There are at least a dozen oft-quoted industry analyst reports that estimate the failure rate of CRM projects. The analysts' methodologies and standards vary, so the resulting failure numbers are all over the place -- between 18 percent and 69 percent.
Unlike other enterprise software systems, the biggest data quality issue that CRM systems face is duplicates. Dedupe incorrectly, though, and bad data poltergeists and doppelgangers will come back to haunt you.
Sure, there's admin certification to verify knowledge and experience, but even certified admins make errors. While these errors are easy to spot, preventing them may mean sending employees back to school.
In broadband networking, the last-mile problem is getting from the big pipes to the end user at a reasonable cost. The last mile in CRM is getting data from users' favorite application -- email -- into the CRM system without disrupting their beloved workflows.
If it's true that the best CRM systems are built, not bought, then which features should you be building? And how should you build them? As with riding a bike, implementing a CRM system gets much harder once you take off the training wheels--or, in this case, the out-of-the-box features.
When it comes to security risks, BYOD is the gift that keeps on giving. But what about the devices that your employees used to use, gave up on and, months later, finally dug out of the closet to sell? That's another issue to wrestle with. Here are seven ways to beat the monsters.
f you haven't read Nassim Taleb 'Anti-Fragile,' it's time to break out your e-reader. Big software projects are constitutionally doomed because they're fragile. Agile may be the way to go, but what can you do to make sure your agile project doesn't become fragile?
Everybody knows data warehousing is big data. But when you want to understand what's really going on with your customers' social interactions, terabytes may seem small. It's a laborious process, but the insight it provides can reap big rewards.
George Carlin made phrases like 'jumbo shrimp' famous. But the need to control agile projects is no joke. Ask the right questions along the way, though, and you'll bring order to a process than can easily turn chaotic.
With most enterprise applications, the security model can be simply user/group/world. It can't be all that complicated with CRM, right? Think again.
Some parts of vendor evaluation never change. Many folks boil it down to just three words: References, references and references. In the cloud, you really need to do a more thorough screening. References are important, but they are only part of the process.
Your cloud-based system may have been in use for seven years or more. It probably needs a tune-up. Let's see what kind of shape it's in and what you need to do to make it run like new.
Everybody uses the cloud. How can there be any secrets? Many companies had to learn these three little lessons the hard way, but there's no reason your business can't learn from those mistakes.
Getting beyond the basics of using CRM-- tracking the evolution of the customer relationship--means using the system to improve time management close rates and customer satisfaction. In the real world, that means playing the probabilities and using the system to prioritize your team's efforts.
Agile is the best approach for CRM projects, but what if management just won't let you go there? What does it really mean to have a fixed-price, fixed-deliverable project? You will have to put in more effort, but you can succeed in the long run.