Actualizing Business as Usual Strategies for Mission Critical Organizations and Functions
What are BAU or Business As Usual Strategies and how do they Work? Business as Usual or BAU strategies and action plans are meant to keep vital organizational functions and processes up and running even in times of extreme events that disrupt the other functions. This is especially the case when such functions and processes […]
Knowledge Creation and Management
Introduction The concept of knowledge as the founding block for attaining competitive advantage has become quite prevalent in Management studies. All knowledge should begin form a piece of information. For the conversion of information into knowledge there is a critical aspect to be noted. This is related to the timing of the retrieval of information. […]
Organizations and Relationship Marketing
Traditionally with Organizations the customers belonged to and were the responsibility of the Marketing Department alone. Organizations probably had too many constraints on meeting the demands and were saddled with limited product range that did not require them to look out and reach out to the Customer. However with evolution of technology, mass production processes […]
Managing the Sales Force
The face of any organization is the sales force. Companies spend a considerable amount of time and money on sales force rather than on any other promotional activity. However, sales force is expensive and companies are looking forward to managing them in an efficient and effective manner. Designing of the Sales Force Sales force is […]
Why Data is the New Holy Grail for Contemporary Marketers
What happens to the Data we Leave Online All of us who exist online and on social media websites as well as use Apps would have noticed that we enter a humungous amount of information about ourselves and our likes and preferences as well as dislikes and our objections. For instance, any registration to a […]
Irrespective of whether you are in the commercial sector or the not-for-profit sector you need to effectively manage your customers or constituents. In the matter of automation of this function there is hardly anything to match the dominance of Salesforce. The company, operating online through its website salesforce.com is pretty much the industry leader due to its simplicity of use and the configuration tools that are really simple.
Realizing the huge potential savings in time and effort of CRM implementation, more and more organizations are opting to implement Salesforce at the earliest. However, in the rush to save time through quick implementation there is a tendency to commit strategic mistakes that can hinder the successful implementation of the CRM package.
Since Salesforce has acquired close to legendary status for its simplicity of use, there are many organizations that try to just log into the website and try implementing it without paying attention to the need of planning the many elements that are required for successful implementation. Any business intending to implement a CRM package should first decide what information should reside in the system and how should it be structured besides addressing the question of who should have permission to access the information. Unless these basic issues are thought about intensively and decided it is likely that the CRM implementation may go haywire.
It is important for businesses intending to implement Salesforce to compile a document that basically describes what is needed and how the entire information fits the business requirement. The mapping process of Salesforce continuous integration should be done so that the business is able to chalk out its future growth path.
A mistake that businesses often make is to sweep all the data they encounter into the Salesforce package even if they cannot quite figure out whether they have any requirement for it. Unplanned data acquisition only bloats the package making it difficult for managers to make it more consistent and reliable. The reporting requirement should in fact be the building block for all data input. What it really means that if a report is to be generated then the package should contain all the data that is pertinent.
A good way for planning is to figure out what sort of reports the management would want and then work backwards to make sure that these reports can be generated with the data provided. Keeping this in mind is a good way of streamlining the CRM architecture and also to train end-users. Businesses also need to keep in mind the nature of the data required to ensure that they are in a position to nurture and grow relationships with customers.
Many organizations make the mistake of designing the package architecture with only the inputs of the top management and then instructing the end-users on how to use it. Many glitches are revealed at this juncture that could entail an expensive and time-consuming system redesign. To prevent this from happening businesses should take them into confidence at an early stage and ask them for the inputs on making an effective organization. Not only will businesses be able to operate more effectively but will also have inculcated a spirit of cooperation and teamwork into its employees.
Make sure that the message goes out that the CRM package is being implemented to make the lives of the end-users easier and more productive and not to feed the unseen top-management fancy reports and numbers nobody really cares about. The creation of a win-win situation for all participants will also ensure that the CRM package has the necessary support of all.
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