Year: 2011

It’s been an interesting year on the CRM vendor front. Salesforce.com alone ensured it would never be a dull 2011. It felt like hardly a week went by without them buying another company.  Acquisitions included Heroku, Dimdim, Assistly, Model Metrics, Radian6, and Rypple. They clearly have a bold vision of Continue Reading

Out of idle curiosity I’ve just been checking Google Analytics and worked out a top ten ‘The CRM Consultant’ blog posts based on number of views in 2011. It should be noted that not all were actually written in 2011 (one was written back in 2009), and that this list may well Continue Reading

As I mentioned in my last post – what is a CRM consultant, there are – perhaps confusingly – a wide range of people who use the title ‘CRM Consultant’, but who actually perform very different roles in the world of customer relationship management. One species is the Independent CRM Continue Reading

I get emails from time to time asking me how someone becomes a CRM consultant. This is a problematic question to answer, mainly because there is no single definition as to what a CRM consultant actually is. The term CRM consultant is used by various groups of people. These include, Continue Reading

The sign in the picture has significance. Well significance to ultra runners anyway. Or more specifically ultra runners taking part in the Country to Capital at least (which takes place in January in case you’re tempted). The sign signals a left turn that takes you into central London. Miss it Continue Reading

One of the recurring themes in this blog has been the importance of the vendor project manager. Most organisations purchase CRM technology on the strength of the sales team, with whom their likely to have little to do with once the project commences. The project manager by contrast is the Continue Reading

You may have seen one of those documentaries about soldiers training for the special-forces. There’s normally a scene that goes along the following lines: a soldier reaches what they believe to be the end of some incredibly gruelling endurance test, presumably hopeful of some food and rest, only to be Continue Reading

This post concludes the series on classic CRM software selection mistakes: Failing to perform due diligence – as I’ve mentioned previously not all vendors or implementation partners are equal. The quality varies significantly. You ideally want to find a supplier who is both capable of delivering the initial project, but Continue Reading

Following on from my last post the next set of classic CRM technology selection mistakes: Assuming that big is better – there’s a tendency when assessing implementation partners to assume bigger is generally better. In reality it’s considerably less clear cut. In principle bigger organisations should have greater resources and Continue Reading

Following on from last week’s post here are the next set of classic CRM technology selection mistakes: Falling for the salesperson – As I mentioned in the last post a lot of purchase decisions are based on emotion rather than hard analysis. Salespeople are particularly influential – positively and negatively Continue Reading