In the past few years, I have been responsible for evaluating an immense number of RFPs for CRM systems of all shapes and sizes, a necessary but often frustrating task. Why frustrating? The RFP must be constructed in such a way that product differences really become visible. This is very often not the case. Several approaches are recognizable.
- The RFP has been prepared by external consultants who have a clear interest in a particular product, but need to make their recommendation appear objective (frustration level high)
- Consultants have been involved who do not have vested interests in a product but prefer a solution which enables them to continue consulting while the product runs (frustration level medium)
- Consultants have been involved who are assisting the company to find the best fit solution as objectively as possible (excellent but seldom, no frustration)
- Listing all possible CRM functions in order to choose the product with the most functionality (frustration level high, since most suppliers can tick the boxes with a little imagination)
- Describing the current situation and asking for suggestions (frustration level low, but usually difficult due to lack of adequate information)
This sounds hard on consultants, but to be fair, the selection task is not easy. Recommending a product without product experience is risky, but at the same time experience cannot cover all products available and will limit the choice to a small number of major suppliers. Most suppliers will form an opinion regarding the type of RFP and will invest effort accordingly. In order to receive a maximum of information, the RFP must not be weighted towards a specific solution and must allow comparative strengths and weaknesses of suppliers and products to appear.
A good RFP will contain a clear statement of the current position, the reasons for the introduction of a new and will ask for information on
- Technology
- Functionality
- Interfaces
- The manufacturer
- The project partner
- Project methodology
In each section questions are separated into “must have”, “should have” and “nice to have” questions. This is not so easy as it sounds, since most products allow customization which makes it difficult to make a yes/no answer possible. A “must have” could be for example an interface to Lotus Notes. The above list will be extended in much more detail in later posts.
Better than a list of functions is a list of business processes with a brief description. This enables suppliers to take a clear position. Take care to ensure that each step in a process is simple enough to allow a simple answer. Details follow in the next posts!
Tags: RFP
The project brief should clearly state the aims and the focus of the CRM Project. It will be designed for internal use and will not be a basis for the pre-selection of possible suppliers and may not even provide “Make or Buy” guidelines. Admittedly, no-one today seriously attempts to go for a “Make”, so this is more theoretical.
Where does this piece of string start? Is it a good idea to look at available products and see what may be of use, or is it better to examine the user requirements in relation to the project brief? Though it can be helpful to have a rough idea of what CRM-Suppliers have to offer, there is for me no question that the starting point is the requirements analysis.
Most suppliers will offer lists of functions. Not surprisingly, these lists will be very similar, allowing only the distinction between “smaller” solutions (cobra CRM PLUS, CAS Genesys World) and “larger” solutions (Oracle, SAP, Pivotal, Microsoft, Salesforce). Within a group of similar products, what really differentiates the products is the ability to realize and support specific business processes. A seemingly simple requirement, such as the need to have different data entry masks for company data depending on user login, can put some players off the screen. These differences only become visible, when the required processes are known and defined.
The starting point must be the definition of the required processes in adequate detail to reflect the way in which users will work. There is no need to fear that this will result in requirements which no supplier can fulfill. Sales, marketing and support processes are common to most companies. The way in which these processes are implemented is however very different from company to company and is absolutely critical for the future application. These differences make companies individual.
Tags: CRM Suppliers, Project Brief
It is frequently stated that a large percentage of CRM projects fail. That is something which I cannot confirm in my own experience, but I have found that very few projects have clearly defined aims. This places the Project Manager and the Steering Committee in a tricky position as there is no way of setting realistic milestones and checkpoints. This could be the subject of a book, but to keep this post readable on this blog, here is simply of list of quantifiable and controllable possible goals for a CRM Project, assuming that the scope of the project and the resources available are also defined. This list relates to B2B projects.
Internal Considerations
- Leads
- Decreasing the cost of lead generation by improved marketing efficiency
- Reducing the time and effort required to qualify leads
- Improving the qualifying process and the conversion rate of leads to opportunities
- Sales
- Reducing the time sales persons require for administrative tasks (activity planning, writing visit reports, producing proposals etc.) and information searches
- Improving the communication between internal and field sales
- Reducing the effort required to organize or re-organize sales areas, sales teams
- Activity Management
- Individual users will not directly benefit from CRM Activity Management, the advantages are in team work and communication. The advantages to be defined relate to improved communication and reduced overhead.
- Opportunities
- The value of opportunity management is frequently overrated, but there are efficiency gains to be made for sales management.
- The use of sales strategies (Target Account Selling, Miller Heimann) can be supported by a well designed CRM System. However, more important than the creation of data entry forms is the way in which the strategy is lived by the sales force. CRM can only support this process by reducing the administrative overhead (see “Sales”)
- Marketing
- Operational Marketing (I would like to patent this term) can be simplified using CRM Software for Mailings, Event Organization (Invitations etc.) and by linking campaign and lead generation processes. This needs to be carefully designed.
External considerations – the real CRM objective
All of the above relates only to internal improvements. Most important though is that customers should feel the effects of a new CRM System. They should find well informed contacts and be impressed by the ease with which staff deal with any kind of situation. In my opinion this should be the real reason for installing or improving a CRM System. Here quantifiable goals could include service quality, customer satisfaction, speed of delivery and customer retention.
Tags: Project Brief
CRM Auswahl