Anchoring a CRM Project and Program in the Absence of an Enterprise Strategy
By Shelley Gaddie, President, Project Corp

Anchoring a CRM Project and Program in the Absence of an Enterprise Strategy

A Fortune 50 manufacturing company's traditional dominance of its market has been eroded in recent years through stiff competition from its chief rival. No longer able to simply let their products "sell themselves" on a reputation of superior performance and quality, the company had to improve its understanding and responsiveness to customer needs. Furthermore, projected growth in the core product's market would not be sufficient to meet the company's overall growth targets. The company had tremendous potential for growth and profitability through a wide range of associated products and services, from financing and training, to spare parts and service. The company needed a way to improve how they responded to customers needs and maximize the sales of its core products and related products and services. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) was identified as the means to accomplish those goals. Simply put, CRM is a way to customize and most effectively interact with each customer based on their individual wants and needs.

While CRM is primarily a business strategy, technology is the enabler. Large companies are able to understand individual customers because of large data warehouses that collect information about a customer from all parts of the company, from their sales patterns to their service history. Before creating a CRM business strategy, the company wanted to understand how technology could enable the results they desired. A project was launched to pilot off-the-shelf CRM technology in one primary sales region.

Creating a Common Goal from Different Expectations

The launch of the pilot in the absence of a strategy created many challenges. Because of differing expectations among stakeholders, the pilot project's scope and requirements rapidly expanded beyond the boundaries of original time and cost commitments. The project team was challenged with getting sales stakeholders committed to participating in identifying and prioritizing functional requirements for the pilot application. Meanwhile, financing and service business units were also interested in pursuing CRM and were considering pilot projects of their own. Individual pursuit of CRM by business units would contradict the capability of establishing full integration and sharing of each customer's data. The functional sponsor, program manager, and project manager were faced with getting agreement on objectives for the pilot, getting buy-in for a full-scale CRM program, and convincing enthusiastic business units to hold off their until efforts could be incorporated into a company-wide CRM program.

The Link Between Strategy and Delivery

Four key techniques were identified to stabilize the project environment and prepare for the launch of the CRM program: establish formal strategic objectives to which the pilot could be anchored, integrate multiple projects into a single program, package reporting and visibility into a strategic viewpoint, and establish a continuous link from strategy to delivery through a formal program life cycle.

1. Establish strategic objectives for CRM and validate that the pilot project is in alignment with those objectives.
   When a project's scope and requirements are in question, it is usually due to varying expectations and priorities among stakeholders. Strategic objectives serve as the starting reference point to establish common ground among stakeholders and team members. Key members of the project team and senior functional managers sponsoring the project set out to formalize strategic objectives to provide context and perspective for decisions made about the pilot project's scope and requirements.
   
   Figure 1 - The connection between strategic and functional objectives.

   

2. Package project visibility and reporting for a strategic business viewpoint. The project team was primarily staffed by IT personnel. The technical focus of the project team did not intuitively translate into the business focus of the sales stakeholders. The pilot's primary communication method was to collect as much information as possible about the project, then disseminate it as widely as possible. It was common for project status meetings to get bogged down into technical details. Not surprisingly, the functional stakeholders and users who needed to be kept up to date stopped coming to those meetings. Project visibility was generated from a primarily IT perspective, so it was primarily consumed by an IT audience. The lack of project visibility packaged for a functional audience made it difficult to generate commitment among functional users to participate in identifying and prioritizing requirements for the CRM application.
   To resolve this challenge on the pilot, two project resources were focused on communicating with sales stakeholders to identify business requirements and resolve issues. This approach was effective on the pilot, but it would be overwhelming in the program as concurrent projects were launched. To resolve this challenge long term, program communication guidelines and processes were developed, along with the baseline program communication plan. The guidelines, processes, and plan mapped out what information was required for each role to make decisions on the program-providing a formal method of translating project data into a strategic viewpoint.
3. Integrate project data between related projects. The program manager and functional sponsor needed to shift CRM from the sales pilot focus to a common vision and strategy across the company. This would require engaging business units where interest varied anywhere between ambivalence and enthusiasm. The challenges experienced on the pilot, and the vision for the CRM program led to the choice of enterprise project management as the basis for the program infrastructure, processes, and tools. A program infrastructure was developed that provided capability to engage business units, develop a company-wide CRM strategy, then identify and launch projects in the most effective sequence. The reporting structure places top business unit executives in ownership roles, with the responsibility of maintaining commitment to a common CRM vision, strategy, and direction among stakeholder business units. People who report to the top executives act as program sponsors, with the responsibility of approving funding, scope, and functional objectives for the program. The Program Office is responsible for managing the program budget and business case, the integration and alignment of multiple projects, the allocation and alignment of project resources, and providing visibility and reporting to executives.

   

4. Establish a continuous cycle from strategic planning to project delivery. Next, a Program life cycle was developed to establish a formal, continuous connection from overall strategy to the projects that deliver on functional objectives. Key stages in the cycle are established to ensure this continuous connection. For each functional objective, there is a cost/benefit analysis, formal sponsorship approval, formal project prioritization, and a formal initiation stage. By engaging sponsors in the approval and prioritization of proposed projects, we ensure that there is a link maintained between strategic and functional objectives.

The Ability to Act Decisively

The resolution of challenges on the pilot allowed for a successful implementation to the sales team. Once development and implementation of the pilot application wound down, the focus shifted to engaging business units and building a program business case to determine the best options for moving forward with CRM.

The events of September 11th, and the market downturn that followed, led to greatly revised sales forecasts for the following year. The capabilities of the pilot application and program infrastructure allowed for a comprehensive evaluation of sales projections, available funding, and the best options for proceeding with the program given the current market conditions. The projected decrease in sales led to pulling funding from strategic efforts, such as CRM, and refocusing funding into maintaining operational capabilities. Ironically, the capabilities of the pilot and program infrastructure led to the delay of the program. If senior executives did not have their options so clearly laid out, a decision about the program would have been made on speculation, which would have greatly hindered the success of CRM at the company over the long-term. A re-evaluation of CRM capabilities and application is currently under review for future use across other areas of the company.