Risk is a relative concept.

When it comes to innovation, the insurance industry often gets a bum rap: slow to change, reactionary. One Dreamforce 2011 session, “The Next Generation of Insurance,” was even subtitled “Rethinking a Laggard Industry.”

Now, the insurance industry may be slow, but I’d never label it as lagging. Relatively speaking, the industry has been fairly aggressive in introducing new products and services to meet its customers’ needs. (Note I’m speaking here not about the health insurance industry, which is its own, unique space–especially with the Obama healthcare law now in play–but rather companies that sell life insurance, as well as non-life, general, and property or casualty insurance.)

Of course, the insurance industry is also built on the notion that it’s managing risk. By avoiding risky bets, insurers have historically made money, because they’ve been able to invest the money from customers’ premiums, and pay out less than they take in, thus generating profits. With a sure bet, why should the industry risk changing too quickly?

The problem for insurance companies, however, is that worldwide stock market performance has been fairly poor for some time, and it’s not forecast to get better anytime soon. Accordingly, the industry’s typical revenue-generation mechanism hasn’t been performing up to historical standards. That creates pressure on insurance companies to offset their lack of investment returns by lowering operating costs and finding new ways to increase revenue.

How CRM Helps Lower Costs And Increase Profits

Enter CRM. In fact, those business requirements have been the driving force behind most of the insurance projects in which Innoveer has participated. In general, we’re seeing insurers largely focus on these four types of customer-focused projects:

• Contact center optimization: For insurance companies, their first customer-service goal is to ensure that all inbound calls get solved by the member services agent who first picks up the phone. Of course, insurers have been focusing on the contact center for some time. But they’re coming back, since more business is now happening online, and especially on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, there continues to be a clear relationship between technology investments and business returns, as expressed by the number of calls per hour that agents can handle.
• Sales force transformation: Insurance companies often change and adapt their products to suit the needs of evolving markets, and to capitalize on new opportunities. For example, the life insurance industry has become expert at handling the complicated payouts that can be required after one of their policyholders dies. But to keep retooling their products and services, insurers typically require more flexible sales automation tools, not least to enable salespeople to remain up to date on all of the latest offerings.
• Mobile sales automation: Which salesperson today doesn’t sport a smartphone, tablet, or several of each? Accordingly, one prominent life insurance firm recently tapped Innoveer to help make its CRM software more mobile. The business driver is simple: to provide field agents with rapid access to complete customer and broker details, so they can more rapidly court customers with profitable proposals.
• Social Monitoring: While insurers aren’t adopting social technology as quickly as some other industries, such as high-tech companies, they are beginning to pursue projects that help them monitor social networks for favorable mentions, as well as distraught customers who need assistance.

Risk Versus Reward Demands Action

As these projects demonstrate, when it comes to lowering operating costs and increasing revenues, insurance companies aren’t afraid to revise their business practices and adopt the latest CRM approaches and technology. Because to reap rewards, it’s important to manage risks. And for almost any industry, including insurance, doing nothing–in the face of changing market conditions and a difficult economy–can be the biggest risk of all.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user BobaliciousLondon.

When working quickly, beware distractions.

What’s the best approach for quick and dirty Salesforce.com data integration?

Here at Innoveer, we get that question a lot, and our recommendation is weigh these three approaches:

• Punt integration until later
• Use a one-off data load to get essential information into Salesforce.com
• Set up recurring batch loads (avoiding real-time when possible)

One caveat is scope: Some customers’ Salesforce.com projects require more integration from the start. Other companies, meanwhile, add in the integration but leave it switched off, at least initially. Others have no integration at all.

Regardless of the approach, for companies that want to get up and running quickly, focus on keeping integration lean and mean, if you do any at all.

Gauge Your Integration Tolerance

How can you tell which level of integration to pursue? First, audit your existing interfaces — how systems are currently integrated — and deduce what’s essential. Also compute the tradeoffs between having:

1. a longer, more expensive phase 1 of your project, versus
2. a more agile phase 1 that gets people up and running on the system, and which helps users gain familiarity with the look of the system, and how it operates.

It’s important to note that the second — more bottoms-up — approach may make you rethink your overall integration strategy. (That’s a good thing.) Notably, Salesforce.com users often find that they need less integration than they’d assumed, back before the software got implemented.

For Phase 1: Why Not Keep It Simple?

Using the least amount of integration necessary to get the job done sometimes means using no integration at all, at least for the first phase of a project. For example, one large financial services firm, an Innoveer client, opted to rapidly roll out Salesforce.com without doing any integration. Instead, it focused on getting killer new SFA capabilities into salespeople’s hands, and enticing them to adopt the software, which they did in spades. Now, building on that successful rollout, it’s adding some basic integration with other systems, and may go for more complex integration in the future.

Dispatch One-Off Data Loads With Aplomb

Sometimes, however, you need legacy data in your Salesforce.com system from the get-go. For example, one Innoveer client — a manufacturing company — doesn’t just sell its products, but also schedules when they’ll be installed. Furthermore, it wanted to maintain all account and contact information in its legacy system, yet process orders and track service performance using Salesforce.com.

Accordingly, we helped the company rapidly deploy Salesforce.com, and used the Apex Data Loader (good for handling data sets that aren’t too big) to get its essential data into Salesforce.com. (That’s one huge benefit of using cloud-based CRM software: it comes with tools designed to get crucial data into the system.) Now, on a daily basis, the company has its legacy system automatically generate a flat file that gets pushed to Salesforce.com and automatically loaded via Apex, thus keeping the two systems in sync.

Leverage Quick & Dirty iFrame Integration

For a service company that’s an Innoveer client, we took a similar approach, though used Informatica Cloud Express service to handle the data load (Cast Iron would also have worked well), since there was more data than Apex could handle. The service company did a one-time load of account and contact data, which it will continue to manage using its legacy application, while it schedules service visits using Salesforce.com. (To keep the systems in sync, it’s pushing daily batch updates from the legacy application to Salesforce.com.) Furthermore, we created an iFrame to link the legacy system with Salesforce.com, which gives users the ability to update account records with schedule details from within Salesforce.com.

Extra points for style: Going forward, that company could even use style sheets to make the iFrame window in Salesforce.com identical to the actual Salesforce.com interface, so users would be none the wiser that they were interfacing with multiple systems in one window.

Use Real Time Only If Required

While we’ve detailed one-off data loads and batch data transfers, what about something faster? Well, this may come as a surprise, but beware real-time integration. That’s because it’s typically more costly to build, versus regular batch processes, since you’ll have to ensure that transferred data is perfectly formatted every time, so as to not break other systems.

Instead, consider the virtues of near-real-time integration. For example, one Innoveer client, a bank, was researching the best way to handle background checks for loans with its new Salesforce.com rollout. Previously, the bank had relied on a batch process that pushed credit check information, but only on a daily basis. The bank, however, was able to set up a faster batch process that now runs every 10 minutes. Accordingly, it’s met users’ requirements for faster access to relevant information, without having to deal with the complexity of using real-time integration.

Define Business Requirements, Then Decide Integration

As that highlights, rather than fixating on one style of integration or another, always focus on business requirements first. Then find the least complex approach that will meet those requirements. At least, that’s the strategy that we recommend if you want to keep your approach to Salesforce.com integration as quick, dirty, and effective as possible.

Learn More

To ensure that your cloud CRM program excels, review our “top 10” marketing, sales or service steps to see how your program compares to best practices and our benchmarks.

To enable organizations to identify the best way to embrace cloud-based CRM, Innoveer also helps businesses identify their business requirements through brief workshops, then plan CRM projects, select the right vendor, and implement the best CRM software (if required, in just four weeks).

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Alaskan Dude.

To sell a new SFA project, focus on how it will help the entire business -- not just salespeople.

How’s this for justifying an SFA project: “We’ll use business process reengineering (BPR) to ensure that the new SFA application increases sales productivity by 5%.”

So you go to the head of sales, saying that the new software will make your 100 salespeople 5% more efficient, meaning you can fire five of them, or increase everyone’s quotas by 5%. The trouble is, no head of sales is going to get very excited about that, and if you pursue either option, you’ll upset almost everyone.

The Sales Sponsorship Shortfall

In such situations, more sales leadership is required. To paraphrase one business luminary: “If I fired someone every time new technology was going to make them redundant, I’d have no one left.” In other words, sales leaders need to see the bigger picture, not least of which involves understanding how better SFA will not only benefit the business, but sell the project.

Furthermore, when it comes to justifying a new SFA project, there are only three approaches: wait for a breakdown, support a business transformation, or use business process reengineering (BPR) to maximize results by increasing productivity. That makes BPR the optimal approach.

For other parts of the business — besides sales — BPR is already widely embraced. Implement a new management system for $500,000 that saves $300,000 in inventory carrying costs per year, and everyone’s happy. Ditto for implementing new financial management software that bills customers three times more quickly. But when it comes to using BPR to justify SFA, projects too often hit the shoals, principally because sales VPs fail to support the endeavor.

Enter Business Process Reengineering

With those challenges in mind, using business process reengineering to justify SFA requires mastering these four strategies:

1. Take the long view. With SFA, you need a 5-year ROI model, to allow benefits to accumulate over time. Most companies settle for a 3-year ROI approach, and that’s fine, as you’ll typically achieve ROI in that timeframe. But you might also scare away the sales team, because the timeline is aggressive enough that you’ll be asking the VP of sales to assume more risk.

For example, say your company books $100 million in sales per year, and is talking about investing $500,000 in SFA, adding up to $1 million over five years, including all add-ons. Would you rather face an ROI horizon of five years, or just three? Unlike the VP of manufacturing, who typically doesn’t take home less pay based on how they manage inventory, the VP of sales will be putting their own paycheck on the line over SFA. It’s no surprise they’ll be more risk-averse.

2. Create a cross-business vision. Having a longer project timeframe makes SFA projects easier to justify, because it gives you more time to link in other departments. Determine how SFA will help enhance service, product development, or targeted marketing. Ease the BPR justification pressure by always detailing how SFA will help the organization at large.

3. Study sales productivity. I can’t tell you how often I hear this: “If we make our salespeople more productive, won’t they just spend more time on the golf course?” My answer is, maybe you’re right. So, let’s also take away all of their cell phones and iPads, and give everyone quarters for the payphone.

Work with me, people. If you don’t have lead-eating, money-focused sales reps who conquer new accounts before breakfast, then you have much bigger issues to worry about, starting with sales leadership. Otherwise, take the time to review research on sales productivity. Understand what SFA can truly enable.

4. Take a leap of faith. At some point in the SFA justification process, you’ll just have to jump. There are so many variables involved, many of them outside of the direct control of sales or IT groups, that at some point, you must go with your gut. Furthermore, SFA programs always get ranked lower by the finance group than other business systems, such as inventory management. Accordingly, sales leaders — with a coherent justification plan in hand — must be ready to demand SFA.

Bank Uses BPR To Justify SFA

How does justifying SFA by using BPR work in practice? One financial services firm, for example, thinks it has a competitive advantage because its entire team works from inside one facility, located in a historic city neighborhood. The firm wanted to retain that approach. But at the same time, the business was growing and adding more clients. Accordingly, it needed to increase sales efficiency.

To help, Innoveer applied its sales excellence framework to enable the firm to rationalize its sales program. Innoveer’s assessment isn’t predicated on just increasing productivity, say by 5%. It also digs deeper to study an organization’s effectiveness at the five core competencies that make SFA programs excel. Likewise, it assesses whether any breaks exist between these practices.

With the results of this analysis in hand, the financial services firm identified, and then bolstered, two below-average sales competencies, as well as links between its sales, marketing, and service programs. As a result, the firm found new ways to make its existing sales force more effective, and avoided having to hire more people and expand into new offices. All it took was vision, and a bit of reengineering.

Learn More

What’s the next, best step for your organization’s SFA program? To answer that question, take our SFA program quiz, which is built using our benchmarks of the CRM practices of hundreds of companies. We’ve used those best practices to build Innoveer’s CRM Excellence Framework, which identifies where your current SFA program excels, or needs work.

For more on justifying SFA, see the first part of this two-part post: 3 Techniques Alone Justify SFA.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user F Delventhal.

Half of businesses don't replace their CRM software until it becomes unusable. But can you afford to wait?

The customer relationship headlines may be awash with talk of cloud CRM, but not everyone has made the jump. In fact, numerous organizations still use software such as ACT, SalesLogix, or even outdated versions of Siebel, and have trouble moving to cloud CRM, despite their need and desire for new sales force automation (SFA) software.

The issue, as I hear it time and again, is: “We know we need a new SFA application, but how can it be justified?”

The answer is that there are only three ways to justify SFA:

1. Breakdown: As with cars, wait until the software becomes so unwieldy, costly, or unusable that you’re forced to buy something new (used 50% of the time).
2. Transformation: Deploy new SFA software to support business transformation (30%).
3. Reengineering: Use business process reengineering (BPR) to overhaul existing ways of doing business to achieve productivity increases (20%).

Is there any difference between the three approaches? Indeed, because while waiting until something breaks might be the easiest justification technique, from a business results standpoint, it’s also the least effective. By contrast, adopting SFA to support reengineered business processes offer the potential for significant increases in productivity, across the business. Unfortunately, BPR is also the most difficult justification strategy.

SFA Justification Challenges Businesses

When is the best time to invest in new SFA software? Per my “breakdown” reckoning, 50% of businesses invest in a new SFA system because their existing CRM software is “too old.” If this doesn’t seem like an especially rigorous or rational justification for buying software, you’re right. Then again, justifying CRM software is quite difficult.

Any SFA justification, however, is arguably better than none. For example, I recently met with the CIO of a high-technology company that’s been discussing implementing a new SFA system — for the past five years. In the meantime, for SFA, this business is still using an ancient version of SalesLogix, which doesn’t integrate with the company’s call center, which runs a really old version of Scopus (which Siebel purchased in 1998).

Something needed to be done, said the company. But they asked, “How do we justify it?”

Wait For A Breakdown

The first way to justify investing in new SFA software is what I call the breakdown model, and it’s personal. Namely, I drive a 2002 Mini Cooper. It’s 10 years old, now sports 60,000 miles, and was the first of the rebooted Minis to be released the States. Whenever I first drove it, everyone would stop and gawk.

Now, my old Mini is like the SFA system at the aforementioned company. It works. It might not shine, but it gets me to work and home. At some point, I’ll decide to buy a new car, but it won’t be a rational decision, and will likely involve my current ride becoming too costly to maintain, or simply breaking down altogether. Already, the windows don’t work well (I have to open the door to pay tolls). The little windshield wipers on the headlights haven’t worked for years. And the car leaves a puddle of something wherever I park it. But it runs.

Likewise, the aforementioned high-technology company’s SalesLogix runs a version of SQL server from about five years ago. Meanwhile, its version of Scopus only runs on Windows NT Server. But five years into trying to justify much-needed new SFA software, the CIO has pretty much settled for waiting for a breakdown. Maybe then, he’ll get the new SFA software he wants.

Business Transformation Angle

A more effective strategy, which I see applied in 30% of projects, is using SFA to support business transformation. In this scenario, the decision to adopt new SFA software underpins some level of strategic business change. Oftentimes, businesses pursue this approach after merging operations.

For example, a large U.S. software developer and Innoveer client bought and merged with one of its competitors, resulting in it having two SFA tools. But using two SFA tools wasn’t going to cut it for order forecasting and sales management. So the merged company launched a strategic review to identify which SFA tool to adopt.

About 10 minutes into that discussion, however, senior managers realized that with the merged product offerings, they actually required a brand-new selling model, thus taking the company down the business transformation path, and leading them to evaluate entirely new SFA applications. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about which tool you have, but what you do with it.

80% Of SFA Projects Could Do Better

We see the two above approaches — justifying SFA like a broken-down car, or investing in SFA to support business transformation — used about 80% of the time. And it’s no wonder, as the third and most difficult technique, which we only see used in one out of every five projects, involves taking a business process reengineering (BPR) approach to sales.

Interestingly, the majority of SFA project teams begin with a focus on BPR. But that fizzles, oftentimes due to lack of buy-in, or the timeline, since BPR does take time. In fact, some businesses stand to gain more by pursuing a rapid SFA implementation and gaining needed capabilities as quickly as possible, rather than taking the time to plan a BPR approach.

Whenever possible, however, businesses should pursue BPR to justify their SFA projects. What’s the best way to do that? For the answer, see the the second post in this two-part series: Justify SFA With Business Process Reengineering.

Learn More

What’s the next, best step for your organization’s SFA program? To answer that question, take our SFA program quiz, which is built using our benchmarks of the CRM practices of hundreds of companies. We’ve used those best practices to build Innoveer’s CRM Excellence Framework, which identifies where your current SFA program excels, or needs work.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Sean McGrath.

Want to make your sales program excel? Then learn how to put your best foot forward

Turn Salespeople Into Better Sellers

Want to get more out of your sales program?

When it comes to increasing sales team effectiveness, businesses naturally reach for CRM. Manage customer relationships better, and you’ll have more opportunities for selling.

But too often, I see businesses approaching CRM primarily as a technology challenge. In fact, the goal of any CRM project — including cloud-based SFA — should be to improve business results: better revenues, higher levels of customer satisfaction, and faster organizational growth.

10 Steps To Stronger CRM

One of the surest ways to achieve those business goals is to increase salespeople’s effectiveness. Organizations have numerous opportunities for putting this into practice, most of all by focusing on:

• Productivity: Increase the productivity of your existing salespeople without having to put more boots on the ground
• Speed: Minimize the time they spend on administrative tasks
• Automation: Standardize and automate lead tracking, quoting and order-taking
• Data: Gather enough data to drive managers’ decision-making tools
• BI: Standardize how customer data is gathered, to improve business intelligence
• Forecasting: Streamline sales forecasts
• ROI: Tie sales quotes and closed deals to marketing campaigns
• Adoption: Ensure that a large number of salespeople adopt the CRM system
• Planning: Start projects small and tie each stage to delivering a specified project goal
• Value: Emphasize projects that always articulate and pursue the next “best step”

What do these best practices have in common? All can be achieved by using CRM software. But CRM software alone won’t get you there.

Start Here: Sales Force Effectiveness

Accordingly, where should businesses begin?

To help organizations answer that question — and excel at sales — Innoveer has developed its Sales Effectiveness Solution Discovery. This accelerated analysis helps your organization identify the surest and fastest path for applying CRM to increase sales effectiveness.

In a brief, focused engagement, Innoveer assesses your organization’s sales environment and business process maturity. Based on that analysis, we identify the next “best steps” to take to increase sales performance, reduce the time users spend on administrative activities, and deliver more accurate and effective information management, reporting, and business intelligence.

What’s the Next, Best SFA Step?

To design that strategy, Innoveer’s Sales Effectiveness Solution Discovery focuses on the following areas:

• Pain points: What are your business’s core sales processes, and what are their pain points?
• Next steps: Using Innoveer’s CRM Excellence Framework, we identify the next “best steps” to maximize sales effectiveness
• Sales models: We define a new sales model that will satisfy two top needs: 1) the sales team’s ability to execute; 2) capturing and delivering the data that sales managers require to make decisions
• Infrastructure readiness: Innoveer analyzes your organization’s current technology infrastructure, identifies data requirements, and creates a technology infrastructure action plan

These activities will enable your organization to identify immediate enhancements that utilize existing capabilities, as well as medium-term goals that will lead to an even greater return on CRM and SFA investments.

Learn More

Work with Innoveer to identify the next “best steps” for your sales program.

Also know the best questions to ask, to take your SFA program to the next level.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Hobvias Sudoneighm.

Move fast, but make it seem effortless.

Maximizing Sales Demands SFA

Excelling at selling demands sales force automation (SFA).

Historically, of course, many salespeople — even top sellers — “made do” using ad hoc, disconnected, paper-based or offline processes for tracking accounts, activities and contacts.

But in today’s ultra-competitive and multi-channel world, customers demand a seamless experience. Furthermore, businesses need to see increases in efficiency that only automation can provide. In short, organizations require SFA.

End of story? Not quite. Because when it comes to adopting SFA, too many organizations take a technology-first approach — especially with SaaS (aka cloud-based applications). The result can be software that doesn’t meet an organization’s particular requirements, a sales force that hasn’t been primed for SFA adoption, and in some cases, project failure.

The Secret To SFA In Just Four Weeks

The secret to successful SFA — for any size project — is to identify the most important business requirements, find technology that suits, and then ensure that projects are implemented in small, discrete stages that deliver the targeted functionality.

To help, Innoveer has developed its SFA Accelerator. In just four weeks and for a fixed price, the SFA Accelerator creates a fully functioning SFA program for up to 50 users, using either Salesforce.com or Oracle CRM On Demand, backed by expert guidance, an appropriate scope and a compact plan. As a result, organizations can quickly deploy high-return, easy-to-manage SFA functionality, using minimal internal technology staff or resources.

Start With Essential Business Capabilities

The SFA Accelerator provides organizations with the most essential sales-related business capabilities:

• Account management
• Opportunity and pipeline management
• Sales stage capabilities
• Activity and calendar management
• Pipeline reports and dashboards

(Organizations can add additional capabilities, though this may alter the cost and timeline.)

The SFA Accelerator is based on Innoveer’s 12+ years of experience in working with more than 400 clients on over 1,000 CRM projects. During that time, we’ve identified the most important sales capabilities, the best techniques for prioritizing an organization’s business requirements as well as proven strategies for rapidly implementing CRM to meet business requirements.

Beware Out-Of-The-Box Anything

Out of the box, SaaS applications provide organizations with many options, but little guidance. Accordingly, Innoveer’s SFA Accelerator closes that gap, by providing organizations with a solid plan for achieving their required sales capabilities.

Furthermore, implementing SFA correctly the first time — tied to a particular organization’s own business requirements — creates a solid CRM foundation for adding additional marketing, sales and service functionality.

Learn More

Find out if the SFA Accelerator is right for you.

To succeed with SFA, also understand the big picture. Our top 10 questions for sales success will get you started.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Paul Sapiano.

While some in New York are still focused on the trade that brought Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks, about five thousand Cloud Computing enthusiasts poured into the Javits Center to hear Marc Benioff talk about Salesforce.com’s products and strategy.

Old Time Religion

Like Dreamforce before it, there was no shortage of enthusiasm for Salesforce.com’s products and strategy.  CEO Marc Benioff, who was recently called “cloud computing’s most evangelical spokesman” lead the charge in his keynote warning attendees to “beware of the false cloud“, talking up it’s “most successful product launch” – Chatter – and announcing Service Cloud 3.

The general impression in the press, analysts and with Cloudforce attendees was that Salesforce.com has won the SFA market, is about to win the Service Automation market and is moving on to be the dominant Cloud Computing platform.

“Salesforce is a company to be reckoned with” said one on the attendees on our video of their reactions.

By the time the general sessions ended, the crowd was completely fired up, and the level of buzz in the floor of the Javits Center made it a bit difficult for us to video attendee’s reactions, but we did get some:

Salesforce.com is a Social CRM Company

One of the most exciting things we discussed with Cloudforce attendees was the way that Salesforce.com continues to lead the way as CRM evolves into Social CRM. We’ve seen it coming for some time, and heard Benioff say that all enterprise applications need to be more like the consumer internet.  What’s new is the Facebook integration in Service Cloud 3. As eWeek wrote:

Should a customer Tweet or post a Facebook message about a company’s product, and that company uses Service Cloud 3, employees will be able to click on a dashboard tab labeled “Social Conversations” and see that customer’s missive in real-time. Employees can also monitor broader swaths of data, via dashboard metrics such as “Twitter Volume by Product” or “Cases by Channel.”

This is starting to sound quite a lot like the universal queue that we’ve been recommending for the past year.

Enterprise Cloud on the Rise

Another interesting takeaway from Cloudforce was that bigger companies are adopting cloud technologies faster. While there were many small and medium sized businesses at Cloudforce, there was also a large crowd from the 20 or so Fortune 500 companies based in the New York area. We had great conversations with companies who were using Siebel, SAP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM and evaluating Salesforce.com.

Learn More

For more Salesforce.com success secrets, see our Q&As with Genzyme Biosurgery and Integra LifeSciences.

And despite our Cloudforce focus on this blog post, remember that no technology — not even Salesforce.com — stands alone. Accordingly, whether your project involves sales, marketing or customer service, don’t forget: First, plan. Second, implement CRM.

Roll over, Fido. Photograph courtesy of Foxtongue.

Old Dogs, Big Dogs

One of the things that amazes me these days is that there continue to be so many things that amaze me within the world of CRM. Most of the things on this list are those topics that never seem to go away, and the majority of these perpetual topics seem to cycle around the CRM sub-universe I prefer to label sales force excellence. My engagements over the last few weeks have gone far to reinforce this for me.

At the center of this is the whole issue of being able to teach old dogs new tricks. More specifically is the problem of big dogs who are unwilling to even consider the possibility of new tricks. You know what I am alluding to — those tenured and successful sales reps who stand unwaveringly at the epicenter of your change management problems.

Account Management Gets More Complex

Within the CRM specialty of sales force automation an emerging trend is the increasing need to bring best practices and the corresponding enabling technology to support the growing focus on strategic account management. More and more senior-level sales reps are being assigned to complex umbrella accounts that span geographies, markets, or industries, and require coordination of a broad team of sales professionals who drive business within the local account affiliates. This role is not new, but it is growing and demanding increasing attention from the CRM program. SFA is not just for the traditional account rep any longer.

Handling CRM “Rock Stars”

For those of us who are tasked to satisfy this new demand, the challenge lies in the elite nature of the sales personnel assigned to these über-critical accounts. This is the crème de la crème of the sales gene pool — these people are true rock stars. And, they need to lean on SFA just like their mere-mortal sales cousins, but they don’t all necessarily see it that way.

Here is an example of the challenge. Very recently while wrapping up a two-day session that had gathered together the A-list strategic account reps for a client, I encountered a demonstration of this resistance head on. Our task during the session was to identify what was working with regard to their management of these complex accounts to better enable us to export those best practices to an expanded, elite flying squadron in more geographies. The final topic of the meeting was a focus on the use of tools, primarily SFA, to support the pursuit of strategic opportunities. We defined the tool requirements without a hitch and the group appeared pumped that we would be rolling out the tool shortly in the next phase of the program.

But, when going around the room to gather feedback on perceptions of the meeting effectiveness, the alpha dog in the pack stated casually, “Just so you know, I would never use this tool — I absolutely don’t need it to manage my accounts!” The room went silent.

After scraping my jaw off the table, and doing my best to maintain composure, I asked the rest of the group for their reaction. The ensuing conversation proceeded along the lines of who actually would adopt the proposed tool and who might choose to pull rank and drive tool-free. Old, big dogs don’t like to be asked to perform new tricks.

Don’t Roll Over

So there is the challenge. We don’t want to roll over either, pun intended. Senior account managers that don’t play nice in the sandbox hurt their teams. They reduce the value of the data captured within the tool, which requires more ’90’s-era e-mail communication, and results in less understanding of the customer. Marketing has less intelligence regarding what messaging helps to drive big deals. Forecasting suffers. Ultimately we sub-optimize the investment.

We need the big dogs on board.

Manifesto for Making The Big Dogs Play

I think the answer is about adaptation. On the surface, strategic account management looks similar to traditional account management. Most likely you go through similar if not the same sales stages. But the complexity is the difference. Account management is like a game of chess. Strategic account management is like playing 19 games of chess simultaneously. You need to adapt your SFA to account for the complexity. The SAM needs to get something back from using the tool, just like any other sales rep. You need to find what that is for your strategic account managers — it may not be always obvious or the same from company to company.

I think you can win over the big dogs. You need to let them maintain their alpha status in the pack, but you also need to show them how you will help them excel in that alpha role. That may take a bit of research on your part — but the big dogs will play.

Learn More

Maximizing the effectiveness of your sales force — for old dogs and new dogs alike — requires planning, as well as identifying what your organization’s current sales program already does well, as well as where it needs work. Invest first in the parts of your program that need work, to get the biggest possible bang for the buck.

Accordingly, see our best practices for each of the five capabilities required for creating a field sales program that excels: relationship management, sales force management, territory management, pipeline management and sales force measurement.

Once you launch an SFA program, the adoption clock is ticking. Photograph by wwarby.

Do you have a CRM adoption problem?

When people talk about poor CRM or sales force automation (SFA) adoption, it’s typically shorthand for one issue: “We can’t get our salespeople to enter their activities into the CRM system.” In other words, they have an activity management adoption challenge.

Of course, everyone from sales managers to executives wants to see that activity information, both at a micro and macro level, to know what’s in the sales pipeline, accurately predict financial performance, design better territories and coach salespeople. Likewise, organizations also want to ensure that their SFA projects don’t fail.

Why, then, won’t salespeople comply? Well, adding activity information takes time, and time equals money. Accordingly, salespeople want to know: What’s in it for me? Therein lies the answer to this challenge: you have to sweeten the pot. Add some carrot, to balance the stick.

Overcome Resistance to Cloud CRM

This challenge isn’t new. As long as there’s been CRM, salespeople have resisted using CRM. But what can companies do to encourage them to adopt SFA anyway?

A year ago, I detailed how, when it comes to enticing salespeople to use SFA, selling must start at home. In particular, I outlined the top 5 techniques companies should pursue to encourage their salespeople to use SFA, including ensuring that managers only work out of the SFA system, giving salespeople incentives for using CRM and training people on the CRM system using real-life scenarios.

Since then, however, my guidance has evolved, based in part on customer feedback, as well as taking into account the mass adoption of cloud-based — aka SaaS — CRM.

What’s new? In addition to my previous advice, which still holds, businesses that want to ensure that their salespeople embrace SFA must also provide product information from within the CRM system and, above all, deploy quickly.

Provide CRM-Based Product Configuration

Why do companies need to include product information inside the CRM system? For starters, product proliferation is the bane of any salesperson. Take a high-technology manufacturer. Each one of its products may get slightly altered every month, getting a new SKU each time. On top of that, the company may bundle its products in a million different ways, with each bundle likewise getting a unique SKU. Which salesperson can keep track of every one of those SKUs?

Given such challenges, many organizations are building product information into their CRM systems. For example, Innoveer client Irish Life, which sells life insurance, now provides its salespeople with a CRM-based product configuration tool. Today, when a sales representative visits a customer or prospect’s house to discuss their insurance needs, the tool helps them determine which product best fits the customer’s needs, without the salesperson having to remember the name or exact details of every last product or variation.

The end result: Customers get products which are better tailored to their needs, and salespeople can be more productive.

Deploy SFA Rapidly and Build on the Momentum

The second, major new requirement for ensuring high levels of SFA adoption is to deploy quickly. That’s because salespeople have the attention span of a flea. Once you launch an SFA program, the clock is ticking. Take too long, and you’ll lose salespeople’s attention and program momentum, and likely end up with poor adoption. On the other hand, deploy any CRM software without a modicum of planning, and you may end up with software tailored to no one’s needs, resulting in abysmal SFA adoption rates.

Accordingly, we often recommend using a CRM accelerator to rapidly plan any CRM project, and then begin delivering required capabilities. Note that this approach isn’t about boiling the ocean. Rather, focus on putting a smaller number of high-value capabilities into the hands of your salespeople — among other users — to keep them interested, excited and demanding more. With high levels of CRM adoption, you can also build on it to deliver even more useful tools.

For example, Innoveer recently helped Everyscape, which provides online tours, via panoramic photographs, of hotels, restaurants, parks, resorts and more, rapidly deploy a cloud CRM solution. Because the project took just four weeks, which included not only specifying the project but also configuring and delivering working software, salespeople remained energized and enthusiastic about the software’s potential, and were quick to adopt the new system. As a result, Everyscape has also been able to enhance its CRM system to add even more capabilities, such as automating tasks — such as assigning photographers or tracking packages — that would otherwise require manual labor.

Entice Salespeople With Time-Saving Tools

As ever, getting salespeople to adopt SFA requires give and take.

Savvy organizations start with the give. For example, Genzyme Biosurgery launched Salesforce.com, it first scanned and imported every salesperson’s contact list into the application. As a result, the new SFA system contained useful information from day one. The company also designed a report to automatically compile a list of each sales rep’s monthly activities. As a result, by entering activity information into the CRM system, reps no longer have to spend a few hours every month manually creating their event report. They just click a button. Naturally, it’s a popular feature.

Therein lies the secret of SFA adoption: give, more than you take. And don’t forget to sell it that way to your salespeople.

Learn More

My five rules for fostering SFA adoption still stand. Also know why, as more organizations adopt cloud CRM, SFA implementation failure rates will increase.

For more on the virtues of configuring and deploying cloud CRM quickly, see our SFA Accelerator services for Salesforce.com, Oracle CRM On Demand, Cegedim Dendrite and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Wining and dining is not enough. Photograph by Jenny Downing.

When it comes to managing customer relationships, your typical business thinks it’s a right Romeo with the clients. But in romance, as in life, actions speak louder than words, and if you ask these supposedly relationship-focused organizations:

• What’s your call planning process?
• How do you define the most required sales competencies for closing deals?
• For hiring new sales reps, which skills count most?
• What’s the state of your contact management?

… too often, the answer is: “We use an ad hoc process.” Translated into actions, here’s what that means for:

• Contact management: Sales reps waste time searching for customer information before visits.
• Call planning: Instead of doing their homework, salespeople “wing it” and don’t meet their quotas.
• Reporting: Sales activity reports get compiled manually.
• Training: Salespeople receive little skill development or coaching.

The end result is that customer relationships—not to mention sales productivity and morale—suffers.

Sales Reps Are From Mars, Customers From Venus?

The broader issue is that too many sales organizations define “relationship management” in When Harry Met Sally terms. Two people meet, form an emotional connection, and after a few high jinks, cue “happily ever after.”

When it comes to sales—qualifying leads, turning prospects into customers and beating out the competition to close deals—relationship management isn’t just about creating an emotional connection, but rather finding the best building blocks, and then managing these relationships, with a large number of people, over an extended period of time.

Based on Innoveer’s extensive CRM experience, we’ve identified the four best practices—not coincidentally, also part of our CRM excellence framework—required for excelling at relationship management: activity management, selling competencies, call planning and contact management.

Here are tips for mastering each:

The Sales Rep’s Diary

If an organization’s SFA adoption rate is low, the typical culprit is salespeople not bothering to log activity information in the CRM system. How can an organization entice salespeople to use SFA and log activities? In fact, there are five sure-fire techniques for increasing SFA adoption, including give and take (asking salespeople what the SFA system can do for them), incentives, as well as making SFA the only reality. In other words, create a culture where sales information only exists when it lives inside the CRM system.

That works both ways. Because organizations that manage activity data well can maintain a single, easy-to-search place to find any information relating to a customer, as well as to monitor and analyze sales, marketing and service trends, to find new ways of getting close to their customers.

Are You Skilled?

What are the best building blocks for creating lasting client relationships? With ad hoc processes, salespeople pursue clients their own way—wining & dining, ballgames or whatever they choose. Whereas more advanced organizations create a formal model that defines what managers see as the best skill set for managing relationships. Oftentimes, this includes everything from building rapport and presentation skills to persuasiveness and the ability to diagnose a customer’s particular product needs or business requirements.

Biotechnology company Genzyme, for example, turned to Innoveer to help it create a formal relationship management model. This begins by committing your plan to paper, because articulating exactly what you’re trying to achieve helps make both your plan and your activities even better. Indeed, with a formal plan in place, Genzyme is now developing a tool to score their sales reps on how well they’re doing in each defined category, so the company can better train, coach and hire for these sales competencies.

Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You

When it comes to planning customer calls, the most effective organizations use standard templates to guide sales teams and track their progress. They also maintain a single view of all relevant account information, often by using dashboards with activity-related information.

As with so many aspects of CRM, another requirement is to get all call-planning-related data into the CRM system. For example, a large European investment bank wanted to increase the efficiency of its call planning process, which was largely paper-based—teams often shared printouts or emailed spreadsheets. Working with Innoveer, the firm moved its call planning to an online CRM system, making it easier for salespeople to collaborate as well as maintain a single version of the truth.

Only Connect

More than half of the organizations we work with today don’t maintain a central repository of customer contact information. But without one, you can’t understand where you stand with a customer. For example, Innoveer client ANSYS, a high-technology product developer, formerly used multiple CRM systems and contact databases, which made it difficult to understand the current state of any relationship. Salespeople especially didn’t want to try and up-sell or cross-sell a client without first understanding whether the client had any open trouble tickets.

Now, however, thanks to consolidating its CRM systems, ANSYS has fostered better and richer interactions with customers, used these relationships to find new customers, and even enlisted customers to help maintain their own contact details with self-service tools.

Sleepless in Salesland

For organizations pursuing relationship management using ad hoc techniques, the thought of approaching customer relationships systematically, using well-planned and measured techniques, may knock some of the romance off of a wining and dining sales culture. But the simple truth is that if you eliminate ad hoc practices, you’ll not only land more customers, but amass them more quickly, then keep them longer.

The spontaneous outings? Save them for your free time.

Learn More

For any CRM program to be effective, you need to entice salespeople to use SFA.

To maximize the effectiveness of your overall sales program, based on Innoveer’s experience, you should focus on mastering not just relationship management, but also pipeline management, sales force leadership, sales force measurement, and territory management.