Customer Relationship Management done right: CRM implementation roadmap
A multistaged plan to implement and realize your CRM vision
An implementation roadmap is a multistaged plan the organization creates to realize the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) operating model. It sets the “how-to” direction for delivering CRM capabilities at reasonable increments. It turns your CRM blueprint into a prioritized, sequence of time-fixed work-streams (also known as initiatives).
The implementation roadmap, by nature, defines projects that have the potential to contribute value and return on investment (ROI) on their own, as well as building toward the long-term vision. This duality enables organizations to realize ongoing business value while making necessary interim changes and course corrections.
Build a roadmap that you can follow
Be sure that a realistic view of the organization’s capacity and culture is taken into account when developing the multigenerational roadmap. Don’t design projects that exceed the available resources of the company, including funding, resources, critical skills, and timeframes.
The solution design should articulate the scope of change for the entire transformation at a level that is clear enough for making macro business decisions. For current projects, the solution should be defined at a granular level of detail to build clarity and accuracy among the staff and stakeholders.
Define a roadmap that delivers value in phases
Using a self-funding discipline, carve the solution up into manageable pieces, each of which will provide some contribution towards the target value proposition. Early projects should be those that have the least organizational risk, the highest chances of success and deliver the most visible value and return. By starting with big successes, the psychology of the organization becomes excited and committed, future cases are easier to make, and energies are renewed and charged toward future goals.
Considerations for delivering value in phases:
• The roadmap should be composed of many short related projects that each has their own success factors and economic return.
• Choose initial projects that create early wins, create new justification, and deliver the funding for the next projects on the roadmap.
• Reject any notion of single “big bang” undertakings that that take years and millions of dollars in investment capital.
• Create a roadmap that can be adjusted to changing environments and unpredictable events.
Get the fundamentals right
Successfully executing on the roadmap requires the fundamentals of good project management. Planning, organization, driving progress, resolving issues, and communication are all essential. Remember some of the basics:
• Secure, commit and train resources required for success from start to finish. Be honest when evaluating your own teams, management and talent. Know when to develop internal teams, recruit new resources, displace ineffective teams, and hire outside expertise.
• Use a proven implementation method and tailor it for the projects to be undertaken. Adopt implementation practices that unify work styles and knowledge bases across teams.
• Create basic design principles to govern what must stay inside the enterprise, what can be shared across the enterprise and what could be operated outside the enterprise from a sourcing perspective.
• Obtain outside help as necessary and use outside help strategically. Create formal knowledge transfer strategies to help ensure the right expertise stays in-house.
• Evaluate different external relationships, including those that focus on building capabilities in-house, constructing outsourced capabilities, and those that allow the organization to take ownership of outsourced capabilities in the future.
Our approach to CRM implementation roadmaps
IBM utilizes a comprehensive, strategic approach to building CRM implementation roadmaps with our clients. We build a project plan that is designed to be achievable and deliver value in the short-term while building toward the long-term strategic vision. During an implementation roadmap project, we can:
• Prioritize requirements and initiatives needed to fulfill the transformation
• Create a sequential rollout strategy that defines priorities among programs
• Establish solution outlines for technology, people, and process using our deep methodologies
• Create detailed project plans, with a resource strategy, detailed activities, measurements, roles and responsibilities, and implementation timelines.
Getting Started
Implementation roadmaps should be developed upon completing a CRM blueprint i.e., the vision for the future-state operation, or prior to beginning any large implementation programs.
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