Leslie Brohm | Online Presence

First we Feast! on Flickr.

Flower children went on a beserk plucking spree! on Flickr.

That time of the year. on Flickr.

#Gezelligheid op de zondagmiddag. on Flickr.

Munching down strawberry ice cream. #Yummy on Flickr.

With all data in place it is now time to compile the most important information into one sheet.

Cheat sheet, or is it? Think of this as creating a cheat sheet that can be used to present a resulting business case. Keep it short and snappy.

My advise here is, compile it into a table matrix, in which you rake up all alternative solutions into one easy to read

Be sure that the compiled overview takes up half a page. (Even if it means the page is printed on A3 format)

Finish with an advise The next half of the page is used to reach an advise. What was the intention of this Lifecycle Review and what are your recommendations based on the overview presented above.

Use the most solid factors to come to your conclusion, as that there is no flaw possible to your advise.

The Document is created, now what? Make it known. Who can help you follow up on your advise? Do you need to go to your manager first, or do you need to talk to people of your division? Maybe you need to talk to people from IT, or a Program Steering committee?

Anything goes as you need to get to the next step of your plan: Having the best Solution in place for your users!

Now that we have analyzed the Current Situation in the Blueprint article, it is time to step up the game.

Follow up on your Blueprint

While it is great to have an overview of the items, you want to see where you would like to go with your CRM platform. Think of the possible solutions.

Does your current vendor offer any improvement plans?

Does your current vendor provide any successor CRM platforms?

Do you need to look at new CRM platform vendors, and if so make a long(er) list which you want to narrow to a shortlist real fast.

Do not underestimate the power of the “Do Nothing” option.

When you have listed the possible solutions, it’s time to revisit the earlier mentioned Blueprint. Make sure to go through all items, for all the Possible Solutions. To keep a clean overview, I recommend you copy your blueprint per Possible Solution. Looking back at my own situation; I had 3 options and a shortlist of 3 CRM platforms that could be listed as new CRM Solutions. This resulted in 5 copies of my Blueprint sheet.

Help with the Shortlist

If you are not sure where to look, with regards to suitable CRM replacements, you can look at this page: CRM Top 9 2015. For our shortlist two mentionable options we came up with were Salesforce and  BPM’online. In all honesty, I might have added Base CRM to the shortlist if we were to repeat this exercise.

When preparing for the future, it is always wise to start registering what you currently have in place.

Current Situation

Start with labeling  the first column “Current Situation”; the two following columns will contain technical information. Label this Technical and start listing technical, architecture and infrastructure information.

Think of items like Type of Solution, License Types, Objects and Integration Interfaces.

Is the CRM Platform used, a On-premise, Multi/Single-tenant or SaaS solution?

List this next to Type of Solution.

What Objects are currently being used by the CRM Platform? List these and mark their importance next to Objects.

Do you currently integrate data into and from your CRM? List it in the Integration Interface section. Also write down the interface used to integrate.

For instance:

Marketo - Lead to Contact | ESB, or 

Clicktools - Survey Results | login credentials / CRM connector

When done listing the current technical components, be sure to add a new column called Rating and rate or add a color code to the list item. Yes, be completely honest here; you want to know if this can be improved, or if this is already covered really well!

Next to the Rating column, you would like to list the Functional Items currently in use. Think of functional items that you use within your CRM Platform and list them. How is Relationship Management covered, are you able to register Campaigns and Members/Recipients participating? Is there a Data Loader/Import/Export solution in place, what possibilities are in place? What about Workflows, Triggers, Reports, Dashboards, Customizations, Mulitilingual Support, URL hacking possibilities, Webservices and User Management? List them and follow up by rating them, again in a separate Rating column. Once again, be brutally honest here!

The horizontal last section is all about Customer Centric Processes. What Business Processes are safeguarded by the CRM Platform, which processes are Critical Business Processes. Think of Lead Nurture Processes, think of Sales/Opportunity Processes that might need to comply with Ray Leone’s Sales Funnel Methodology.

Again add a Rating column and be honest about the way these are currently implemented.

Bottlenecks

Use the same column layout as the Vertical Section above, but this time label it Bottlenecks.

List the items that can be or really need to be improved. Think of Availability, what is the Uptime? How does the system cope with Scheduled Jobs? Can you schedule Dataloads/Reports/Workflows? What about the Intuitive Design? Can people click through easily, is the Configuration well enough to not confuse your users? What abouth Cross Object Functionality/Selections or Multi Object Mass Updates? Be sure to list these under Technical/Functional or Customer Centric Processes.

Extra Functionality

Rinse and repeat the process fro extra functionality. Are there any solutions in place for Exchange Syncronisation, are you able to Query the CRM database, is there an app exchange market, is Active Directory /Single Sign On support in place, what about Social possibilities of the CRM, Collaboration possibilities, Omni/Multi Channel Campaign Support and what about Document Management Support? Once again put them beneath the proper heading, Technical / Functional / Customer Centric and start rating.

When done, you will have your first impression; how well is my current CRM holding up. This way you will be able to tell, if your current CRM is up to par and can still be upscaled to meet current day CRM standards.

Coming from a Maintenance and Continuity background, I am a strong fan of enforcing an annual review cycle to see if platforms and products are still up to par.

- Enforcing? Yes, enforcing!

This way, you will be able to analyse if your platform is still in the upper echelons, or if your focus needs to shift elsewhere in time for you to follow up well before contract/subscription renewal comes around the corner.

In order to get a clean picture, take the following items into consideration:

Technical Overview

architecture

infrastructure

Functional Possibilities

Process Safeguarding

Bottlenecks

Scalability, Upgrading and Extra Functionality

While mapping or registering these items, feel free to create an Excel Blueprint. Use this to not only map the Current Situation, but also for possible Future Solutions.

Try to keep the Blueprint sheet as simple as possible, a simple sheet with 10 columns could be more than enough. Use the columns to properly categorize and rate the identified items.

Start cracking and next week I will share my views on the blueprint itself.