The weakest link…

One thing that struck me, as I waded through a pile of tender responses just before Christmas, is how uncertain some vendors become when you ask them to give guidance on the recommended administrative overhead for running their systems. The significant majority of respondents just ignored the question. A few offered some vague advice, and a very small minority gave informative answers.

I’m not entirely sure whether this represents another example of the vendors’ lack of knowledge about the real world practicalities of running their technology, or a concern that they might scupper a software sale by being too forthright about the full costs of running their systems. Either way, administration is an important aspect to get right. It’s the weakest link for a lot of implementations.

There are generally two aspects to administering a CRM system. Firstly there’s system administration which is essentially keeping the technology itself running. This is generally pretty light work in respect to most mid-market systems, or non-existent (from the customers perspective at least) if it’s a hosted technology. The second area is user administration, which is about supporting the use of the system. This is a key role regardless of whether the technology is hosted or run ‘on premise’, and includes a host of basic activities such as adding new users, changing security rights, managing pick-lists etc, but some more involved areas such as helping maintain the quality of data in the system, and ensuring that the defined business processes are being followed in a structured and consistent manner.

The user administration overhead is frequently underestimated. This can involve considerable work even within relatively modest systems, particularly if there are many embedded processes. Companies also often underestimate the calibre of staff required to effectively administer these systems. All the great CRM systems that I can think of have great administrators. Few systems survive a bad administrator. With this in mind we will often go to considerable lengths to shadow and support new administration staff to ensure they make it quickly through the learning curve. We will also provide experienced interim administrators if staff unexpectedly leave. High performing CRM systems are sensitive flowers. It does take much in the way of environmental change to kill them off. User administration is such a weak link that I’d speculate that we’ll see a trend for companies to start outsourcing this activity entirely.

ShareThis