A lot of people think a successful IT project is driven by technology.  While technology is important and has to be capable of doing the job, its only one piece.  A big part of any IT project is change management.  Users are being asked to change how they do something.  Two key factors to consider are how much of a change are users being asked to do and how much pain do they currently have with the existing processes.   The less the change and the more pain felt with the current solution, the easier it is for an IT project to be successful.

A lot of CRM projects fail or have trouble because they are implemented into sales organizations where there is a fairly unstructured sales process that the sales people are happy with and is possibly even getting results.  Management may select a CRM solution that is designed to drive a structured sales process and requires active use by the sales people.  This would be a big change into an environment where the users are not feeling much pain with the current process.  In this case, its not the software, but the changes being introduced into an environment that is comfortable with the existing processes.  The change can be done, but it must be managed.  Helping the users understand the reasons for doing (possibly to drive more sales and higher commisssions) and then minimizing he change.  One way to do the latter is to introduce a project in Phases.   More to come on Phases in a future blog.

Just came across a couple of interesting articles that confirm what we see around the reporting clients want.  A recent report produced by Cap Gemini and Merrill Lynch notes that 85% of clients are looking for better reporting.  After 2008 clients want to look at their holdings and reports much closer than they did.   Wealthy clients are getting more involved in reviewing their holdings and performance, and the statements are a key way that wealth firms communicate with their clients.  A report by Advent (Advent’s Top Five Wealth Management Trends for 2010 – http://www.advent.com/collateral/TM_WEALTH.pdf) says the same thing that clients are looking for better reporting as part of the services they get from their firms.

I’ve experienced how reporting affects my decisions.  The firm I was using produced voluminous paper reports for my discretionary accounts that included all the transactions for the period.  I asked for a slimmed down version with just the holdings and performance in an electronic format to make it easier to store.  I was tired of having to shred the big paper books sent each quarter.  The firm told me they could only deliver one format , with no performance and it had to be in paper.  I now have a new provider that can provide the reporting in the format I need.

We are seeing a lot of interest in mobile solutions, especially around putting CRM functionality on hand helds like Blackberries. The challenge is that while users are lookng for functionality that is similar to the laptop, the mobile device has constraints that put limitations on what they can do.

To keep mobile devices small, there are limits on memory on the device. The Blackberry Storm has 125MB, while most laptops today have 2-4 GB. The device memory will need to store contacts and emails. Different users will have different storeage requirements so the available memory may be vastly different by user. Some users may want to keep all their emails on their Blackberry. Also, as the devices become more capable, there are more applications to store as well as muli media like pictures taken on devices with cameras. The result is that what may work on one device within an organize may not work on another based on the users habits. This is a challenge that doesn’t generally exist on today’s laptops.

Network speed is another challenge. Mobile networks are getting faster, but still slow relative to WAN or wired connections. The data also has to go from the users servers through a mobile server, then through the network provider to the device.

Finally, the mobile world is not as homogeneous as the Windows laptop world. Different devices, even by the same manufacturer may have different versions of operating systems. Mobile carriers may also add difference to the devices operating system.

Mobile apps are a great way to get access to informaton when out of the office, but they do present challenges that are not always obvious to users or IT people starting out on their first mobile deployment.

CRM techology is intended to support a firm’s processes and strategies. Often, a firm will find a CRM implementation done several years ago is not supporting the business. The reason is that the CRM processes are no longer in sync with the business processes.

We see some common success factors with the CRM installs we have done over the past 10 years. Hopefully the factors will help companies looking at a CRM installaiton

I watched a video last week by Brad Wilson, the GM for MS CRM.  One of his notes was that CRM is 30% technology and 70% business knowledge.  We’ve always believed our domain knowledge and experience in the financial services business was a big value add, but Brad confirmed it.  Great to hear we’re on the right road