The Art of Strategic Marketing: Market Learning, Sensing, and Intuiting
Market Learning The first step in strategic marketing is to learn from the market about the changing consumer preferences and attitudes. Firms typically employ market research agencies to conduct surveys and research reports about how consumers and their preferences goods and services over others are changing with the times. In other words, firms attempt to […]
Inventory Management in Retail Industry – Need and Important Terminologies
What is Inventory Management? Inventory refers to the goods stocked for future use. Every retail chain has its own warehouse to stock the merchandise to be used when the existing stock replenishes. Inventory management refers to the storage of products to be used at the time of crisis. The retailer keeps a track of the […]
Co-branding – Meaning, Types and Advantages and Disadvantages
What is Co-branding Co branding is the utilization of two or more brands to name a new product. The ingredient brands help each other to achieve their aims. The overall synchronization between the brand pair and the new product has to be kept in mind. Example of co-branding – Citibank co-branded with MTV to launch […]
Business to Business (B2B) Internet Marketing Strategies
Business to Business Marketing refers to transaction of goods and services between two or more organizations. Ways of Business to Business Internet Marketing Strategies Educate Your Prospects It is really essential to make your client feel important. Remember you will have a tough time dealing with an uneducated and confused client. Always educate your client […]
Measuring Advertising Effectiveness
“When a child writes the examination papers, he has to see the result come what it may be, so that he comes to know where he is wrong and where he should pay more attendance. This will help him work better in future.” This is exactly the case of the advertisement. The work is not […]
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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