| Measure the success of your CRM strategy | | | | CRM to be a strategic, customer-centric way of doing |
| Effective Business intelligence is a topic that I've only | | | | business, you should have decided up front what was |
| gotten involved with in the past few years. Before that, | | | | going to improve and how you were going to measure |
| the middle market companies I've worked with couldn't | | | | it. To do this you'll need a means of presenting the |
| afford the entry price. Expensive software with hefty | | | | results. You might be trying to... |
| consulting engagements for building data warehouses | | | | 1. Incrementally increase revenue - your customer |
| and business metrics simply made it impossible. | | | | focused realignment could lead to the attraction of |
| Fortunately, and much to the dismay of many of those | | | | new customers at an increased rate. Referrals are |
| companies, companies like QlikTech have come along | | | | great that way. If this is part of your plan, then plan to |
| and allowed me and my peers to provide some really | | | | measure this increase relative to the implementation of |
| cool stuff to the middle market. | | | | your strategy. |
| Tactical Business Metrics | | | | 2. Cost Reduction - Reducing the friction in your |
| I just made that term up. I throw anything that supports | | | | business by re-working your processes to be |
| measurements to things like the sales process tactical. | | | | customer-centric will allow you to reduce your staff |
| Just because someone names a methodology | | | | and increase your throughput. Your plan should identify |
| Strategic Selling doesn't make it strategic. Keep in mind | | | | where this will occur and how you will gain from them. |
| that the sales organization derives it's initiatives from a | | | | You cannot justify the investment if you can't measure |
| corporate vision. Let's hope it's customer centric! | | | | them. |
| I find some of the "dashboards" out there to be | | | | 3. Improve profitability - whether by becoming more |
| useless and extremely confusing. They either look like | | | | efficient, identifying a more profitable product and |
| a vintage sports car, or there are so many low level | | | | service mix, or by extending the average customer |
| "KPI's" on them that there no better than raw data. | | | | lifecycle, you should know what to expect in advance |
| Let's be serious. Solutions for effectively monitoring | | | | and measure it against your goals. Effective business |
| business intelligence should provide information, not raw | | | | intelligence tools are a great help, but a spreadsheet |
| data. Why would you want to think about what you're | | | | could do it too. |
| looking at? Wouldn't it be better to know either | | | | 4. Retrieve lost opportunity costs - what have you |
| everything's OK, or something is wrong with out having | | | | been doing all these years? Losing customers you |
| to process data in your head? | | | | should have kept. Losing high quality employees that |
| The first time I was shown an executive information | | | | refused to put up with "that's the way we've always |
| system was 20 years ago when I was in banking. The | | | | done it". Turnover costs you money because it's |
| simplicity was beautiful. All it had were three simple | | | | always more expensive to acquire than it is to keep. |
| colored rectangles. Each represented a different area | | | | Effective business intelligence isn't about the glitzy tool. |
| of responsibility. If it was green, everything was cool. If | | | | It's about your plan and the measures you've set for |
| it was yellow, someone was probably already looking | | | | determining your success. Don't accept what comes |
| into things, but he or she could click for more info. It it | | | | out of the box. Be prepared to challenge them with |
| was red, heads would probably roll. The key is that the | | | | your requirements. After all, they don't know your |
| executive trusted these colors. | | | | strategy, so they can't possibly have predicted the |
| Strategic Business Metrics | | | | best set of measures for you. |
| I like making up headlines like that. Since I consider | | | | |