This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Integrating People, Process, and Technology
Personnel responsible for delivering successful CRM initiatives acknowledge the above people, process, and technology issues. More importantly, though, these personnel understand that during the life of the CRM initiative, the integration mix of people, process, and technology will change. Table 3.1 provides a generic model for understanding how the people, process, and technology mix changes for key CRM implementation activities. This generic model needs to be adjusted for your company, taking into account that different companies will realize key CRM implementation activities at different speeds.
TABLE 3.1 Developing the right mix of people, process, and technology.
|
Key CRM Implementation Activities |
Most Relevant Components |
|
Determining business requirements |
People, some process |
|
Setting up the project management team |
People, some process |
|
Integrating legacy and other needed systems |
Technology |
|
Customizing the CRM software |
People, process, technology |
|
CRM system pilot |
People, technology |
|
CRM system roll-out |
People, technology |
|
CRM system support |
People, some process |
|
Growing your CRM system |
People, process, technology |
Let's look at a few of the CRM implementation activities in Table 3.1 to better understand the dynamics of getting the mix right. To determine business requirements, a company will want to apply a structured process to ensure that user needs are properly identified and prioritized. Most of the effort for determining business requirements, however, will deal with people issues, namely working with potential users to help them think through their existing and potential business requirements, and to help them manage their expectations concerning how the CRM initiative is likely to impact these requirements. Technology plays a minor role at best in determining business requirements.
Similarly, when a company is ready to set up their CRM project management team, the people component plays a critical role (e.g., agreeing on who is responsible for which CRM implementation activities). Process (how to optimally set up the project management team and subteams) is also important. Technology, however, plays a minor role at best in setting up the CRM project management team.
Yet when the company is ready to begin integrating legacy and other needed systems, technology plays the critical role. The selection of an appropriate Enterprise Application Architecture (EAA), agreement on appropriate frameworks or the use of middleware toolsets, etc., will greatly impact the effectiveness and efficiency of systems integration. People may insist that their system needs to be integrated first, and there should be a process for determining which systems to integrate and in which order, but overall technology drives this activity's success.
As a last example, when performing CRM software customization, all three components play critical roles. Technology is key for developing, modifying, and deleting screens and for navigating between screens. Process is important for driving workflow development (which, in turn, gets built by technology). People are critical for ultimately judging how well the customizations meet their needs as well as for commenting on how the workflow impacts the overall user friendliness of the system.