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06.24.09 CRM Integration Is A Key Success Factor  By Jim Berkowitz Here is a synopsis of an excellent article by David Taber, author of "Salesforce.com Secrets of Success" and CEO of SalesLogistix, Salesforce.com: 6 Areas To Watch After Rollout: By now, most organizations have used some sort of a SaaS application, so there's familiarity with the basics of hosted software. But CRM applications are by their nature much more likely to be integrated with other business-critical applications, either behind your firewall or in hosted data centers, so they present some new challenges. Furthermore, applications with really rich web-services APIs (such as Salesforce CRM) can surface operational, policy, and process issues in your IT organization. Given all this change, where should you as CIO concentrate after rollout? Here's some practical advice. While much of this article applies to any SaaS CRM system, we've focused here on the specifics of Salesforce.com… 1. IT Team's Level of Engagement - In many early parts of a Salesforce CRM project, there isn't that much for many parts of the IT team to actually do. After the first year, however, your team is likely to become more involved, particularly if the system is a big success. There will be demands to extend the application's footprint (particularly towards your web site) and internal integration (generally in the direction of engineering's support system and finance's order management and accounting packages). This is natural as the users start working with the system as a full fledged CRM system, rather than just an SFA tool. 2. Integration and Extension - The biggest effort related to a new SaaS CRM system won't be implementation or customization: it'll be data and integration. Don't be surprised if cleaning up data and integrating with your existing systems costs more than your first-year license fees. 3. Performance and Business Continuity - In many respects, with a SaaS CRM system, the vendor is ultimately responsible for delivering on the SLA. Salesforce.com has a very good record indeed of operational continuity, and the company provides several weeks' notice for planned downtime. In most cases, however, the perceived performance of SFDC in your headquarters buildings will likely be somewhat slower than with an on-premises application; conversely, it will be perceived as much faster in remote offices (particularly those located outside the United States). 4. Access Control and Security - Of course, your team needs to configure the access control and security model, but it's the vendor that is ultimately responsible for enforcement. Salesforce.com has a pretty thorough role and profile-based security model, and it can be configured for access hours, network address, and other access controls.
5. Data Quality - As with any large system, data pollution is an inevitability. Business analysts and others will discover corrupted or duplicate data creeping into the system over time. Reports run for executives will start to show contradictory or confusing results. This is poisonous to a CRM system's credibility. Whether you use temporary coders, data-entry clerks, or overtime hours of internal people, set aside some budget for a health check and cleanup cycle at least once a year. You'll also want to devote quality time (from your team or specialized consultants) to identify the source of the data pollution problems, rectify them, and programmatically clean up the data. 6. IT Team Skills - Some of your staff will take System Administrator or Developer classes to become proficient with the details of the CRM package, of course. However, your team may also need some new lessons at a project management level, especially IT staffers dealing directly with business users who don't know or care much about technology. As more IT pros play roles akin to business analysts, listening and counseling skills will be important. Comments About the Author: Jim Berkowitz is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of professional services and project management experience related to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Financial Management (Accounting & ERP) software solutions for small, mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies. As a Sales Force Automation and CRM Consultant, Jim has assisted more then 100 companies with the design and implementation of custom CRM solutions. Mr. Berkowitz is the founder and President of CRM Mastery, Inc.; a company dedicated to serving small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) by offering affordable tools and guidance to help them plan for and succeed with their CRM initiatives. |
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