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Why CRM Implementation Is So Political
If CRM systems are just IT systems, why are the projects so political? It's the people, processes and policies that are affected. Here are five warning signs that mudslinging may begin, as well as some tips for reaching across the aisles.
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IT systems don't typically show all that many symptoms of politics. They consist mostly of engineering and consistent rules. An accounting or ERP or integration system may be in place for a decade or more. It's hard to imagine a heated meeting about inventory allocation or accounting rules (other than Silicon Valley's infamous options-backdating issues).
Not so with CRM system implementation. These projects have lots of meetings. In fact, I'm going to assert that not having heated meetings is an almost a sure indication of future project problems.
Why? The surface reason—that flashy egos are involved—hides five more profound reasons.
1. Fundamentally, CRM systems are about optimizing revenue. This topic is important to every stockholding executive. Ideally, revenue or profit optimization should be important to every VP and her team. In too many cases, though, sales exclusively owns the revenue agenda. In these situations, the chief revenue officer tends to push every other function to the side in the CRM system, leading to classic sub-optimization. This can result in a system that's easy to use for sales, but is a pain for partners, is sketchy for ecommerce customers, makes marketing programs less effective, slows down product distribution or impedes customer support—all of which can lower customer satisfaction and revenue.
Read the entire CIO Magazine article
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