Navigating the CRM Ecosystem to
Achieve True Business Transformation

The good news is that unlike the early CRM tools that were plagued with technical problems and promised solutions that never worked, many of today's CRM tools offer viable options to support and improve organizational effectiveness and achieve measurable business goals.

However, the sheer volume of CRM options facing sales and service executives makes it difficult to narrow the field. And navigating the seemingly endless and evolving array of choices that make up the CRM Ecosystem can be a time consuming and expensive exercise in frustration. All too often, organizations end up buying a promise for improvement that is never fully realized.

Separating Fact from Fiction
There are those in the industry who will tell you that every CRM tool is essentially the same and that they are relatively easy to implement. Yes, it's true that many tools offer similar functionality. And yes, most basic packages will turn on and work with minimal bugs. And there are certainly plenty of technical resources in the market that can effectively configure, customize and implement these tools.

But to truly optimize their CRM investment, businesses need to automate collaboration, workflow and link to other enterprise systems. Each business has distinct nuances in terms of skills, competencies, organizational strategy and culture, as well as a unique customer base that has its own opinions as to how it wants to be sold to or serviced.

Given these differences, it's unrealistic to think that just any CRM tool will do. When it comes to CRM, one size definitely does not fit all. As the old adage goes, it's important to look before you leap.

Five-Step Process
To ensure the highest return on your CRM investment, the selection and implementation of any CRM tool should be undertaken carefully to avoid costly mistakes. Whether you're implementing a basic sales force automation system, executing a highly complex and collaborative enterprise-wide solution or experimenting with mobile applications, we recommend the following approach to ensure that the CRM solution you select will best serve your business and the markets you serve.

Step 1:
Assess: Making the right decision as to which tools to consider when, and in what sequence to deploy them, is a matter of properly identifying and prioritizing the business issues you are trying to address. Enterprises are complex systems environments and even applications that can be deployed on a standalone basis have to be considered in the context of the overall systems environment. Failure to do so will result in escalating costs, as well as failed adoption and a disappointing ROI.

Step 2:
Select: Using the results of the business assessment, you can now identify the vendors who offer the right tools to meet your unique business needs. There is a wide variety of choices from leading vendors such as Salesforce.com, Oracle and Microsoft as well as an evolving list of players offering mobile applications and social media solutions.

Step 3:
Develop: The next critical step is to properly develop business requirements and a comprehensive business process Visual Design™ to bring your unique workflow to life. This will also avoid costly rework during the technical configuration/customization phase. Remember, this is a business, not a technical, effort.

Step 4:
Configure: With the right business requirements and business process design in place, you can easily engage technical resources to cost effectively configure/customize the tool to meet the unique needs of your organization.

Step 5:
Deploy: Successful deployment is critically important to the success of any CRM implementation. Yet companies often fall short in their efforts and never achieve the promised business outcomes. In our opinion, deployment should be viewed as a business transformation exercise rather than as a tool implementation effort. To fully leverage a CRM solution, organizations must transform their existing business processes to leverage the support from these software tools. Only then will they fully realize the return on their investment and achieve the desired competitive advantage

To learn more about how Adroit Consulting has helped its clients successfully navigate the CRM Ecosystem and transform their business, click here.

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Adroit helps companies with increasingly complex sales environments deploy effective business practices and utilize technology to improve performance. Learn more about how Adroit can help your organization.