Role of a CRM Manager in Enterprise Success

CRM has become one of the hottest areas in enterprise and technology strategy. As a result, organizational roles, such as CRM manager, have become vital for enterprise success following an implementation. Companies are investing heavily in supporting resources, partners and principal functional groups within their organizations to ensure that their CRM solutions are effectively managed, steered and enhanced. Companies with successful CRM project delivery are those that align the role of CRM managers in the earliest phases of initiative planning and analysis. The activities of a CRM manager do not simply end with the successful implementation of a CRM project. Instead, their responsibilities continue and are, in many ways, a mirror of the work they completed during a project implementation.

A CRM project manager's full-time responsibilities fall into four categories following the go-live of a CRM system. They include:

1) Functional management of the existing CRM solution
2) Operational management
3) Change management
4) Strategic partnership

The need for post-project stewardship across these functional domains is vital to ensure the longer-term success of your CRM implementations.

Functional Management

CRM managers should have visibility into all systems that interface or subscribe to the core CRM solution. CRM managers should document and understand how business transactions and workflow events map across external systems and application groups. This is vital because it enables prompt and accurate assessments of the effects of organic or acquired growth strategies. It also leaves more time for better aligning stakeholders and undergoing due diligence deep dives.

By maintaining the CRM manager as the single point of reference for the CRM systems, he or she can hasten time-to-market for new initiatives. This insight and functional maintenance of the company's CRM presence enables the company to have a 360-degree view of how its customers interact with it through various channels, business units or transactions by understanding how core business processes outside the CRM system are mapped end-to-end with the new CRM system that has just been implemented.

Action Items
Ensure that CRM manager has a 360-degree view of in-flight technologies and process initiatives within your organization.
Assign CRM managers to business and IT competency domains. Given the scale of your CRM architecture and processes, assign multiple CRM managers by functional area.
Document end-to-end "as is" workflows and how your CRM road map aligns to them.

Operational Management

CRM managers should be involved in all facets of the operational management of a CRM system following a go-live. This includes activities such as ensuring service-level agreements (SLAs) are met with relevant groups, including customers, and that support is provided for the ongoing development and testing of sandboxes and functional mappings to the as-is and any to-be functional mappings, even after a go-live soak period. Maintenance and modifications to the CRM system should also be maintained by the CRM manager to leverage planned functional design, development and testing schedules. SLAs for customer issue resolution, trouble-tickets or responses to customer requests are metrics that the CRM manager should have daily insight into through the organizational groups (such as marketing, sales and customer service) that use those metrics for operational planning. If these service-levels are not being met, then the CRM manager needs to partner with those relevant groups to determine the root cause of those service degradations.

End-to-end transaction management of what comes into the CRM system, at what interval and for which downstream application must be detailed by the CRM manager. When those service-levels are not being met for data or other elements that the CRM system needs to function, then it is the job of the CRM manager to interface with those external application groups, outsourced providers or managed service vendors to determine the best course of action to ensure compliance. A CRM implementation without its requisite informational data marginalizes itself.

Action Items
Assign SLA management of the CRM solution to CRM manager.
Have CRM manager generate a dependency matrix for upstream/downstream integration points and data mappings for your CRM solution.
Align incentives for CRM manager to SLA achievements.

Change Management

Ideas for improving the customer experience, enhancement requests, further personalization of applications and other user extensibility requests should be managed by the CRM manager. Detailing requests, identifying potential impacts on the implemented CRM solution, as well as prioritizing the business impact or need for such an enhancement, is vital. A CRM manager is the single point of maintenance for all CRM system change requests and, in turn, would involve relevant application groups to further investigate whether such an enhancement was warranted. Alternatively, a CRM manager can create global templates based on his or her functional insight of the system to identify the key application groups and individuals who need to be consulted to validate change enhancements for different kinds of activities (such as campaign management, mobile sales or e-commerce).

Action Items
Impact assessments on new functionality should be led by CRM manager.
Have CRM manager create a template for change requests and publish the workflow steps for reviews and assessments.
Position CRM manager as the focal person for any change requests to your CRM solution from various lines of business.

Strategic Management

Perhaps the most vital aspect of the CRM manager's role following an implementation is the strategic role he or she plays among key stakeholders within an organization. CRM managers should closely align with application stakeholder groups and business stakeholder groups in more-traditional definitions (such as finance, sales, marketing, engineering and fulfillment) to help align those groups to create value and benefits for them within the CRM system. Similarly, where those key business stakeholder groups require customized insight or value driven from the CRM system, the CRM manager helps assess, coordinate, plan and implement that insight or value.


Action Items
Involve CRM manager in strategic planning and big-picture goals for your organization.
Scorecard your CRM solution regularly and have CRM manager provide tracking on return on investment and trends in efficiency using real-time executive dashboards or interval reporting.
Assess emerging trends and review best practices in CRM with CRM manager to ensure your CRM solution remains relevant and agile.

Failure to address any of these roles will result in poor alignment of CRM needs.

Author

Dinesh Chandrasekar DC*Practice Director CRM & MDM CoE
Sierra Atlantic Software Services Ltd, India


“Dinesh Chandrasekar is the global Practice head for CRM & MDM CoE, at Sierra Atlantic Inc. He has over decade of experience in multiple CRM & MDM Packages Implementations, Consulting & Industry Solutions Domain expertise and published various whitepapers and articles in various Oracle and non Oracle Forums. Before joining Sierra Atlantic, he worked with GE Capital Software and Citibank Technologies. Dinesh comes with a rich experience and expertise in solution orchestration of CRM, MDM and Analytics solutions.”

Email: dinwin@ hotmail.com
http://in.linkedin.com/in/dineshchandrasekar