Digital Transformation
Managing Risk: Why more CRM projects fail than succeed!
How to avoid your own CRM project from going wrong.
Some CRM projects fail in a spectacular fashion and others help a business to successfully change and grow. How can you avoid your CRM project going wrong?
Some CRM projects fail in a spectacular fashion and others help a business to successfully change and grow. How can you avoid your CRM project going wrong? This 2-part article is an excellent first step!
The first learning point is to recognise that CRM projects can be complex and can fail. Walking blindly into a CRM project full of hope and optimism will not sustain the months of hard graft delivering change across your organisation.
- Part 1 looked at the role vision and the setting of goals has on creating the right foundations for a successful CRM project. We discussed how to run a good RFI and RFP process, capturing everything in a solid business base.
- Part 2 looks at the specific project risks as you get your CRM project underway. We have assumed that by this point you’ve found a vendor to work with, you’ve got the outline of the requirements and scope all defined, along with clear vision, goals and a suggested timeframe for delivery.
This all comes from first-hand experience of helping support tens of businesses with their CRM project deployments. Some have been rescue jobs, others have been well planned and executed projects, with clients simply needing a helping hand to get over the line.
Risk management
A good project manager will be all over the risk factors. In my experience some internal project managers don’t have the experience of CRM projects and can accidentally assume that CRM is just like any other project. CRM is unusual as it typically embraces the whole business, bringing together departments that might not normally even talk to one another! You should have an experienced project manager of your own, working with the vendors own project manager. The level of coordination and task allocation is significant. Maintaining an active risk log is essential.
Ambition
If you have ever been in a sales meeting with a CRM vendor then you may come away thinking CRM is going to solve everything for everyone! CRM systems can do a lot, but you must tread carefully if this is your first CRM rodeo. Having said that, CRM vendors want what you want in terms of a successful project outcome.
In my experience problems linked to ambition tend to come from within the business and from two very different directions. There is the leadership team looking for ambitious change to be delivered in an ambitious timeframe. Then there are the business users partly resisting change and wanting to replicate existing processes, normally a result of not having the confidence to do things differently. This conflict then results in customisation (to reflect existing processes) on an epic scale, making the project progress slow down to a glacial pace, frustrating everyone.
I strongly recommend that you consider your wider vision (see Part 1) and capture all of your requirements upfront, but then work out a roadmap to delivery, keeping the first set of deliverables realistic in terms of scope and timescales. This way, you will ensure you are working with the right CRM vendor for the long term and showing progress internally.
Timeframes
A typical tailor made CRM project can take 12 to 15 months from start to go live. This isn’t purely the time it takes the vendor to deliver, but reflects the time it takes for the businesses own team to review, contribute, feedback, prepare data, along with training time also. This sort of timeframe comes with its own risks, so I always look to find ways to reduce the initial implementation timeframe to 6 months. This timeframe is much more realistic. Change the approach by asking what can be done in 6 months? Other phases can follow, but showing success after 6 months will help reduce other risks and provide positive impact to the business sooner.
Burn out
Most, if not all, members of an organisation’s project team will have a regular day job alongside their project responsibilities. Time spent in project meetings and following up on tasks is time away from their primary duties. If a project lasts for many months, the impact on individual and organisation productivity may prove detrimental to the business. Creating a wider management /project team is a good idea, helping to spread the burden, but don’t insist that everyone has to be in every meeting. Project communications can be effectively delivered through common tools such as Microsoft Teams. Using the vendor’s own project team can help to alleviate the internal pressure on your staff, but again make sure that the vendor is sensible with their frequency of meetings and demands on individual staff members.
People leaving
There is no doubt that employee turnover rates have increased. I saw a report that suggested the average is now less than 3 years. The longer a CRM project runs, the greater the probability of staff moving on. This can impact the CRM vendor and the business. Disruption can be significant if a project sponsor or another driving force behind the initiative departs mid-project. One way of reducing the risk is to make sure that the project is well documented, and all project information is stored in a secure online location. Good handover processes also help.
The risk of people leaving is a key driver behind seeking out faster delivery timeframes. A 6 month delivery window should allow the team to stay together for the duration of the process.
Process changes
Good businesses change their processes on a regular basis. There will be a period of time between the CRM requirements being defined and the CRM going live where the business identifies a need to change. Ideally this change waits until the business has launched the CRM, but I’ve seen CRM projects upended by something that nobody expected. This might be due to a market change, compliancy issue or competitor action. One client bought another business halfway through the CRM project and wanted to include their requirements. The right approach might be to wait, applying the change post go live, but the main thing is to recognise the risk of change outside the control of the project team.
Scope creep
There is a point where the CRM vendor has captured requirements and has created a specification document that needs the client to sign off. This becomes the go to document from that point on. It is tough for the client to pull the specification apart and understand everything, especially if it is a large project scope. The risk is that some requirements are missed. Followed correctly, the document is a contractual obligation on the part of the vendor to deliver what has been defined. It is also a commitment from the client, so they should not be surprised if new requirements have an impact on cost and timeframes. Depending on their importance and whenthese are identified, change may impact the work already undertaken and require additional resourcing.
Scope creep is a clear risk, but managed well it can become a rich vein of ideas and help feed a development path beyond the initial launch. A good example of when scope creep occurs is when new people join the project and introduce new ideas.
All of this drives me to recommend a smaller-scale initial CRM deployment that reflects the priorities of the business better.
Conflicting priorities
Problems can come from departments having different goals and priorities.
One or more departments may urgently need a new solution and could become frustrated by the slow pace as the project team works through the broader requirements. When individual teams wait for things they asked for many months ago, they may act independently by quickly implementing their solution, which doesn’t consider the bigger picture of the organisation’s needs.
This is where initially focusing a project on just one or two teams will be quicker to implement. It’s also easier to keep teams engaged and ensure their needs are met.
Product updates
The CRM vendor that you work with should be committed to releasing regular improvements to their product offering. This is generally good news, but some features that have been previously demonstrated and form part of the committed solution might change or be removed as a result of new releases. This is a clear risk, especially if some newly released features are ones that could benefit the business. One way of tackling this issue is to stay on an older version of the software but pure browser based solutions may force change. Discussing the possibilities of product change with the vendor should be part of the RFP discussion (see Part 1), along with the vendor sharing their product development roadmap on a regular basis.
Next steps
Please get in touch to discuss your requirements. We can help you discuss your needs and share advice to help accelerate your implementation, focusing on a rapid initial deployment that achieves early payback and incremental improvements.
About the author
Chris Hull, Chris Hull – Director, Digital Consultation Ltd.
Chris has worked in the tech sector for over 20 years, helping business of all shapes and sizes to make the most of digital tech. Chris and his colleagues help clients to understand the opportunities and define a way forward, from simply improving a website through to streamlining systems and implementing business wide digital change.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Microsoft Partner ANS for their contribution to this article.
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