How important is the implementation methodology for successful CRM?

Have you seen all the implementation methodologies out there? Any consultant worth his or her salt has some version of a formal methodology to follow when implementing CRM or any other enterprise-wide system.

Usually, it’s some version of:
- Assess
- Design
- Develop
- Deploy
- Operate
- Continuously Improve

For example, the Navint implementation methodology (http://www.navint.com/consulting_services.php) is:
- Strategy / Assessment
- Solution Design
- Implementation Services
- Post Implementation Support
- Client Care

The question is: does the implementation methodology employed make a difference?

My answer is: Yes and No

• Yes, because without a doubt a formal, logical, sensible, effective methodology the players may not stay aligned during the course of the project, and things may get out of hand: missed tasks, too much time spent on less critical tasks, lost focus, missed deadlines, cost overruns, etc.
  
  In other words, employment of a methodology is a basic requirement for doing business as a consultant. After all, would you hire somebody who doesn’t have a methodology and says that they just like wing it and fly by the seat of their pants?
  
  
• No, because every consultant follows the same basic process, and the only real difference lies in how disciplined they are in following it.

What good is a methodology if a consultant takes short cuts that might save time up front, but cause headaches down the road?

Or if a client balks at being subjected to a rigorous and disciplined approach, and the consultant takes the path of least resistance, succumbing to the client’s wishes because “the customer is always right”?

In my humble opinion, lack of discipline and integrity in following the methodology is a major cause of problems during implementations.

The client is the expert in their business and industry, but we’re the experts in CRM and how best to implement it to create long-term business value, regardless of the industry or business.

Our job is to use our years of (sometimes painful) experience to help you navigate through pitfalls and challenges of a CRM implementation. We’re the guides because we’ve done it so many times before and we know what to watch out for.

It's just like a fitness coach or personal trainer you hire to get you in shape. They’re the experts on getting fit, losing weight, gaining muscle, etc., and they each have their own methods to achieve those goals. If you try to do things your way, you’re probably not going to be as successful, and you will be wasting your money on a coach.

The methodology must be practiced sensibly, and with discipline and integrity. That is, to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons.

The level of discipline exercised in following the methodology is a major differentiating factor between truly successful consultants and the mediocre consultants.

So do yourself a favor when researching implementation partners. Talk to some of their clients in depth about HOW they followed the methodology. How disciplined were they? How flexible were they? Was every step followed? Were any problems caused due to missed steps?

I think you’ll find that you don’t need to worry about which implementation methodology is used, and that you will have some valuable information to help you make an informed decision about which partner to hire.

How to use Relationship Roles and Relationships in Microsoft CRM

One of the least understood and least used features of Microsoft CRM is Relationship Roles, and the Relationships between Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities.

As a result, Navint’s consultants are seeing many instances where people automatically think of creating custom entities when they have a need to create relationships.

While a custom entity may very well be the best solution, we recommend that you consider using Relationship Roles and Relationships first.

For more information on using Relationship Roles and Relationships, check out this article on the “Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0” portal: http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/sales/relationshiproles.mspx

Here are some pros and cons of using Relationship Roles and Relationships:

Pros
1. Simple and easy way to create and track multiple types of relationships in one place.

2. Can be used to avoid creating custom entities.

3. Users can search and report on the data.

Cons
1. Can only be used for Account, Contact, and Opportunity entities.

2. Limited fields available on the Relationship record to describe the exact details of the relationship. For example, you might have multiple IT contacts at an account, and you want to have a field to indicate which contact is the primary IT contact. At this point, all you can do is indicate this fact in the standard description fields on the Relationship object. Obviously, this approach does not lend itself to structured data suitable for reporting.

So remember - whenever you need to establish a relationship of some sort, be sure to consider the simple way first and look at Relationship Roles and Relationships.

Are you being strategic about CRM?

In an article in CRM Magazine, Woody Driggs of Accenture made the point that successful CRM starts with strategy.

I agree.

Too frequently, we at Navint see companies getting caught up in the software and technology aspects of CRM: e-mail marketing, workflow, dashboards, fancy reports, and all the other bells and whistles that make CRM "cool."

The one thing they forget about is their strategy for competing in the marketplace, and how it drives their CRM strategy and tactics.

What good is e-mail marketing if you are targeting the wrong people or have an ineffective message? Or perhaps you are communicating with people who don't have e-mail and prefer fax?

What good is workflow if you are automating processes that shouldn't even exist or that deliver bad data?

What good are dashboards and reports if they are reporting information that does not help you create or maintain a decisive advantage in the marketplace?

So what should you do to ensure a successful CRM implementation?

First of all, don't make the mistake of thinking that CRM is just software and that it will solve all your problems. CRM is just one aspect of your overall strategy, and it includes not only technology and software, but people and processes, too. And whenever people are involved, significant effort in change management is required.

If you are at the beginning of a CRM implementation, then be sure to start with your overall business strategy, as well as your marketing strategy, and consider the following questions as a starting point:

1. What is your competitive advantage? How can you strengthen it?

2. How do you acquire new customers? How can you do it better?

3. How do you service existing customers? How can you do it better?

4. How do you market to and grow the revenues from existing customers? How can you do it better?

5. What are the best ways to communicate with prospects and customers in your industry and market?

6. What do you need from your employees to ensure a successful implementation? What do you need to do to help them?

If you have already implemented CRM, and want to get more out of it, then revisit your strategy on a regular basis - at least annually, if not more frequently - and consider the questions above and how they relate to your CRM implementation. Make any necessary adjustments.

Finally, be sure you have the right implementation partners and advisors as you embark on your CRM journey. If the partners you are considering don't bring up the issue of your strategy near the beginning of your relationship, then it might be smart to look for somebody who does.

Because without the strategy, you've got nothing but an expensive contact manager with some silver bells and golden whistles.

Microsoft CRM Mobile Express Rocks!

Based on various client requests, I've spent the last number of hours installing, configuring and playing around with the Microsoft CRM Mobile Express client which you can download from the Micrososft community website called gotdotnet. Unfortunately this site is going away in the next couple of months (however, I'm pretty sure that the majority of their code will still be supported by the general community).

Anyway, the Mobile Express client rocks! Installing and configuring the code on your CRM server allows CRM users to access Microsoft CRM from almost any internet-capable phone or handheld device - and yes, that means Blackberries, Smartphones, Treos, etc...

What's more is that the Mobile Express client includes an administrative interface which allows system administrators to determine the specific data fields to display on each entity available within the client. I'm sure that this capability serves to increase application performance and/or allows organizations to display custom fields or specific data sets that are relevant to their needs.

Contained in this post are a couple of screen shots I took of the administrative interface. Because I installed Mobile Express on my VPC image, I can't offer a picture of the client interface, but I think you can still get a pretty good idea from these shots.

One other thing, because the install requires a fair amount of modification to the web.config file and the CRM sitemap, I recommend using Visual Studio or some other XML editor to make the neccesary updates.

Upstate New York CRM Summit 2007

You are invited to attend Upstate New York's premier CRM event of the year - featuring special guests from Forrester and Microsoft Dynamics.

The Upstate New York CRM Summit Overview

- Forrester’s ranking of 15 CRM suites based on the Forrester Wave™ methodology
- Hands-on CRM product demonstrations
- A chance to win a FREE Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0 implementation

Event Dates and Locations

Rochester: April 17th, Oak Hill Country Club
Syracuse: April 18th, Doubletree Hotel Syracuse
Time: 8:00 - 10:30 am (both dates)

Event Registration Information

By phone: 800.419.2999
By email: mlucas@navint.com
On the web: click here

(Seating for this event is limited, so please register today to reserve your seat.)

Event Agenda

Understand Which CRM Application Is Best Suited To Your Organization’s Needs
Leveraging the Forrester Wave™ methodology Forrester Analyst Liz Herbert will discuss the overall findings of Forrester’s recent evaluation of 15 mid-market customer relationship management (CRM) suites vendors across approximately 490 criteria spanning sales, service, marketing, eCommerce, partner management, usability, cost, vendor strategy, and market presence. Additional agenda items include the state of the CRM market, how the CRM vendors stack up, and recommendations on CRM vendor selection.

Get Hands On Product Demonstrations
Technology and business consultants from Navint will also be on hand to provide both hands-on and expert-led product demonstrations of the marketing, sales and customer service modules of Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0.

Win A Free CRM Implementation
Attend the Rochester or Syracuse event and enter your company in a drawing to win a FREE CRM implementation. Bring a friend or colleague to the event and double your chances of winning. (The free CRM implementation offer is valued up to $5000 toward a Navint-managed Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0 implementation. Terms and conditions apply.)

Why All The Trash Talk | The Truth About Salesforce.com

Clients and prospects who have worked with us know and appreciate the great lengths that we take to avoid "sleaze" in our approach to promoting the products we represent (i.e., Microsoft Dynamics CRM).

To further the point, at Navint, we pride ourselves on a consultative, requirements driven style of selling. In other words, if at the end of the day the steps of our sales process (which often includes a side-by-side comparison of competing products) helps a prospect determine that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is NOT right solution for them, we will happily walk away from the table.

Ironically enough, this approach is exactly why: 1) those same prospects call us back, 2) our clients love us, and 3) Microsoft recognizes Navint as one of its premiere partners in North America.

Alright, enough with the self-promotion. On to the main point of this post.

In the past number of months while talking with prospects who are trying to decide on the best CRM solution, we have inevitably run up against Salesforce.com. And to be fair, as far as SaaS solutions go, Salesforce.com is a great product.

Yet, it's also important to note, that the vast majority of unbiased technology research houses (i.e., ones that don't accept payment by vendors in exchange for stellar reviews) have ranked Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 literally neck in neck with one another. For example, check our recent post on the Forrester Wave ranking of mid-market CRM suites.

Needless to say, what I find absolutely amazing are the lengths that Salesforce.com will go in trash-talking its competitor's products. (And in certain cases, I'm talking outright lies! Yes, lies.) What gets me is that a small number of our prospects actually end up believing this stuff (or at the very least, relying on such material, ask us to substantiate their decision to NOT choose Salesforce.com).

In response to questions like these, first I try to remind the audience that Microsoft leverages a partner channel in selling their products. In other words, Microsoft is very much aware of its limitations and biases as a software vendor and so it made the conscious choice to sell its business solutions products through a partner channel (who, not surprisingly, care little about software in comparison to satisfying their client's business needs).

And if that point doesn't begin to get the gears turning, these series of questions usually do:

• How might your day-to-day sales operations be affected by Salesforce.com outages? Will you be able to access and use your CRM data, if Salesforce.com data centers are hit by outages?
• Why is Salesforce.com investing more money ($50M) on automatic back-up capability (Mirror Force) than on cumulative research and development efforts during the first 61⁄2 years of the company’s existence ($41M)?
• How is the Salesforce.com guarantee on outages affecting the third-party applications offered on AppExchange and the uptime for these solutions integrated to the salesforce.com applications?
• How does Salesforce.com guarantee that third-party applications will still work when the core salesforce.com application is upgraded to a new release?
• How can Salesforce.com guarantee security of your data when they provide APIs to third parties to connect to the central system?
• Can they show that over the life of the solution that Salesforce.com will provide better long-term TCO than Microsoft Dynamics CRM? (Note: If they do, they are lying again.)
• What if you ever get sick of paying the per user per month Salesforce.com annuity? Despite their "No Software" promise, will Salesforce.com ever offer an on-premise alternative? (Probably not but you can be sure that you'll be charged to get your CRM data when you want to end the contract.)
• Salesforce.com's rather consistent application performance problem is another area to question but I should leave that for a separate blog post.

And for those of you feeling as sleazed out right now as I do - I'm sorry - but it had to be done. And by the way Marc Benioff, when Microsoft CRM 4.0 is released in August 2007 and offers its customers the choice of hosted and on-premise, Josh Greenbaum's words are sure to come true.

Microsoft CRM 3.0 Daylight Savings Time Update

Overview

Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time (DST) will be extended in the United States. DST will start on March 11, 2007, which is three weeks earlier than usual, and it will end on November 4, 2007, which is one week later than usual. This results in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than in previous years. Unless certain updates are applied to your computer, the time zone settings for your computer's system clock may be incorrect during this four-week period. In particular, you must make sure that both your Windows operating system and your calendar programs are updated. For more information, check the Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Center.

How the DST Change Affects Microsoft Dynamics CRM

After the operating system has been updated with new time zone definitions, the updates and wizard synchronize Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 time zone definitions with Microsoft Windows and adjust records associated with dates/times in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.

Most records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, including custom records, include date/time stamps based on current DST rules. For example, activities that are scheduled during the delta period will appear one hour earlier than they should. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 calculates the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) value when an activity is created. So if a user creates an appointment while Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is configured for the old DST rules and the appointment is scheduled during the new DST weeks, the appointment will appear one hour earlier than it should.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Update Time Zones Wizard helps adjust such records appropriately. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 updates and wizard are being released in advance of the United States Daylight Saving Time rules change in 2007, but they can also be used for general adjustments of calendar-related items based on changes in time zone definitions.

Get the DST update and wizard here.

The Forrester Wave™: Midmarket CRM Suites, Q1 2007 | Leaps and Bounds For Microsoft CRM 3.0

On February 21st, 2007 Forrester Research released the long awaited The Forrester Wave™: Midmarket CRM Suites, Q1 2007.

Forrester's Senior CRM Analyst, Liz Herbert, had this to say about Microsoft CRM 3.0:

"Microsoft Dynamics CRM has rapidly grown its customer base to more than 7,500 customers since its release in late 2003. The product appeals primarily to SMBs and divisions of large enterprises and is a natural shortlist choice for firms with Microsoft-centric IT strategies. The product provides an intuitive, Outlook-like user interface and strong functionality in most functional areas of customer relationship management (CRM). Additionally, the product leverages Microsoft technologies where appropriate, such as SharePoint for dashboards and SQL Server Reporting Services for enhanced analytics and reporting."

From a ranking perspective, it's also worth noting that Microsoft CRM 3.0 is one of five solutions (out of the fourteen solutions ranked) that made it into Forrester's esteemed Leader category. What's more is the fact that when Microsoft CRM 1.0 was released in 2003, Forrester didn't consider it an enterprise-ready product. Clearly, Microsoft CRM 3.0 represents a massive leap in evolution of a product that will continue to deepen in terms of functionality and technical superiority.

For a copy of the research referenced in this post please contact Navint's Marketing Director, Coreen Wilson, at cwilson@navint.com.