Author: Richard Boardman

This post is about choosing an implementation partner as opposed to a CRM software vendor. The distinction being that while you may choose CRM software from vendors such as Microsoft, Salesforce.com, or Sage, the actual implementation work is likely to be performed by one of a large network of partners. Continue Reading

Following on from my previous post, the next 10 ways to cut the cost of your crm project: Buy to fit your functional needs – your detailed requirements specification should tell you the functionality you do (and don’t) need from your CRM software. Understanding your needs and matching them to Continue Reading

If you’re looking to cut the costs of implementing a CRM system, then here are 20 ways (split over two posts): Do you really need new CRM software? – sometimes organisations already have CRM software, but it just isn’t working well for them. The temptation is often to replace it Continue Reading

One point I accidentally omitted from my ‘Getting People to Use CRM Technology’ post relates to Broken Windows theory. Broken Windows theory postulates that cutting down on low-level crime, such as littering and graffiti, reduces the incidence of more serious crimes and underpinned the approach taken to reducing crime in Continue Reading

This post is part of the serialisation of the ‘An Industry Insider’s survival guide to everything you should know about buying and implementing CRM software’ e-guide, and covers how to gather and document your requirements for a CRM system: Why’s it so important? Getting requirements defined correctly is probably the Continue Reading

I’ve noticed over the years there are four words that seem to make marketers shudder – ‘the Christmas card list’- because for most organisations this seemingly simple activity exposes the frailties of their CRM systems and databases. While superficially innocuous, it tends to be a hugely manual task involving both the marketing Continue Reading

This post is part of the serialisation of the ‘An Industry Insider’s survival guide to everything you should know about buying and implementing CRM software’ e-guide, and is the second and final installment of the planning process in which I cover phasing, costs, and executive support: Avoiding the big bang Continue Reading

The following series of posts serialises  my ‘An Industry Insider’s survival guide to everything you should know about buying and implementing CRM software’ e-guide which can be downloaded here if you prefer to read it in its entirety. This, and the next few posts, will concentrate on the planning of Continue Reading

In my last post I set out nine of eighteen ways to speed up a CRM project, focusing principally on pre-implementation activities. This post outlines ways to speed up a project once the implementation begins: Don’t do too much in phase one – there’s only so much change an organisation Continue Reading

In my post ‘How long does a CRM project really take’ I suggested that 12 months was fairly normal for a strategic mid range deployment of CRM software. This begs the question: how do you speed up a CRM project. Here are 18 ways: Truncate the fuzzy front end – Continue Reading