Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Sales, Marketing AND IT or Sales and Marketing VERSUS IT?

I like this question and agree with Brian's post. I would like to share the experience I had in my organization. We had two distinct offices with two separate IT departments. One was in NA, the other in EU. The NA IT department was involved during the decision making process where we originally rolled out our CRM. They were 100% behind our decision and were happy to support us. Although we did not need their involvement during implementation, they were involved when we looked at ERP integration and helped us integrate our Website to accept leads and service cases.

Our next step was to roll out CRM to our EU branch. It was a nightmare. The IT department was upset that they were not informed and it did affect their department. To make things more difficult, they had installed key applications on the server, had tight security which created roadblocks in getting CRM ready even though it was hosted. Problems escalated as the IT department started "bad mouthing" the CRM. At the end, it worked out due to executive support but we had to do major damage control.

So, to answer your question...AND IT. It doesn't hurt to have them engaged even if they do not make the final decision. Going forward, IT will play some role in CRM and it is easier to get them to help if they feel they have some form of ownership.

Great discussion Michael! Thanks for getting it started!

In the end CRM is a marketing, sales and customer service tool. It can be a crucial aspect of core business strategies in any or all of those areas. In actual fact, a company can be very good at CRM without any technology!

Of course, technology makes it more efficient and enables the leveraging of information about the relationship with a given customer in all aspects of a business.

So, your question implies another question - What is the roll of IT in a modern business?

I think you'll find it differs considerably from business to business. There are still many business owners, sales and marketing execs, etc. that see IT as a necessary evil. In these organizations, you'll find that IT is involved in CRM only as the technician tasked with installing, maintaining, supporting, etc. Management will have made their selection largely without IT's input and then will blame IT when it doesn't work the way they expected.

In our 7 years in providing CRM solutions, we've seen many businesses begin to see IT as a strategic competitive advantage. Even in small businesses, at CTO will sit at the table with marketing and sales execs and contribute to the development of strategy, in addition to its implementation. In these organizations, all parties will be part of the process early on and of course, this will lead to a solution that fits the business needs more closely and implementation and support that is focused on meeting those needs as a priority.

So, if its VERSUS, you should keep your money. If its AND, you've got a good shot at success.

The perceived conflict between Sales and Marketing vs. IT is a mentality issue, often caused by short-term thinking.

For example, suppose Sales wants to initiate a new CRM project which requires IT involvement. They are ready to move forward when IT puts a hold on the project to examine security and compliance.

In this case, IT may be perceived by Sales as an obstacle that must be overcome. IT may perceive Sales as trying to by-pass them. But if both look at the bigger picture they will realize that they are a team with complimentary objectives.

Sales wants to implement a system to ultimately help grow the company. IT is an enabler of that system, ensuring the company is protected and that the system won't conflict with other systems or put the company at risk (which could hurt reputation and ultimately decrease potential sales).

Vendors can help by providing specs and potential risks early in the sales cycle. They can also make an effort to understand associated policies and compliance items to get them addressed early on.

Sales, Marketing and IT would be prudent to meet periodically to share major projects and therefore pro-actively address potential concerns. This will minimize perceived delays for their projects and help them to understand each others' objectives. They will be positioned to enable one another, which ultimately causes both sides to win.

An ongoing mistake I see being made at all size organizations is that from the get go, IT, Sales and Marketing are not aligned in strategy. Leadership in these groups typically dictates such alignment happening or not. Alignment across these functions is a *luxury* for those controlling CRM strategy.

Best practices I can call out to increase the success rates for alignment include:

- Communication Strategy: Perhaps it is not formally spelled out, but the attitude to communicate in a closed-loop fashion is imperative for success (across any organization). Fostering teamwork requires communication.

From my professional experience, teams that communicate effectively are by in large that much more effective and progressive than those that do not. Leadership has to lead by example for this to really happen.

- Education about CRM: Ho hum, if I had a dime for each ah hah moment I have had when it became obvious CRM was misunderstood. Kicking off a formal strategy session across the department should start with definitions around what CRM is exactly.

Too often, IT believes it's the software due to their perspective. Sales has mixed reviews- the sales people can resent having to do administration such as logging activities- and can lack the overall vision of what CRM is and the positive impact it has on them. Marketing falls somewhere in the middle mostly, frustrated that IT doesn't do more to automate and implement add-ons, and more importantly, that Sales is not doing enough to drive Marketing decisions. Therefore, not just definitions, but value across each function and impact across each function needs to be a part of the education process.

- Consistency: Executive buy-in and CRM value adoption are both critical for the overall CRM strategy success. Consistent messaging and involvement from executives, manager and end users ensure success.

Strategy reviews at all levels increase perceived value of CRM, increasing effective adoption across the board. Incorporating CRM metrics in executive weekly meetings across Sales, Marketing and IT ensures visibility of efforts, successes, and shortcomings. Consistency in reviewing the strategy, efforts, and metrics across all levels definitely increases cross-functional participation.

Once the light bulbs go on about what CRM is, how it impacts cross-functionally, and the values it brings, alignment is given the green light and the company has opportunity for pedal to the metal growth.

Good luck drivers!
Melissa McCready

Good challenge Michael. But surely we have a business CRM strategy which is delivered and supported by the various functions. All elements of a business need to understand success only comes when all elements work together. Anything else constitutes dysfunction.

When each business unit contributes its energies and expertise to the greater good, customers, shareholders and employees all win. Anything less boils down to uneccessary turf wars and should be quashed as quickly as possible. IT is no more or less important than HR, Finance, Facilities or any other unit. Management have a responsibility of maximising the return to investors, delivering to customers and supporting staff.

CRM is a tool to manage the engagement wioth customers. It crosses many business units and supports many. A well thought out and managed business strategy for a CRM model and its supporting tools and technology is not the turf of any one business unit.

I believe those who embrace driving business for success will sidestep the ownership aurguments and get on with the job of winning, keeping and totally wowing customers and building strength into their companies operations. My experience has consistently found this to be true whereas any aurgument about sales versus marketing or S&M vs IT or any other factions within a business versus any other faction are futile energy wasters. Maybe a better approach is to look at how can we marshall all business units to maximise an organisations success.
Regards
James

IT can either be a hendrence or an asset to your business. They key is to involve them in understanding the whole picture and offer the department seats at the strategic table. Give them some say in not only the how but the way. Collaboration creates buy in and buy in creates synergy.

The best CRM programs I've seen have several key elements. Truth is it takes the entire company and every department that touches the customer to manage their relationship. Make your program cross-functional and post a picture of your customer on the board/wall at every gathering. Let that focus bring groups together to solve problems and create solutions.

Interesting to see this debate still arising so many years after it started. Surely IT and Sales/Marketing are both necessary drivers for your business? And the decision probably needs to be made on a wider basis still?

Surely this is how it goes...

Sales/Marketing AND Customer Care develop their criteria for any CRM solution based on business benefits and tangible criteria developed in consultation with both their workforce and customers.

IT develop their criteria for ease of support, maintenance, upgrade paths etc.

HR develop theirs regarding the ease of people and process implementation, particularly training and ongoing support.

Finance look at implementation costs, licence costs, and TCO.

You then evaluate vendors against all criteria... and come to a sensible compromise.

I've worked in organisations where each department has had the greatest measure in the final say. None of them has worked terribly well in the long run.

Business is a collaborative effort, and if it isn't you need to tear down some silos and fire some senior managers and replace them with those who are dedicated to making money for you and working together to do so. The idea that any one area of the business should rush out and make a major decision that impacts on all areas without appropriate consultation is madness.

And in area with such massive impact on the business as a CRM implementation it's not madness, it's full on foaming insanity.

Vendors can assist in the process by enabling and facilitating collaborative approaches through workshop events and by developing a high level understanding of all business area concerns and helping the departments to address these appropriately.

As CRM consultants, it's our strength and a mission to demonstrate how one database solves 3 or 4 departments problems. As vendors, we need to stop talking about how wonderful our features can be. Instead, you always need to keep in mind there are many different agendas within these projects.

One a single system, I can offer the following benefits:

1) IT - The only need to manage one backup file and we'll handle application support
2) Sales Reps - I will make it easy to make follow-up reminders, queries and integrate with MS Office so you don't have to do 'double-work' for the same task. Also, we can make the data portable and accessible offline and online
3) Sales Managers - A properly built CRM allows the manager to access real-time reports on performance. The Sales reps spend less time on admin time and remain keen on achieving quota.
4) Marketing - The sales reps already have captured demographics. Why not let the CRM run a quick query and create the targeted direct email/mail pieces.
5) Marketing & Sales together - With one database and one report, marketing can run a report that indicates what referral sources work and don't work.

So, I believe a consultative CRM vendor, with experience in many different industries, offers tremendous value to a company to help them build the best solution.

IT is a modern necessity...unless you dont plan to use computers in your business?