CRM a CEO/Business Owners dillema
In a keynote early in 2004, Microsoft’s Bill Gates Told his audience: “This is a period where reality is driving expectations. It’s an environment where the big winner is the consumer buying these products.
Today’s business climate is supercharged. Growth is exponential, the challenges daunting, the tasks must be error free and expected to be completed now, your business flexibility must be optimum your focus vehement. To satisfy today’s customers a business must radically transform to immediately respond to a satisfaction now mentality. This generation of customers are radically transforming the way companies in every industry are doing business. And many are successfully responding with CRM.
So you’ve downloaded this guide, which means you are looking for software or guidance, or maybe something to help make sense of it all. You are in business and you probably understand that you must make your company transform to a more customer centric view of your business. Your brain may be crunching how can I make sense of an overwhelming number of CRM option? Maybe you’re wondering can CRM address the customer-facing processes unique to your industry. Perhaps you’re concerned about choosing CRM that keeps pace with the velocity of change in your business. You might be looking to understand How CRM brings quantifiable business results. Or, if a CRM implementation seems costly and complex, maybe you’re cheap aka Responsible CEO, and are looking for an approach that mitigates the expense and risk.
The business climate of today is forcing companies to think smarter about their customer relationships and CRM strategies. Since the introduction of CRM, many have spent unprecedented sums only to have it fail to deliver “results.” However, often times the inability of CRM to live up to expectations is often not the fault of technology but to bring the discussion ad hominum truthfully these results are more from a lack of clear business strategy, executive sponsorship, poor technology fit, or some combination of these. Some failed in the planning and implementation underestimating its impact on the people and processes it is meant to support. Others underestimated the total cost of owning their system, while others developed ROI metrics in a vacuum. We hold that CRM is a strategy, and technology enables supports the strategy. This paper is meant to give you a grasp of proper implementation strategies to avoid these pitfalls.
This paper is full of case studies. Real world successes that customers and prospects have brought us to a 5 principles approach to avoiding failure with your CRM choice. We understand that you have an ever-increasing number of factors to consider, we empathize that it is getting harder and harder to navigate the technology decision rapidly, and with confidence. With this in mind we decided to look to our customers and real-world CRM Implementation experiences to help companies take a considered–and simpler–approach to evaluating their CRM options.
We share insights from customers and prospects, industry analysts, and journalists down to 5 key principles for CRM success. These five principles Can be used as a guide for selecting the right solution, and ultimately, delivering CRM success.
Among the companies profiled in this guide, one calls CRM the “glue” that holds their business together. Another calls CRM their “backbone.” Another says CRM“ has opened many doors.” For all of them, CRM is a strategy, and key to their business success.
1 Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation,2004 International Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas,
Nevada, January7, 2004 .According to Gates, “This is a period where the reality is driving the expectation…things are really being delivered…through
Solid products that stand the test of the marketplace… It’s an environment where the big winner is the consumer buying these products.”
Over the next few weeks we will be sharing with you our guide to help you select the right CRM tool for you. This being the Introduction piece. If you would like this guide in its entirety please let us know via email and we will send you the complete .pdf file
This article brought to you by ICON Technology Solutions. Find us at www.icontsi.com. Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas’ 1# Netsuite integrators of on-demand web-based CRM, ERP, and Accounting SaaS solutions.
