Advisory Series. CRM from Start to Finish. Guidebook 1: Why do I need CRM?

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1 Advisory Series CRM from Start to Finish Guidebook 1: Why do I need CRM?

2 Introduction Welcome to this first in a series of 4 Guidebooks that take a look at CRM from Start to Finish. In this first Guidebook we highlight the reasons for adopting a CRM system, the business pains it addresses and the benefits you can derive. In Guidebook 2 we take you to the next step on your CRM journey as you plan for the introduction of a CRM solution. What is CRM? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management but it s not just about customers! It has evolved to improve many areas of a business, putting relationship management at its core. It s an enabling technology that, when correctly will effectively support your staff and processes to deliver more productivity and efficiency. Who is it for? It s for all the departments in your front office. You know those areas of the business where your staff interact with clients, prospects, partners and suppliers. We re talking about your sales people, marketing staff, customer service and operations people. What does it do? In short - it provides a software platform that allows your people to work smarter and faster, from any location, on any device. How? It centralises data to make it easy for everyone to get at the information they need quickly. We re not just talking about a contact database, but things like related documents, history, contact notes, activity history, and other company profile information. It gives sales people a great way to manage their new and existing clients as well as their sales pipelines, leads, bids, quotes, orders, sales activities and themselves! It gives marketing staff campaign management and data segmentation tools so they can work smarter and target more accurately with less wastage Service staff can resolve issues, manage contracts and be responsive It gives management the KPI dashboards, measures and reports they need to improve their decision-making Integrate your finance or transaction systems to CRM and you get a more complete insight into your clients Page 2

3 Why do I need CRM? Great question and a really important one! Think about it neither you nor your board will budget for a CRM solution in the business if there is no compelling need or business case. Have a read through this short paper and ask yourself if you really have a case for change. Let s start by looking at why many companies adopt a CRM solution. Common Business Pains Ask yourself if you suffer any of the common business issues that CRM is typically deployed to fix? At ConsultCRM we do a lot of CRM seminar events. We always show this list and everyone in the audience sits there nodding with a pained expression on their face. Many of them are saying: Yep every one of those! Admitting these pains is half the battle. Working out the cost of doing nothing is the next challenge! Top 5 Business Pains 1. Data sits in silos 2. Spreadsheet hell 3. Poor client insight 4. Poor reporting 5. Process inefficiency Departmental business pains These will be a derivative of the common business pains for instance in Sales they may express these as an inability to forecast effectively, manage mobile sales people or poor visibility of client history. In Marketing they may say they can t easily build marketing lists or see campaign effectiveness. Your Management may have frustrations at the time it takes to collate and then produce reports. All of these are valid and will need to be considered as you start gathering your CRM requirements (see our Guidebook 2 for that piece). How do I create a business case? This is too big a topic to effectively cover in this short briefing so here are some very quick pointers. One of the easiest things to do is to look at your own business, spot something that just takes too long, is cumbersome, or involves too many people or steps. Consider the time and cost associated with that inefficiency. It might only be, say, an hour a week. Then multiply this out over the year, then multiply the number of people doing it, and the hourly (salary) rate it consumes. Then find another inefficiency and do it again. The numbers soon stack up. Then consider not just the cost incurred, but the flipside benefit if the time saved by removing that inefficiency was used more productively double benefit! You are now on your way with the business case. Page 3

4 Think like your CEO Your CEO will say: OK so you want a CRM system, so tell me; 1) What value will it contribute to any of our strategic objectives? 2) Where in the business is it to be deployed, and is there a business case? 3) How will you roll this out and minimise business disruption? You need to have answers to all of these questions, (and our Guidebooks will help you!) What are the benefits? There are many CRM case studies out there demonstrating cost savings and revenue gains. This is generally achieved through reduced time wastage, greater efficiency, deeper client insight, more productivity and better collaboration. You will also start to have more responsive, insightful interactions with clients and prospects. That leads to more client acquisition, more up-selling and cross-selling and better client retention. There is enough return on investment proof out there, so start working out the costs associated with the inefficiencies within your own business. Start also thinking also where you might gain additional revenues. Final thought consider the cost of delay. Let s say you worked out that the inefficiencies and missed opportunity value across your business amounts to 20,000 per month. Every 3 months that pass you are throwing away 60,000. How does that feel? What next? In the next CRM from Start to Finish Guidebook 2 we explore the process of gathering your CRM requirements and considering the CRM project from both a people and a technology perspective. Page 4

5 About ConsultCRM ConsultCRM works with mid-market and enterprise companies in a variety industry sectors helping them to implement CRM correctly. Our Professional Service teams have particular expertise working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Our services range from initial CRM planning to full implementation, system integration and ongoing support. We are a Tier 1 Gold Certified Strategic Microsoft CRM Partner. Based in the UK, our clients benefit from our leading Gold Partner status because this puts us very much at the forefront of developments in the CRM domain. If you have a CRM need, we d be happy to talk to you! You can find out more about us here: us: info@consultcrm.co.uk Phone us: ConsultCRM is part of Advanced Computer Software plc Page 5