Anchor Every Project to Your Key Business Strategies

CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED

Movement on CRM began when a small group of senior business executives at the company defined a solution statement based on the popularity of a particular CRM tool. A department within Information Technology was given responsibility for moving forward with the task of investigating CRM-enabling tools. A particular CRM tool was identified as a leading candidate, and a pilot project was launched in their European sales team based on the functionality of that CRM tool.

This solution and tool-driven approach led to several challenges. For the pilot project to be successful, there needed to be strong sponsorship from business executives. This sponsorship was absent, which led to buy-in challenges among the business units. Furthermore, the IT leader responsible for the pilot project had no authority to direct or influence business operations or process changes. The lack of a business-led approach further increased the perception of CRM as an IT project, rather than a business project.

Looking long-term, there was no plan for transitioning from the limited focus of the pilot to an enterprise-wide CRM program. Budget constraints limited the ability to invest in the needed infrastructure to support an enterprise-wide CRM program.

The launch of the pilot in the absence of a strategy created many challenges. A lack of broad ownership and commitment among business leaders led to conflicting pilot project priorities. This caused the pilot project's scope and requirements to rapidly expand beyond the boundaries of original time and cost commitments. The project team was challenged with getting sales and marketing stakeholders committed to participating in identifying and prioritizing functional requirements for the pilot application. Meanwhile, financing and service business units were also interested in pursuing CRM and were considering pilot projects of their own. Individual pursuit of CRM by business units would contradict the capability of establishing full integration and sharing of each customer's data. The functional sponsor, program manager, and project manager were faced with getting agreement on objectives for the pilot, getting buy-in for a full-scale CRM program, and convincing enthusiastic business units to hold off until efforts could be incorporated into an enterprise-wide CRM program.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

Several strategic and tactical success factors were identified for resolving the challenges, and getting the project anchored in its key business strategy. At a strategic level, ownership of the CRM Program needed to be established with business executives, as opposed to technology executives. Business and technology executives would need to establish and maintain commitment to an enterprise-wide approach with common vision, goals, strategy, objectives, and coordinated, flexible program and processes across business units and with Information Technology.

At a tactical level, project business cases would need to be fully developed and analyzed. The pilot project would need to be followed by an iterative program development approach that aligned with and informed the ongoing program strategy. To tie the strategic and tactical level together, a scalable and flexible program management office and infrastructure would need to be in place at the conclusion of the pilot.