Looking to dive into a CRM or ERP implementation? Before you kick off the project, it’s important to consider the value you will be driving to your business from these solutions.
Set yourself up for success by ensuring you have the buy-in from the appropriate people within your organization, keeping it simple and setting your project up with indicators of performance.
Check out these tips for driving value from your implementation:
Tip 1: Evangelize the business need and the ultimate outcome that the ERP implementation is trying to solve.
It’s key for executives to not only sponsor the implementation but to champion and evangelize it. Empower your people to provide input into the process and when things get hard, stand up and support the project and the process.
Don’t back down. Continue to reinforce the business value that ERP and CRM implementations are bringing to the organization.
Tip 2: Focus on the people that need to be involved in the project.
During an implementation, identify the people in the company that are most important to the organization. Those people are the future super users of the ERP or CRM tool.
They are the business process owners and they need to feel empowered to make decisions and it’s the executive managements job to empower them. It’s necessary for them to feel like they own the solution ultimately at the end of the day.
Ensuring that you choose the right people to be involved in the long-term will ultimately pay dividends because they will continue to support the implementation and influence others to utilize the solution.
Tip 3: Focus on the 80/20 Rule
During a CRM or ERP implementation, a lot of organizations try to overdesign the solution instead of trying to get the most value out of an out-of-the-box solution (also known as a vanilla solution). Oftentimes, most of the value that can be driven into the organization through one of these types of projects can be done with a simpler solution.
Most ERP and CRM solutions have similar functionalities, so we recommend starting with a base package that offers basic options. Then integrate the processes, leverage the best practices that exist in an ERP or CRM and then after using the system, you can customize your solution. Never lead with unique and tailored solutions or worrying about plugins and customizations.
Tip 4: Implement Processes that Drive Measurable Outcomes
A quote to keep in mind: “What gets measured, gets done.”
Measurement is important, often overlooked and not done correctly. In implementation projects, project managers and stakeholders will try to establish KPIs and oftentimes they are designed around the transaction volume in the system, not the indicators that are going to demonstrate the value of what you’re implementing.
First, you want to make sure you’re implementing technology and solutions that drive measurable outcomes. Then set goals that actually report out and indicate how that technology is performing and affecting your business. Always go in with business performance measures in mind.
