Get the Most Out of Your CRM
In today’s connected world, continuous optimization of enterprise applications to realize your digital strategy is key.
- Application optimization is essential to stay competitive and productive in today’s digital environment.
- Enterprise applications often involve large capital outlay, unquantified benefits, and high risk of failure.
- Customer relationship management (CRM) application portfolios are often messy with multiple integration points, distributed data, and limited ongoing end-user training.
- User dissatisfaction is common.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
A properly optimized CRM ecosystem will reduce costs and increase productivity.
Impact and Result
- Build an ongoing optimization team to conduct application improvements.
- Assess your CRM application(s) and the environment in which they exist. Take a business-first strategy to prioritize optimization efforts.
- Validate CRM capabilities, user satisfaction, issues around data, vendor management, and costs to build out an optimization strategy.
- Pull this all together to develop a prioritized optimization roadmap.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.8/10
Overall Impact
$27,499
Average $ Saved
19
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Circular Materials
Workshop
10/10
$19,000
10
We really appreciated Tom flexibility in adapting the workshop content to our needs. He was quite accommodating during the planning phase and even... Read More
Christian Healthcare Ministries, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$32,499
50
The best part was the feedback I was given when asking questions that are specific to my situation. I feel everything is being tailored to me rathe... Read More
American Realty Advisors
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
10
Overall this was a great experience. I was able to see things from a different perspective.
American Realty Advisors
Guided Implementation
9/10
$30,999
5
Feedback on questions to ask during vendor demos and additional research she did on the ones we are considering.
Workshop: Get the Most Out of Your CRM
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Define Your CRM Application Vision
The Purpose
- Define your CRM application vision.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Develop an ongoing application optimization team.
- Realign CRM and business goals.
- Understand your current system state capabilities.
- Explore CRM and related costs.
Activities
Outputs
Determine your CRM optimization team.
- CRM optimization team
Align organizational goals.
- CRM business model
- CRM optimization goals
Inventory applications and interactions.
- CRM system inventory and data flow
Define business capabilities.
- CRM process list
Explore CRM-related costs (optional).
- CRM and related costs
Module 2: Map Current-State Capabilities
The Purpose
- Map current-state capabilities.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Complete a CRM process gap analysis to understand where the CRM is underperforming.
- Review the CRM application portfolio assessment to understand user satisfaction and data concerns.
- Undertake a software review survey to understand your satisfaction with the vendor and product.
Activities
Outputs
Conduct gap analysis for CRM processes.
- CRM process gap analysis
Perform an application portfolio assessment.
- CRM application portfolio assessment
Review vendor satisfaction.
- CRM software reviews survey
Module 3: Assess CRM
The Purpose
- Assess CRM.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Learn which processes you need to focus on.
- Uncover underlying user satisfaction issues to address these areas.
- Understand where data issues are occurring so that you can mitigate this.
- Investigate your relationship with the vendor and product, including that relative to others.
- Identify any areas for cost optimization (optional).
Activities
Outputs
Explore process gaps.
- CRM process optimization priorities
Analyze user satisfaction.
Assess data quality.
Understand product satisfaction and vendor management.
- CRM vendor optimization opportunities
Look for CRM cost optimization opportunities (optional).
- CRM cost optimization
Module 4: Build the Optimization Roadmap
The Purpose
Build the optimization roadmap.
Key Benefits Achieved
Understanding where you need to improve is the first step, now understand where to focus your optimization efforts.
Activities
Outputs
Identify key optimization areas.
- CRM optimization roadmap
Build your CRM optimization roadmap and next steps.
Get the Most Out of Your CRM
In today’s connected world, continuous optimization of enterprise applications to realize your digital strategy is key.
Get the Most Out of Your CRM
In today’s connected world, continuous optimization of enterprise applications to realize your digital strategy is key.
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
Analyst Perspective
Focus optimization on organizational value delivery.
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems are at the core of a customer-centric strategy to drive business results. They are critical to supporting marketing, sales, and customer service efforts.
CRM systems are expensive, their benefits are difficult to quantify, and they often suffer from poor user satisfaction. Post implementation, technology evolves, organizational goals change, and the health of the system is not monitored. This is complicated in today’s digital landscape with multiple integration points, siloed data, and competing priorities.
Too often organizations jump into the selection of replacement systems without understanding the health of their current systems. IT leaders need to stop reacting and take a proactive approach to continually monitor and optimize their enterprise applications. Strategically realign business goals, identify business application capabilities, complete a process assessment, evaluate user adoption, and create an optimization roadmap that will drive a cohesive technology strategy that delivers results.
Lisa Highfield
Research Director,
Enterprise Applications
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive Summary
Your Challenge
In today’s connected world, continuous optimization of enterprise applications to realize your digital strategy is key.
Enterprise applications often involve large capital outlay and unquantified benefits.
CRM application portfolios are often messy. Add to that poor processes, distributed data, and lack of training – business results and user dissatisfaction is common.
Technology owners are often distributed across the business. Consolidation of optimization efforts is key.
Common Obstacles
Enterprise applications involve large numbers of processes and users. Without a clear focus on organizational needs, decisions about what and how to optimize can become complicated.
Competing and conflicting priorities may undermine optimization value by focusing on the approaches that would only benefit one line of business rather than the entire organization.
Teams do not have a framework to illustrate, communicate, and justify the optimization effort in the language your stakeholders understand.
Info-Tech’s Approach
Build an ongoing optimization team to conduct application improvements.
Assess your CRM application(s) and the environment in which they exist. Take a business-first strategy to prioritize optimization efforts.
Validate CRM capabilities, user satisfaction, issues around data, vendor management, and costs to build out an optimization strategy
Pull this all together to develop a prioritized optimization roadmap.
Info-Tech Insight
CRM implementation should not be a one-and-done exercise. A properly optimized CRM ecosystem will reduce costs and increase productivity.
Insight Summary
Continuous assessment and optimization of customer relationship management (CRM) systems is critical to their success.
- Applications and the environments in which they live are constantly evolving.
- Get the Most Out of Your CRM provides business and application managers a method to complete a health assessment on their CRM systems to identify areas for improvement and optimization.
- Put optimization practices into effect by:
- Aligning and prioritizing key business and technology drivers.
- Identifying CRM process classification, and performing a gap analysis.
- Measuring user satisfaction across key departments.
- Evaluating vendor relations.
- Understanding how data fits.
- Pulling it all together into an optimization roadmap.
CRM platforms are the applications that provide functional capabilities and data management around the customer experience (CX).
Marketing, sales, and customer service are enabled through CRM technology.
CRM technologies facilitate an organization’s relationships with customers, service users, employees, and suppliers.
CRM technology is critical to managing the lifecycle of these relationships, from lead generation, to sales opportunities, to ongoing support and nurturing of these relationships.
Customer experience management (CXM)
CRM platforms sit at the core of a well-rounded customer experience management ecosystem.
Customer Relationship Management
- Web Experience Management Platform
- E-Commerce & Point-of-Sale Solutions
- Social Media Management Platform
- Customer Intelligence Platform
- Customer Service Management Tools
- Marketing Management Suite
Customer relationship management suites are one piece of the overall customer experience management ecosystem, alongside tools such as customer intelligence platforms and adjacent point solutions for sales, marketing, and customer service. Review Info-Tech’s CXM blueprint to build a complete, end-to-end customer interaction solution portfolio that encompasses CRM alongside other critical components. The CXM blueprint also allows you to develop strategic requirements for CRM based on customer personas and external market analysis.
CRM by the numbers
1/3
Statistical analysis of CRM projects indicate failures vary from 18% to 69%. Taking an average of those analyst reports, about one-third of CRM projects are considered a failure.
Source: CIO Magazine, 2017
85%
Companies that apply the principles of behavioral economics outperform their peers by 85% in sales growth and more than 25% in gross margin.
Source: Gallup, 2012
40%
In 2019, 40% of executives name customer experience the top priority for their digital transformation.
Source: CRM Magazine, 2019
CRM dissatisfaction
Drivers of Dissatisfaction |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Business | Data | People and Teams | Technology |
|
|
|
|
Info-Tech Insight
While technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences, there are many other drivers of dissatisfaction. IT must stand shoulder to shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for customer relationship management.
Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service, along with IT, can only optimize CRM with the full support of each other. The cooperation of the departments is crucial when trying to improve CRM technology capabilities and customer interaction.
Application optimization is risky without a plan
Avoid the common pitfalls.
- Not considering application optimization as a business and IT partnership that requires continuous formal engagement of all participants.
- Not having a good understanding of current state, including integration points and data.
- Not adequately accommodating feedback and changes after digital applications are deployed and employed.
- Not treating digital applications as a motivator for potential future IT optimization effort, and not incorporating digital assets in strategic business planning.
- Not involving department leads, management, and other subject matter experts to facilitate the organizational change digital applications bring.
“A successful application optimization strategy starts with the business need in mind and not from a technological point of view. No matter from which angle you look at it, modernizing a legacy application is a considerable undertaking that can’t be taken lightly. Your best approach is to begin the journey with baby steps.”
– Ernese Norelus, Sreeni Pamidala, and Oliver Senti
Medium, 2020
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 7 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Map current-state capabilities
- Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
Guided Implementation 2: Assess your current state
- Call 1: Build the CRM team. Align organizational goals.
- Call 2: Map current state. Inventory CRM processes. Explore CRM-related costs.
- Call 3: Conduct gap analysis for CRM processes. Prepare application portfolio assessment.
Guided Implementation 3: Build your optimization roadmap
- Call 1: Understand product satisfaction and vendor management. Look for CRM cost optimization opportunities (optional).
- Call 2: Review APA results.
- Call 3: Identify key optimization areas. Build out optimization roadmap and next steps.
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Get the Most Out of Your CRM
