In fact, the price of these systems is often so high that any company smaller than a Fortune 500 firm cannot reasonably afford one. But other vendors have created CRM solutions with the midsized company in mind, offering applications that include virtually all of the features common in enterprise solutions, but at a cost that is reasonable for smaller-scale users. Even better, many of these solutions can be scaled from as few as five users to as many as you are likely to need in the future. With a CRM solution designed for midsized companies, you can start small and grow big without ever wasting your valuable resources on capacity you don’t need. You buy what you need, when you need it. Another benefit of CRM solutions designed from the ground up for midsized companies is that they are easier to implement and are fully functional right out of the box. Maybe larger enterprises have the time and resources to spend tailoring a solution and integrating it into their enterprise. But midsized companies want a CRM solution that they can get up and running easily, quickly, and at minimal cost.

Your First Steps

5. Planning pays.

To ensure a successful CRM project, planning is essential. Begin by defining the need for a CRM solution. Arm yourself with the background information to justify the investment costs and to demonstrate where the benefits, savings, and ROI will come from. Next, define the stakeholders in the project and use the needs analysis and benefits projections as a foundation for establishing a common, company-wide goal for CRM. With this groundwork completed, you can now establish a budget, planning for the costs associated with identifying vendors, testing solutions, implementation, integration, training, and support. A team should then be assembled to begin the drive towards completion of the project—a drive that begins with a clear description of your company’s CRM objectives and any processes that will have to be modified to make the project successful. Make sure the head of this team is a CRM evangelist—someone who completely believes that CRM will make a difference. Good planning will involve discussions with internal and external customers. What are the best practices for your sales force, for your marketing team, for customer service? Also consider the various types of data that are important to track for each group involved. Data required by different groups of system users such as field sales representatives may be different from those of customer service agents. Plan for the needs of each group by confirming that your data requirements list is complete. Remember: any person who requires information available through the CRM solution should be considered a system user, whether he or she is an internal staff member or an external partner.

Comparing Options

6. Prepare for product demos.

Once possible products and vendors are identified, a demo will be a critical factor in determining which solution is best for your company. But before inviting vendors to perform their demos be sure you have told them exactly what you are looking for. Why waste time evaluating a product that may be very functional but just will not work in your environment? Also be sure to find out from the vendor what platform is required to run the demo. Again, don’t waste time scheduling a demo only to find out you don’t have the right hardware or the right operating system to support the product. When comparing several products it is advisable to establish a scoring system that makes it easy to track the various benefits and shortcoming of each product being evaluated. By tabulating these scores, the decision process is often simplified. But be sure to include qualitative information in these lists, such as a vendor’s history of innovation, customer satisfaction, financial stability and so on. And finally, make sure the CRM implementation team attends the demo, and encourage them to share their concerns and feedback. If the vendor or reseller cannot immediately address any issues raised, make sure they do so in a reasonable time frame. Responsiveness is often a key differentiator in the vendor selection process, so some planned tough questions may be critical to making a selection you can live with long into the future.