focused on the people that will be using the changed system. If hardware is to be added, the solution needs to be usable for those that will support the hardware. Servers that are added in an ad-hoc manner without thought to the support process can be difficult to support for IT departments. Utility of the solution the changes that are made should be useful to those that need the changes in the first place. This emphasizes the importance of getting the business requirements right up front, to avoid problems later. User trust gaining user trust can be achieved by getting the users involved with the process of gathering the business requirements so that they understand that their opinions and input are valued and important. User fear user fear usually stems from a lack of user trust. If processes are provided, the system is usable and the users have training and support then user fear should not preside. If the system is being downscaled there may be fear associated with the change such as employees fear of losing their jobs-- and this should be handled appropriately and communicated well. Processes and policies normally if systems change in any way then there need to be changes to supporting processes and policies. In some cases new processes and policies might have to be developed. For example if you consider scaling up by adding a module for Social CRM to a pre-existing CRM system processes will be needed to make sure that the operators understand what they have to do with Social CRM and why. Policies will be needed to make sure they do not misuse the Social CRM capabilities in any way. Training and support those that will either be operating or supporting the new components of the system in any way will need training so that they are comfortable with what they need to do. Training should include documentation How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

10 that users can refer to later, and access to longer term support in case there is something that they do not understand following the training. Data management the additional data that is added to the system with an upscale will need to be managed. There needs to be a strategy in place for this process. This is particularly the case if additional data is being added during a scale up process, as this data may have to be added into pre-existing data tables a development task which could be complicated to achieve, if being performed in-house. Of course, additional data means additional storage, so this too should be reviewed in advance to avoid the scaling program failing. If the change is to scale down it may be important to ensure that certain types of data are not lost in the technical processes that take place to achieve this down grade. Working through all of these different factors can help prevent a failure of the scaling of the CRM system or solution, by making sure that all of the key areas of importance are taking into account at the outset of the change. How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

11 References Alpha FMC (n.d.) Why CRM Fails, Alpha FMC, accessed 11/11/13: Beard, D. (2013) Your CRM solution should be flexible enough to grow with your company, Sage, accessed 11/08/13: 13/06/12/your-crm-solution-should-be-flexible-enough-to-grow-with-your-company-andfrankly-help-you-get-there-faster.aspx Burnham, J. (2012) Spreadsheets aren t enough: 7 signs you need CRM, Salesforce, accessed 11/10/13: Clark, K. (2012) Redefine strategy for CRM success, CRM Plus Consulting, accessed 11/11/13: CRM-Success Digivizer (2013) Social CRM requires sensible scaling, Digivizer, accessed 11/11/13: Honigman, B. (2013) Six Steps to Grow Your Web-based CRM for Long-Term Success, Work [etc], accessed 11/09/13: Lyons, D. (2013) What is CRM [FAQs], Yahoo, accessed 11/11/13: html Optimus (2013) A new idea for managing the fund development process, SBR Insights Blog, accessed 11/09/13: OSF (2013) You ve selected your CRM platform. Now What? A step by step guide to selecting the right CRM implementation partner for your needs, OSF. How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products

12 Sage (n.d.) Grow your business, Sage, accessed 11/10/13: SAP (n.d.) Plan for Growth with the CRM Starter Package for SAP Business By Design, SAP. Verlengia, M. (2010) CRM for the Small Business, Part 8: Scaling Up, CRM Buyer, accessed 11/11/13: How to Scale: CRM Compare Business Products