Avoiding the Stresses After CRM Installations

Computerworld - Corporate investment in customer relationship management (CRM) products and services shows no signs of a slowdown. In fact, it would be hard to find a CEO of a Global 2000 company who isn't consumed by improving customer relationships.
Industry analysts estimate that the market for CRM products and services be in the range of $5 billion to $12 billion by 2004. But companies may be jumping into the fray too quickly, believing that moving to automated customer-facing systems is as simple as choosing a packaged application. Implementing CRM is tough, particularly for companies looking to integrate all points of customer contact with the Web.
Project failure rates are high. Industry data confirms that nearly 70% of CRM projects that are focused on automating sales functions "fail to deliver measurable business value." Considering that an enterprise may invest upward of $10 million in its initial CRM launch, that statistic can be daunting. What's most troubling is that the worst implementations have little or nothing to do with the CRM software or the integration effort; the chief risk to business success is often the business itself. Specifically, most businesses' internal processes lack the consistency and rigor necessary for today's CRM systems to be completely effective. In effect, the company ends up automating - rather than eliminating - bad processes, and as a result, helps the business run more inefficiently more quickly. Inevitably, this leads to a condition afflicting both business and IT sponsors of CRM projects: Post-CRM Implementation Stress Syndrome.
The following are four strategies to mitigate the most significant project failure risks:
1. Design a customer coverage model that leverages all sales entities. The core of efficient CRM is a well-defined sales coverage strategy that integrates the strengths of all customer-facing resources. Leading companies shift appropriate tasks to functional areas most advantageous for the customer. Examples include making customer order status available via the Web, providing customers with real-time access to information when it's needed most and using call centers to keep customers informed of new products. These coverage models are designed with one thing in mind: Free up selling time for your most coveted - and often scarce - face-to-face resources.
2. Set realistic project metrics and measurements to quantify return on investment. Why do CRM projects seem to have so much difficulty establishing a return on investment? Very few projects place sufficient emphasis on ensuring that at the project's outset all stakeholders agree on the measurements of success. Leading companies structure CRM project metrics that can be quantified at