CRM Kaizen

One of my formative experiences in terms of thinking about implementing CRM systems occurred as a result of visiting Nissan’s car manufacturing plant in Sunderland in the early ‘90’s. Nissan Motors Manufacturing UK Ltd is the UK’s largest car manufacturing plant and the most productive in Europe, as measured by cars per person employed.

What struck me most during the visit was the relentless application of the Kaizen principle towards continuous improvements. Nissan’s ethos is about striving to find better ways of doing things in a way that is characterised by constant small incremental improvements. This application of Kaizen really hit home when we visited the production line. Every tool that a worker needed to fulfil their allotted role has been thoughtfully and precisely positioned for maximum efficiency – no need to look for it, or stretch for it, put out a hand and it was there.

In implementing CRM systems we recognise that one of the best ways of improving sales force productivity is to apply the same principles. Want to send a prospective client a case study – no problem the company’s marketing collateral is all accessible electronically through the library function, and there’s a range of mail-merge templates to choose from. Need to generate the monthly forecast report, no problem the reporting template is pre-defined and can be generated at a mouse-click. Need to prepare for a client review meeting – no issue last months service desk statistics are immediately to hand. Need to generate a quote – no problem, the quote templates are ready to go. And so on and so forth.

While increasing sales force productivity may not be number one on your list for implementing CRM solutions, the technology does give you the opportunity to apply the principle of Kaizen, and start to increase the productivity and effectiveness of the system users. While no single improvement may revolutionise the way people work, rather like at Nissan, a large number of small improvements can add up to some very big gains.

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