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Posts tagged ‘crm’

Nov 25

Business Contact Manager or Solutions
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Project Management for Information Technology Projects

People may wonder what it takes to run a project which has well-defined goals, accountability, transparency, and good management. These features are neither a matter of luck nor of management style rather of understanding and adhering to a set of academically proven best practices known collectively as project management. New initiatives as well as the management of organizational change can be run using the principles of project management. Information technology adds new levels of best practices related to compliance advice, documentation, software testing, quality assessment/quality improvement plans, technical and functional specifications, and more.

There are a great number of skills to be learned and master, from scheduling to anticipating the needs of different events and making sure that they are met as well as the art of managing change within an organization.

Project management as a discipline recognizes seven distinct phases of a project. Each phase has its’ unique goals and requirements.

  • Project strategy and business case.
  • Preparation.
  • Design.
  • Development and testing.
  • Training and change management.
  • Support and benefits realization.
  • Project close.

Project Management

Project strategy and business case.

It is up to every organization and each stakeholder in a project to help think through the project strategy and business case and to thereby define the reason that the project is taking place, some rational and achievable goals, a risk analysis, and any other method specific to the industry of the organization to analyze performance. A methodology for the project should be defined at this time. Often when preparing a prospectus for a client, an information technology or other consultant might spend a lot of unpaid time putting together these parts of the project in question. This phase often ends up including the signing of any initial contracts and retainers, NDA agreements, and other formalities needed for project initiation. After the terms and methodology and the goals are well-defined and understood, it is time to prepare for project initiation.

Preparation.

  • Work Breakdown
    • Project personnel needs must be defined by goals and resources. The budgets for personnel and materiel are part of those resources.
  • Project Milestones Defined
    • These expected events are agreed upon by key stakeholders as to being hallmark events in the proposed project as it runs its’ course successfully.
  • Personnel
    • Personnel needs defined earlier during the work breakdown are then identified and named during this sub-phase. Employment search criteria and budgets for personnel are agreed upon.
  • Produce Project Initiation Document and Kickoff
    • The project initiation document defines the goals, the budgets, the resources, and the general timeline. Key stakeholders and key personnel are involved in a project kickoff event. During this event, project leadership should take the time to share project initiation documents and explain the project timeline and goals.
  • Selection of third-party contractors or other staff.
    • Existing staff and other contractors need to be hired and named after being chosen according to the standards defined for the project.
  • Secure Key Resources
    • Funding for budgets, personnel hours for internal staff, rooms, and equipment all are resources which have to be secured before the project can take place.

Design.

The project design sometimes is completed from the beginning, which is actually not appropriate for anything but the most groundbreaking projects. Most projects have a project type and an identifiable set of best practices which define the design of the type of project in question. During this phase of the project it is very important to take all of the previously created documentation into account while preparing a master project plan. The milestones you have created earlier will be further defined with deliverables along the way between milestones which ultimately roll-up into goals. Different aspects of the project may run concurrently and require multiple Gantt charts to coordinate scheduling. Every deliverable, every task, has a timeline and responsible staff. The project manager will track these events in a pre-defined sequence and will report on project risks and progress with the progress reports designed during this phase. A business process analysis and business process re-engineering analysis will be run. In a good plan, the original business process most likely looks quite scrambled when presented visually, showing many cases of duplicated efforts and unnecessary loops. The result looks like boxes connected with spaghetti. A good information technology project results in a re-engineered business process that when presented as a diagram has removed the duplications of effort and made the approval and processing parts much less convoluted. The business is all working with the same fresh set of data, and there is organizational transparency in the final result.

Development and testing.

During this phase, the solution is developed and tested. The method for this is determined by the best practices of the industry of the organization in question. In the field of information technology, software is unit tested, then data is extracted, transformed, and loaded into the new solution. Functional testing of the existing data and of procedures to add new data and report on that data are then designed and executed. Finally, user acceptance testing is conducted with key stakeholders to make sure that the solution meets needs and expectations. Functional personnel are also developing the methods that the solution will use to execute the needs of the business processes, and these methods are refined as a result of a proper functional testing process. The best testing involves looking for the zero error, learning each possible error and obtaining a solution before the final solution is even seen by the end users.

Training and business readiness (Change management).

With a new system, there is a great deal of excitement from some staff, resistance from others, but there is very little indifference. Everyone has an opinion on the feasibility of using the new solution, and it is important to take special advantage of the resistance. The resistance, while often containing the vestiges of recalcitrant bureaucracy, often has staff that is concerned with important parts of the business process which might have been overlooked. These points of resistance should be tracked during user acceptance testing, and important changes that are identified can be made and discussed with the staff who raised the issues. This helps to gain support for the project by taking people’s objections seriously while also improving the quality of the project by taking into account all available information. Other recalcitrant resistance can be overcome through standard morale boosting efforts combined with strict policy enforcement for use of the new solution. A cut-off date should be made for the old solution so that two sets of data are not created. Training of staff during user acceptance testing may or may not have to be accompanied by classroom or lecture setting, depending on the amount of change from existing procedures.

Support and benefits realization.

During this phase, the project is wrapping up, final changes are made as well as maintenance plans to ensure that the new solution stays healthy and usable. Ongoing tasks are tracked and budgets and methods are agreed upon. Great post-implementation support is what sets great information technology professionals and firms apart from the rest. There will always be new issues, and support should be unobtrusive but immediately available at any time. The attitude for proper support must be maintained so that no implemented project is truly closed, all support needs get the greatest consideration.

Project close

When all parts of the project have been completed, all personnel trained, maintenance and service plans agreed to, the project wrap-up may begin. A post-implementation review of the project should summarize the success of the project. Plans should be made to reassign existing personnel back to their old stations or on to new ones with the new business process as needed.

The Processes

Throughout the above phases the following processes are always running to support the project. It is important that control of these processes are assigned to specific team members for each project phase.

  • Phase management.
  • Planning.
  • Control.
  • Team management.
  • Communication.
  • Procurement.
  • Integration.

Here are more details concerning the processes.

Phase Management

Deliverables and sign-of methods having been previously defined, phase management involves following the project plan to ensure that tasks add up to deliverables and milestones, and that each sub phase and phase are signed-off on by key stakeholders. The person responsible for the phase management is known as the project manager, and a successful project manager will be able to manage teams and expectations of all parties so that cooperation is engendered, supporting the success of the project.

Planning

Planning and oversight by key stakeholders is needed at all times to ensure quality and to oversee the philosophy of the project to ensure that it maintains the goals of the project and the organization as a whole.

Control

Scope, costs, issues, risks, and benefits need to be reported on and observed continually to provide supporting information to key decision-makers so that the project is managed on an ong0ing basis.

Team Management

The team personnel needs to be managed by the same people whether employees or contractors. The management for the project generally consists of one functional manager from the organization’s staff and a technical manager from the primary information technology firm. In larger organizations, both technical and functional managers may be selected from the staff of the original organization. We have experience with all sizes of projects and are capable of managing projects based on the scale of the organization and project. This avoids using project management features that are more appropriate for larger projects but cumbersome on small projects interfere. There are different dynamics to each sized project, independent of the commonalities to all projects which originate in organizational dynamics of communications and politics.

Communication

Generally the project manager is responsible for all communication to project staff, project stakeholders, and project beneficiaries. Information will not be the same at all levels. Decision making information is important for key stakeholders and project management. Project staff need to be apprised of project changes and project initiatives and changes. Project beneficiaries, the staff who will be using the solution who are not part of the project team, need to receive encouraging progress notices along with benefits and adjustments they will have to make. Taking the uncertainty out of change is key to building consensus. Make sure that all project beneficiaries get some feeling that their issues have been heard, and that the information gained from their input has been considered in the project design as a whole.

Procurement

Procurement of equipment, staff, and supplies is an exciting but exacting part of project management. People who are good at purchasing have had a lot of experience allowing them to be seasoned veterans of the procurement process. Knowing how to select the best group of consultants to work together, not only for their skills but also avoiding potentially difficult personalities is vital. Also vital is the ability to purchase with power and skill. Purchasing is not just about getting the best bargain on the initial purchase of equipment or supplies. When choosing a supplier, it is important to make sure that there is a secure supply chain in place and that backup plans exist for all possible contingencies. With equipment purchases, the price is one concern while the other is ongoing maintenance costs and feasibility, compatibility, and disaster management and recovery plans exist.

Integration

Very often, a new technology solution has to coexist with many existing processes in the organization. For instance if financial data is handled, a specific method needs to be put into place to control where and how the data is shared with accounting. There may be data in accounting that should be shared back with the solution again. Very often interfaces can be made from one software system to another. If not, processes which are manual can be used. For the success of the project, the integration of the project phases with existing business processes needed by the organization must be integrated with all change.

Sep 20

Salesforce CRM
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Salesforce CRM Now Offered by the Web and I

We have just signed up as developers of the well-known Salesforce CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Salesforce is a global software company based in San Francisco, and it is best known for its Salesforce CRM application, which is one of the top three CRM software systems available. Like Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Salesforce CRM is an application that is on the cloud.

Salesforce is now a very mature application, and the makers have taken great pains to work with users for years to develop a very usable and smooth interface. Unlike Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle CRM, or Siebel CRM, Salesforce separates the Customer Relationship Software into several different modules:

  • Sales Cloud
    • The Sales Cloud allows sales personnel to interact on their own social network to discuss prospects, notes about prospects are shared, as well as contact history. With the Sales Cloud, all information about prospects is only collected one time. Avoiding duplication of effort in the collection of prospect information makes the process more accurate, involves less employee work effort in the data collection process and also reduces prospect annoyance from being asked the same question on multiple occasions by companies not using CRM software.
  • Service Cloud
    • The Service Cloud works like a call center and calendaring system allowing employees to plan tasks and summary tasks and interact on the execution of plans without needing to be at the same location or even speak on the telephone. There is also a way for employees to interact on their own social network as well as stay informed about clients contractual entitlements and billing information.
  • Data Cloud
    • The Data Cloud is the data storage behind the scenes yet in the cloud and also includes a giant collaborative list of over 29 million contacts in four million businesses.
  • Marketing Cloud
    • The Marketing Cloud is a place where your employees can gain critical insights into your prospects, and they can turn into actionable plans, and then collaborate on the execution of those plans with fellow employees in a secure environment.

the Web and I is ready to offer this platform to customers seeking implementation as well as the integration with existing systems. At the Web and I, services we provide for clients seeking to implement a new system are:

  • Data Migration
    • We will move your existing data from any number of applications. Sometimes the import is once, and for other systems that you will keep using we can set up a one or two-way data feed that will allow your applications to share information.
  • Customizations
    • The Web and I creates many objects you need for your enterprise software including workflows, mail-merge documents and alternative naming conventions that suit your business processes and preferences.
  • Training
    • Training at your place of businesses is quick yet essential when it comes time to activating new solution and getting your workforce up to speed in as little as a single day.

To get started with Salesforce CRM, you can get a free trial through us for 30 days. Then you can try the software, and we can start the process of implementing Salesforce for you. Call us at 646-853-0573 right away and get started!

Mar 26

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
2 Comments

Getting Used to CRM in Your Office

Employees in any office, especially many senior staff who have developed business processes which they are very proud of react with fear of change when they are told that they have to start doing their work on a CRM Program. Most of these employees worry that their performance will suffer because they cannot do the work in the manner they are used to. This is a common misconception about CRM and enterprise software that makes people feel that they will lose control of the process. What employees should be told is that the way they work, their data collection needs and the forms and reports they need will become a part of the new system. One-on-one and group training will be offered, and needs of different employees can be discovered. If your company is installing a CRM system with excellent customization capabilities like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, your consultant will be able to take the most important customizations requested by your employees will be easily added. Reports should resemble the original reports so that they can work with the same data. Most of the invoices, faxes, letters, memos and e-mails in any office can be categorized by business purpose and are almost identical in language and intent. One characteristic common to successful implementations of CRM is that there are as many templates as possible to handle at least 90% of your employees’ daily correspondence if you are in a service industry. Your employees already produce these documents using programs such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Publisher. Each time your employees make one of these standardized documents the way they do now, they are creating each one from scratch and spending additional time filing the information in cabinets. In a collaborative CRM environment, the entire organization shares all the necessary data for each of you customers. Because of this, most of the documents they used to make from scratch can be immediately issued at the touch of a button. This is not only an incredible time saver, allowing your customer service staff to spend more time on the phone with your customers now that they do not need to create documents repeatedly from scratch. Your staff will notice the different too. Repeated clerical work not only slows down your staff but it is also distracting and demotivating to many employees. They may not even realize it until they have had some months with the new system and find their jobs more exciting and fulfilling. Another benefit is that having your employees work in one system means that they do not need to spend time trying to get information from other employees and departments about the customer they are speaking to. Every interaction with the customer by any employee is documented: now any good customer service agent can solve any issue your customers have immediately. In an office without CRM, different employees doing different kinds of work related to the same customers, a great deal of information is repeatedly gathered by many people. In a CRM system the information is shared, so the first person to collect information saves the data for everyone to use. Others can correct mistakes or amend records due to change, but the collection of information is not duplicated. Reducing duplication of information collection has been important to sophisticated managers long before there was CRM software. It has been shown in a number of studies (citations to follow soon) that duplication of information collection not only is inefficient because work should be performed only once but also the statistical likelihood of introducing errors. During the process of collecting information by even the best staff, the statistical likelihood of data entry errors can be predicted for tasks of different complexities and amount of data entry the staff performed. Staffs that do more data entry are apparently more accurate. In addition to reading in my field that I do, I noticed an aggregation of statistics from existing studies that I looked at to make these statements came from Professor Raymond Panko of the University of Hawaii. Seeing more than one study come up with error rates that are similar for data entry related jobs and also present studies with error rates in other kinds of work helped me to appreciate that there is always some error. When you duplicate effort repeatedly, the errors that are introduced will be exponential compared to organizations with enterprise CRM systems. Another benefit is that errors in the original data in CRM systems gets corrected because everyone is repeatedly exposed to the same data and can point out errors or correct them on their own and for the benefit of all concerned.

As soon as your employees see that they can work with all of the features and functionalities they are used to and now improved by CRM. Companies that learn about the way their best employees perform business processes best when key employees all can work with an engineer to help them learn to get the most out of the software and to also create the reports and correspondence as system templates. These employees feel more confident because their needs are taken into consideration. It is at this point that, organizations adopting CRM start to enjoy the many benefits of implementation. There is less repetitive work and less repetitive requests to other employees for information. Your employees are happier because they feel empowered to work better and faster. Your managers tell you that the business can now grow without increasing staff. Executive staff are able to see and measure and report on all work being done and immediately spot issues. Customers experiencing growing respect for your company because every representative they speak to delivers a consistent message and accesses the same information. In the short-term there will be some uncertainty and resistance by your employees.

Your resisting employees are not resisting because they are bad employees in any way. Resistance is a sign of pride in workmanship. This is why a good consultant will embrace resistance. Those who resist the change tend to bring up objections that can tell your systems engineer how to make sure that these issues are all addressed either with education, a custom report or form or field, or a security consideration involving allowing different access to different data for different people. The more information your systems engineer has about your needs and the way you do business, the more he or she can tailor the software in the best way for your company.

For very large companies, there is a very lengthy and expensive implementation process for new enterprise software. With small businesses this can be very streamlined and much less expensive. Most of the consulting is done with all employees individually, not only through training but through careful customization so that all employees are saving time. Our advice is that implementing CRM software is like when one first learns to hit a baseball and comes to the realization that one must commit to action wholeheartedly to get the best benefits.

Oct 9

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
2 Comments

The Price of the Cloud versus the Price of the Server and Licenses: Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the greatest way to manage your sales, customer service, customer follow-up, marketing, business metrics, organizational transparency, workflows, and productivity. However the technical needs and expense of having Dyanamics CRM on-premises is daunting, with options for small installations running into the tens of thousands of dollars, as well as the ongoing IT expense of maintaining the on-premisis servers, make a compelling argument to switch o the Cloud. Take the tens’ of thousands in installation and the hundred(s) of thousands in ongoing IT support, energy costs and hardware expenses.

Some large businesses already have servers on-site as well as staff. They also have favorable volume discounts from Microsoft and a large IT budget. For these companies, ease of administration may make them choose on-premises installation. However even these larger companies can benefit from the savings of using the Cloud.

For very small businesses and professional corporations, the Cloud Deployment is the only viable option. It is an attractive one, as having the right IT resources and software can make smaller offices more nimble and productive, just as it does for larger businesses.

The idea of Customer Relationship Management Software is not new, it has been around over a decade. An expensive but necessary option for large businesses, this software helps reduce redundant processes and the errors they introduce, as well as increase productivity and bring transparency to the workplace, allowing decision-makers access to real-time data using metrics they understand.

The price per user on Microsoft’s Cloud is $44 per seat per month, an unbelievably low price for end-to-end productivity software. For those who are wondering about the complications and expense in not using the cloud and having servers in-house, the chart below will tell you how much more expensive that option really is.  This allows our customers both old and new to see the wonderful opportunity we are giving them with access to the Cloud Deployment.

Comparison between On Premises and Cloud Deployment for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

On Premises

Cloud Deployment
  • Server License: You need to purchase one server license for each web server running the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application. The license price ranges from $1,900 to $2,100 depending on your current Microsoft licensing agreements.
  • Client Access License (full use): One license needed for each named user with read and write access that will access Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Price per license ranges from $800 to $995 depending on your current Microsoft licensing agreements.
  • External Connector License: Sharing your data with users not licensed for CRM is possible with this license. The license price ranges from $4,700 to $5,000 depending on your current Microsoft licensing agreements.
  • IT Professional Service (Technical): $80-$200K / Year for salary and fringe benefits package.
  • IT Services (Functional): $2500 – $25,000 / Year.
  • Hardware (Servers and Related) $5K-$25K for the first year and $1-$10K each additional year.
  • Energy $Thousands (varies).
  • Server License: For cloud deployment on Microsoft’s servers, you do not need to purchase a server license. The single subscription price per user per month covers all expenses technical deployment: $0.
  • Client Access License (Full Use) $44 / Month Subscription basis access is the only fee you will see from Microsoft.
  • External Connector License $0 (Client has to export and port data to other interface for non-licensee data access. This is preferable for data security and compliance).
  • IT Professional Services (Technical): All technical IT expenses are the responsibility of Microsoft. This expense is the greatest portion of the expense of on-premesis deployment: $0 / Year.
  • IT Services (Functional): $2500 – $25,000 / Year.
  • Hardware (Servers and Related) $0 for the first year and $0 each additional year. .
  • Energy: For cloud deployment, all energy costs, as well as expenses related to the continued quality and continuity of the power running the servers is the responsibility of Microsoft and costs your business $0.

May 13

Customer Relationship Mangement (CRM)
1 Comment

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the best way for users in disparate locations to use the same contacts and lead sheets, and collaborate in real-time sharing a telephone contact log, business notes, opportunities, and an Access Database connection.  Dynamics CRM Online is Microsoft’s greatest offering. Hosted as a cloud service, the reliability is guaranteed. Our customers First United Services are using Dynamics CRM online and can attest to its usefulness and reliability. They have been using it to track:

  • Sales and Leads
  • Appointments
  • Orders
  • Invoicing
  • Telephone Calls
  • Letters
  • Payments
  • Work done for customers.

With Dynamics CRM, everyone in the Office is on the same page.

Business Contact Manager was originally a very exciting product in 2000, when I was creating MS Access databases with Oracle back-ends over at NYU School of Medicine.  I used the Business Contact Manager as a model for communications tracking and eventually to connect to a more advanced Oracle database as the basis for our Intellectual Inventory. The purpose of the Intellectual Inventory was to showcase all of the publications, courses taught, research grants, patents, and technology transfers of the faculty, staff, and students of the School of Medicine.  A secondary purpose was to use a MESH (Medical English Standard Subheadings) standardized keyword vocabulary to categorize the interests of these active scientific investigators.  With the keywords, cross tabulation with academic levels was possible to create a cross matching service providing targeted funding opportunities from Federal, foundation, NGO, Corporate, State, and City funding.   A third purpose was to provide reports to chairs indicating capacities and interests within the University to collaborate on large program projects grants and center grants from the NIH, the DOD, and more.

Where Business Contact Manager came in handy was in taking these e-mail addresses fed from the Oracle database I created and managed and synchronize it with Outlook in order to send out the targeted funding opportunities and other reports automatically based on one set of research. Graduate assistants were hired to perform much of the research and the process involved collecting all of the data in Access, and sending the E-Mails out with Outlook using the Mail Merge functionality in Access.  MS Access was a wonderful tool because I could host local tables, connect to Oracle and SQL Server databases, and also share data with our Office of Development’s Raiser’s Edge database, also on MS Access.

Now Business Contact Manager is available in its latest form on the Cloud, with enhanced capabilities, and is known as Dynamics CRM. The Cloud is in this case four continent distributed massively redundant data centers hosting Microsoft Cloud Services   The service is quick, reliable, thoroughly tested in real-time, and best of all can help you share your contact files across your organization.  Added capabilities include:

  • Export to Spreadsheet.
  • Connect to Access Database on Your Machine.
  • Multiple Security Tiers.
  • Five Free Users per account with free hosting until Migration then $6 per month.
  • Shared Document Manager.
  • Additional SharePoint applications possible.

Another business that uses Business Contact Manager is First United Services Mortgage Modifications. With an office of ten employees, they did not wish to have a server on-site or excessive IT staffing expenses. They have been using Microsoft Dynamics CRM online in conjunction with Office 365  as a sophisticated Customer Relationship Management and ERP Solution for several months now. With ten employees their total out-of-pocket is under $75 per user per month. Offices with five or less users experience no out-of-pocket expenses per month for hosting until Office 365 migration slated for November 2011.  Additionally, there will be a lot of new features like online document sharing and simultaneous editing in realtime, video teleconferencing, compliant archiving, enterprise voicemail, automatic Microsoft Office 2010, and more.

Contact us at (646) 853-0573 to get started now!

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