In no aspects of our lives does a common sense person expect to change everything overnight. Positive changes like 
quitting a bad habit, starting a fitness program or education plan – take time and effort to see results. The same also applies to our businesses – adapting to change takes time. So why is it a persisting assumption that overnight change is possible with a CRM solution?
This is a question I have been asking for the past 18 years that I have been involved in CRM and SharePoint CRM implementations.
There’s only one logical answer. Strategies required for a successful CRM implementation continue to mystify. The logic that gets decision makers into this dilemma has by no means shifted in the nearly two decades since CRM software has been made available. Although other software and technology implementations like SharePoint may suffer from minor underestimation, CRM software consistently does.
So what needs to change? It’s really quite simple:
- Decision makers need to stop being “wowed” by glitzy software demonstrations that have no real or direct value to their bottom line or their ability to translate these flashy functions to a business benefit.
- Decision makers need to tackle their own requirements, thinking through what they really want to get out of the CRM system before they even begin to evaluate a CRM application. If they have no clear objectives of their own, they will easily fall for slick features or functions that they may not even need (see #1 above).
- Decision makers need to get more realistic. Introducing new software dramatically alters the way people work, and it’s not an easy transition for many users. They need support, encouragement, training and clear mandates on why things are changing and what is expected of them.
CRM software implementations are probably the most complex of all because they touch all aspects of an organization in some way or another.
One our SharePoint CRM Success Tips talks of “not eating an elephant in one sitting” and although this is an amusing visual, it has a very serious undertone to it. Far too often companies will fail at getting value from their CRM software because they take on too much and expect too much.
You may laugh at this, but most companies can barely maintain a central contact management list of business connections. The one critical aspect of a CRM implementation is consistently underestimated. Don’t spend the necessary time to get this right and set yourself up for failure, because it is the very foundation that most functional processes will spring from.