Crm End-state

Most strategic planning methodologies are built upon a triad of convergent processes that are a variation of a) evaluation and review, b) definition of goals/objectives and c) mapping route(s) to goals. This methodology has enjoyed certain success, but as applications evolve and can incorporate the softer side of automation and processing, strategic planning should also include another triumvirate of activities, d) visualization of the end-state, e) study of current situation and identify gaps to end state and f) identify actions that will close the gap.

Strategic Planning Overview for CRM Projects

Strategic plans typically look five or more years into the future and differ from tactical plans, which look two to four years into the future.

The early triad of activities for strategic planning, mentioned above, were appropriate for fixed solutions, and for expensive development projects that had limitations due to technologies and/or funding. With the advent of online CRM, it is possible and prudent to include triumvirate strategies to expedite deployment of new functionality available with on-demand CRM/ERP solutions.
There are a number of possible ways to identify barriers to success, and also some best practices that help to address these barriers. The following pages provide a good general reference for on-demand CRM deployments from a vendor's perspective.

Incorporate End-State Strategies for Successful CRM

1.Clearly define the objective, or end-state.
Identify major disconnects in technology, embrace and manage changes wholeheartedly.

2.Assessment and analysis.
Pursue change and improvement, challenge old policy/procedures that can be changed or eliminated as part of process automation and improvement. Identify technical and procedural redundancies and clearly identify gaps.

Plan to identify and capture information that supports use of end-state metrics.

3.Honestly evaluate the feasibility of the end-state objective
Identify questions that help clarify the end-state vision. Establish roles and responsibilities for evaluation input. Consider the barriers to change and closing the gaps.

4.Strategy/Tactics.
Eliminate traditional rituals in planning that strangle opportunities to leap forward. Truly address impediments to customer service and increased revenue. Ensure Strategy and Tactics are in line with desired end-state.

5.Closing Gaps

Identify Benefits: What to be expected from implementing a CRM solution?
Plan Actions: What will be done?

Identify/Delegate Responsibilities : Who will be the corporate sponsor and who will be in charge of the project?

Scheduling: When will the project start? When will it be completed?

Resourcing: Identify what is needed: people, money, information, other resources?

Establish Metrics & Set Rewards: How will progress be measured and reported?

Contingency Planning: What will be done if results fall short?

Strategic Planning Pitfalls

There are several activities that come into play when deploying new processes/solutions. They typically fall into the categories of strategy and tactics. In general, strategic plans can fail for several reasons: inappropriate strategy, conflicting tactics and poor implementation. The strategy is the high level plan and the tactics are basically the actions that happen to support and deploy elements of the strategic plan. Do good work on the triad and triumvirate planning components and have good contingencies in place to work around problems.

- Strategic Difficulties

- Failure to define the desired end states correctly

- Analysis irrelevant to the desired end state(s)

- Lack of creativity in identifying possible strategies

- Poor gap analysis

Conflicting Tactical Activities

In preparing and delivering components of the strategic plan, it is important to ensure tactics used do not undermine strategy. It often happens innocuously, often in an effort to maintain the status quo, or from a lack of information, but these tactics can gain purchase, and pull the strategic plan apart.

- Actions taken/not taken because of perceived threats to established processes
- Missed opportunities or compromises because of resistance/misunderstanding
- Too many ad-hoc activities/actions by too many people from within the organization
- Actions taken/not taken no longer support the strategic plan

End State Disappointments

Difficulties delivering because of lack of resources/abilities due to over estimation of resources and or time and/or loss of senior management support.

- Inaccurate forecasting of financial requirements
- Failure to manage expectations and coordinate tactical
strategies
- Ineffective change management strategies

Use Professional CRM Services ? Before and After Deployment

There are many components to delivering a CRM solution that is often the most appropriate, and best, business solution to improve cash flow and position for future markets. Taking the time to consult with your CRM solution provider is critical to a successful deployment because you want them to understand and be participants in delivering the desired end-state.

Have a set of measurable improvements in mind that can be used as both deliverables and to determine the success of the deployment in business terms, not just technical.

Post Deployment Metrics

Some possible metrics that can be used to track the success of a CRM deployment might include the following:

- Track qualified leads generated at the same/lower cost
- Track ability/ease of converting prospects to customers
- Track the customer share growth
- Track customer loyalty and retention rates
- Track cost of selling/servicing customers
- Track employee efficiency/improvements/feedback, etc.

SalesboomTM is a world leader in delivery of on-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions. Salesboom has over 28,000 subscribers from the SMB sector, with 3,400 customers in over 154 countries around the world. Salesboom.com web services solutions drive innovation, enable business realignment, and enriches customer relations across the enterprise.
Katie Campbell, consultant and writer. Has worked in IT sector in government, private and non-profit sectors with focus on technology and knowledge management. Tracking new technologies in CRM like http://www.salesboom.com

How BPM Improves CRM

How BPM improves, CRM can be understood with the fact that it is difficult for a company to achieve the target of customer profitability in the absence of a business performance management or BPM system. Different CRM software provides different facilities. Some of the CRM packages help with the transactional customer data only. On the other hand, some other packages are capable of making very wide customer analysis. However, no matter how much advantage financial experts of the company may seek, they have to relate this information with the important factors that affect the overall performance of a company. They need to balance the customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and operational quality control.

Comparatively, not so interesting people in the filed of finance when talk about how BPM improves CRM, put forth an interesting analogy. They compare the situation of analyzing data from the CRM tool for leveraging BPM by a company with the person who has poor vision first time puts on spectacles. Confusions surrounding the customer profitability metrics are no more. Similarly, misrepresent perceptions, regarding the behavior of customer when we use very different data sources, have also become irrelevant.

Figuring Out Most Profitable Products; The views of many financial executives are changing regarding how BPM improves CRM. They now see customers in a very different way. Customers are now a consolidated and comprehensive lot rather than a fragmented one. This has resulted in better understanding and improved relations with the every single customer they serve. Moreover, now companies can easily find out what are the products that are generating most profits. This has helped the companies to set the future targets more realistically.

Linking Data With Strategies; Another point that proves how BPM improve CRM is that companies were unable to connect the data and their business strategies when using data from enterprise resource planning or ERP system and CRM system. On the contrary, linking the data with the strategies is easy while using BPM system. Moreover, the distribution of important data becomes more efficient by using the combination of CRM and BPM capabilities. It also helps in locating and concentrating the geographical areas where maximum profitability is expected. According to financial experts, it is not the tool that affects your company?s performance, but it is the way you move the information. What is the point in having so many systems if the information is not reaching to the right person at the right time?

Finally, we can say that BPM system, if used with a right approach, can help the company in taking maximum advantage from the CRM software asset.

Alexander Gordon is a writer for http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com - The Small Business Consulting Community. Sign-up for the free success steps newsletter and get our booklet valued at $24.95 for free as a special bonus. The newsletter provides daily strategies on starting and significantly growing a business.

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Sugar CRM a new Roadmap to Commercial Open Source Technology

Sugar CRM is commercial Open Source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for companies of all sizes, based on LAMP stack (Linux-OS; Apache-Web Server; MySQL-Database Server; PHP-Programming Language). Its rich functionality and intuitive user interface provides a gateway to all CRM applications thereby enabling corporates to migrate to SugarCRM to expand their customer base.

Sugar CRM takes your business to a new level by integrating the enterprise server software sales model with that of a software-as-a-service model. It is available in both free and commercial editions.

Free edition of SugarCRM is available and is best suited for small industries. These industries can download SugarCRM under the Mozilla Public License. This open source product offers all the basic customer-centric functionalities.

The commercial edition of SugarCRM is available in two versions, Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise, for medium and large scale industries respectively. They provide more flexible deployment options (On-demand to host you own information; Cube to plug-n-play CRM appliance; On-site to manage CRM on your own server) and advanced features like add-ons, software patches, proprietary code, technical support, etc.

Professional edition is flexible and includes features such as sales, marketing, customer support, reporting and collaboration, migration, integrity and security. It also includes integration with Microsoft Outlook, sales forecasting, document management, access control, multiple deployment options to suit customers' security and integrity needs.

Enterprise edition is a fully customizable for the most demanding businesses. It includes features like SQL reporting, offline client synchronization, support for Oracle 9i and 10g etc, and is ideal for organizations having a large number of users. Apart from all the basic functionalities and features of Professional, it provides Oracle database support and offline client synchronization.

SugarCRM has also launched a server appliance called Sugar Cube, for companies which don't want to devolve their customer's details to third parties.

Sugar Cube if attuned with Professional edition gives an extra edge to overcome implementation and technical support problem and also bringing down costs of CRM deployments. Sugar Cube conglomeration with Enterprise edition provides complete hardware and software solutions with minimal resource utilization at lesser expense. "Software is bought, not sold," says John Roberts, co-founder and CEO of SugarCRM and this is the strategy that must be followed. The Sugar CRM product has created a strong gravitational pull for the customers trying the open source version and making there investment a success by paying a premium for our Enterprise Edition. This great CRM product provides complete CRM functionality ranging from opportunity tracking, lead management and customer tracking to task management, marketing campaign, trend analysis, advanced reporting and team selling and many IT enabled services.

There are lots of online communities and many more are emerging all around the web where you can share your innovative ideas with CRM developers. These communities provide customer feedback, range of informational services and support for CRM players. A wide array of forums and discussion boards are available enabling users to learn about the best practices and upcoming functionalities of Sugar CRM.

With the release of Sugar4.5, Sugar CRM continues to move ahead with the following features:

* Personalized home page by drag-drop of relevant items for fast access to view important information.

* Improved sales forecasting with better planning and forecasting worksheet.

* Improved information sharing on any topic, with the integration of different Sugar modules with discussion forums.

* With saved and global search and inline adds and edits user interface has improved.

* Enhanced installation and upgrade process offline client synchronization has also improved.

* Administration is simplified with improved Sugar Studio for code-free customizations, back-up and recovery.

* Multi-lingual support and internationalization.

Look for you're A-Z SugarCRM solutions at http://www.icreon.com.

A consultant of Sugar CRM - a new Roadmap to Commercial Open Source Technology.