When evaluating the technical implications of CRM deployment, remember that CRM is foremost a technology that can help propel your business, instead of a tool that dictates your business processes. Discuss with your IT manager the business value of CRM, and get vital input on the technical corollaries of CRM implementation. The IT manager is your partner in ensuring that your CRM solution is up and running so it can support the business strategy as you planned.

Talking tactics: Your IT manager’s concerns about CRM

The IT manager keeps your organization’s information technologies running smoothly 24/7, and considers the following when evaluating new systems:

• Wants technology that involve minimal interruption in your employees’ work
• Looks for systems that are easy to set up and maintain while offering high availability and performance
• Avoids deploying untried technology
• Seeks scalable solutions that easily grow with the business
• Wants technology that is highly secure and easy to restore after an adverse event
• Looks for new solutions that take full advantage of existing IT resources as well as other company investments
• Wants new technology that synchronizes and integrates well other applications, data sources, and systems.

Questions for the IT manager

Your IT manager can detail the essential technical considerations of a CRM implementation:

• What proof do we have that the CRM system will enhance infrastructure?
• What kind of deployment downtime can be expected?
• How can a CRM system keep IT aligned with business goals?
• What kinds of facts and referrals can assure product benefits and quality?
• What are our data backup policies, and how do we ensure CRM data is protected?
• What type of technical support is need after implementing CRM?

Conclusion

Your IT manager supports business goals by keeping the enterprise running, and by implementing tools that allow the company to pursue new opportunities and protect customer relationships. This guide will help you get the IT perspective on CRM so you can make a technology investment that will reinforce your competitive edge.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

To ensure that sales representatives meet their objectives, your sales manager continually needs information from them about leads and active prospects. Here’s how you can work with your sales manager to find out how CRM can best support sales goals.

Your sales manager’s CRM priority: pursuing revenue

The sales manager is focused on moving your product and targets the following CRM evaluation issues:

• Supporting sales staff’s efforts to secure business
• Avoiding the disruption of a complete systems replacement
• Obtaining personalized vendor support for new systems
• Providing the data necessary to support sales goals
• Integrating new solutions with existing data systems
• Tracking leads with minimal data entry and paperwork
• Helping sales force accept and adopt new CRM processes

Questions for your sales manager

Get the details you need on how CRM can support revenue-generating activities:

• What kinds of sales history and forecasting data are now available?
• What kinds of new CRM tools would help the team sell?
• How much training do you foresee your team needing?
• How are we currently tracking the competition?

Conclusion

The sales manager is your best ally for initiating a CRM project. Champion the CRM selection process with sales input to gain compliance when the sales division uses the new tools. Investing in the right CRM solution supports your sales team’s best practices, resulting in the optimal outcome: closing more deals.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

In a recent (2009) conference, hosted by Computerworld, it became clear that SaaS is now mainstream.  To quote some of the attendees:

• “SaaS adoption has moved past the ‘tipping point’”
• “A new ecosystem is forming around Cloud computing that will transform the IT sector.”
• “SaaS is not an optional disruptive technology.”
• “Cloud, SaaS and Mobility are helping to make the “boundary-free enterprise”

In a nutshell, subscription-based software and services are getting stronger and stronger, offering more and more benefits to businesses.  For example, nine out of ten companies plan to grow their use of “Software as a Service,” according to the Gartner Group.  Should you be on this list?  Consider the following:

Business Drivers

Businesses of all sizes are moving to SaaS because of lower upfront costs, shorter implementation times, less implementation risk, reduced need for hard-to-find in-house technical resources and more flexibility to right size systems (up or down).  SaaS has a proven track record of reducing ongoing IT operations costs, freeing up capital and resource to focus on driving the business forward to new advantage and competitiveness.

Businesses are adopting SaaS as ‘insurance’ against business disruption and security threats.  They’re doing this by taking advantage of the most advanced, comprehensive, and easy to use data backup/restore, virus/spam protection, device recovery services – all automatically and without having to purchase a single piece of software.

Businesses are using SaaS tools to run their businesses better.  Whereas in the past, small and medium businesses would lag behind the technology advantages that larger businesses could afford. SaaS levels the playing field for customer management, manufacturing and distribution, HR/payroll, accounting, banking, collaboration, and productivity.  Small and medium businesses, through SaaS, have access to the latest, most powerful, and cost effective technology without any capital investment or the need for ‘in-house’ technical expertise.

The adage that ‘old is new again’ is true.  Return on investment, risk mitigation, total cost of ownership, and a focus on the business remain central to technology discussions.  SaaS has proved it’s worth using these traditional criteria.

Where is the fit?

An additional, recent survey pointed to collaboration products of all sorts as the top application area for SaaS based solutions, with human resources and customer service next on the list. Finance and accounting moved up from 10^th place to 5^th place in 2010 – one indicator that SaaS is on the move from the edges to the core of the business as the technology continues to mature.

For mid-sized companies, a mix of in-house and SaaS based solutions has been demonstrated by True Religion jeans. True Religion Jeans found that vendor experience and the ability to “try before you buy” testing of potential SaaS solutions improved operation and avoided common adoption mistakes.  True Religion also realized the benefit of being able to spend more time focusing on the business needs instead of on technology.

For small companies, the savings are even more pronounced.  In a recent presentation, Tom Kelly CFO/CIO at Kardia Healthcare discussed his experience with SaaS applications when he was with 2^nd Wind.  As an exercise equipment company, 2^nd Wind was able to replace virtually all the in-house systems with SaaS solutions and reduced costs by 61%.

The bottom line:

More and more businesses are exploring, understanding, and implementing Software as a Service to drive their bottom line. Isn’t time to explore if SaaS is right for your business?

SaaS is no longer a theory, but is a viable reality that has demonstrated business and financial benefits.  Small and medium business, today, benefit the most through the elimination of capital spend, reduction in technical resource requirement, increased business continuity and safety, and lowered overall IT cost.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Texas

Successful Accounting Partnerships

Trusting your accounting processes and information to an ‘outsider’ is a big step for any small and medium sized business owner.  After all, the ability to track inventory, place orders, send out bills, and collect and managing cash is core to every business and something that every business owner should take very seriously.

But, you’re at the point where your ‘in-house’ accounting option – be it spreadsheets, QuickBooks, or other – just isn’t meeting the needs of the business any more.  You’re exploring options and some of those options include subscribing to accounting software.  How do you make sure you don’t get ‘stung’ by your accounting software partner?  Here are eleven things to look out for as you narrow the choices and make your decision:

1. Know your requirements:  undertaking an evaluation of accounting solutions and potential partners can’t be done casually.  At least have a good grasp of your high-level requirements for tracking and managing your business, customers, and cash.

2. Experience:  determine what types of projects the potential partner has done in the past. Have they done any accounting projects that are similar to your business; and, who from their team will be working with you?

3. Solution options:  seek out those potential partners that have multiple solutions available for evaluation.  Your business has some unique characteristics that may not ‘fit’ into a single solution.  Also, look for solutions that are configurable, open to changes, and have migration tools for ease of setup and transition.

4. References:  require that any potential partner provide references for their solutions, their company, and their people.  Make sure that you’re able to determine the ‘good, bad, and ugly’ before you make a decision.  Remember, whoever you end up choosing, you’ll be partners for some time to come.

5. Partner characteristics:  get the company details.  Length of time in business, office locations, employees, employee experience, number of customers, industries served, best successes and worst failures.

6. Delivery successes:  determine the processes that the potential partner uses to increase success rates.  Find out how often the potential partner has been successful.  Don’t use the potential partner’s success criteria;  judge success by the customer’s criteria.  Become confident that if the partner undertakes your project, they will be able to deliver — on-time and on-budget.

7. Automated tools:  does the potential partner have automated tools that will smooth out, speed up, or lower the cost of your transition and implementation?  Or, is most of the work going to be done by people?  What are the limits of their tools and what is their overall plan to fill in the gaps to successful project completion.

8. Hidden costs:  find out up front what the potential ‘hidden costs’ of the solution are. Are they in the assessment, configuration, implementation, testing, roll-out, support, additional licenses, or other items?  Strive for a ‘no surprises’ environment when understanding the cost of the solution, before, during, and after the implementation.

9. Business impact:  every time a business adopts new technology or undertakes a new project there is an impact on the business.  Ideally, the impact is minimal.  Find out from the potential partner what they expect from you and your people through the process.  Determine the time, information, and technology impact to your business ahead of time and calculate the financial cost.  Remember that the cost of the accounting solution is only one part of the cost.  A disruption in your business is also a cost to be considered.

10. Risk mitigation:  every project has risks.  Ask the potential partner their process for mitigating risks such as project slippage, cost escalation, and data loss.  Make sure they have your success at the heart of the project.

11. Partnership/communication:  Remember that the potential partner is in full ‘sales mode’ at the beginning.  Once they have your business, make sure they continue to value you as a customer.  Understand their communication methods, vehicles, problem escalation path options, who you will be dealing with, and how you can remain a priority to them.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Texas

Today competitive advantage increasingly depends on how organizations manage their customer relationships—and not simply on how well they design and build their products. Companies must implement strategies that enable them to be more customer-centric in a world where customer expectations will continue to escalate.

This guide can help you to plan discussions with your customer service manager to make informed decisions about how you can implement business processes to meet customer expectations.

Your customer service manager’s CRM priority: customer care

The customer service manager, who is responsible for cultivating advantageous customer relationships, considers the following when evaluating new systems:

• Providing the customer service team with tools for making informed decisions
• Creating cross selling and up selling opportunities
• Keeping customer care at the center of business
• Integrating new solutions with existing data systems
• Measuring service performance

Questions for the customer service manager

Your customer service manager has know-how for maintaining service efficiency and customer satisfaction:

1) What are the current barriers to good customer service that CRM technology might alleviate?

2) How much training do you foresee your team needing, and what suggestions can you make for accommodating training?

3) What does current survey data on customer satisfaction imply about our need for new tools?

4) What information do service representatives have difficulty or delays in accessing?

5) What is the company organized around? Customers, product, or service?

6) How can we make doing business with us easier for our customers?

Conclusion – How to Choose The Right CRM Software

Your customer service manager knows that customers are at the center of your CRM selection process and that technology solutions should accommodate customer service instead of customer service bending to fit the technology. The talking points in this article can help you get the information you need to keep your CRM decisions service-focused. The right CRM solution doesn’t just make your life easier—it helps you succeed because it simplifies doing business with you.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Technology Creates “Best-in-Class” SMBs

Smaller companies have historically lacked tools to help formulate and execute against solid financial plans and budgets.  Yet in today’s uncertain economy, operating by the ‘seat of the pants’ is like setting a boat adrift in a stormy sea.  Tools and technologies are the rudder by which to successfully steer a course through the turbulent economy.  Small and medium businesses have taken notice of prior warnings, are batter armed, and are achieving results superior to the upper ranges of mid-size companies.  What have they done and what have they accomplished?

First, SMBs have cut in half their use of spreadsheets as their primary financial planning tool (Aberdeen Group Study April 2008 – April 2009).  Instead, spreadsheets have become a support tool to enterprise financial applications.  Enterprise applications have become the centerpiece of an SMBs financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting as a critical weapon in creating new value, tighter operational integration, and anticipating the future.  The use of enterprise applications has allowed the SMB immediate feedback on the financial transactions and trends, driving quick updates to planning assumptions and re-forecasting of the business – all benefiting the business by being exactly ‘tuned’ to the current and future business climate.

Second, there has been widespread adoption of formalized query and reporting tools along with workflow automation.  Both give the SMB the ‘hands on’ tools to see the exact condition of the business at any point in time as well as to virtually eliminate ‘human error’ within the execution of the business transactions – most notably during the planning and budgeting process.  Together, these two deliver lower business cost, better forecasting and budgeting accuracy, along with the ability to more quickly react to an ever-changing business environment.

Third, “Best-in-Class” SMBs have created ‘end-to-end’ visibility throughout the planning and budgeting process.  Additionally, they’ve continued transparency with respect to performance throughout all fiscal periods.  Doing so has increased the adaptability of the business to change, driven innovation around business process (lowering costs), while accelerating the pace at which business can occur.

So, what can your business do?

• Formalize your planning and budgeting process.  Don’t use the excuse of market volatility or uncertainty to put this off. Rapidly changing business conditions heighten the need to formalize business processes, plans, and budgets all the more important.
• Continually adapt to the changing market.  Don’t enforce budgetary rigidity within the organization.  If need be, reforecast each quarter instead of relying upon the original annual agreed-to budget.  Less than half (44%) of SMBs reforecast more than once a year (Aberdeen, 2009).
• Invest in new tools. Fully exploit the use of technology – specifically enterprise resource planning – across the business.  Such tools add speed and flexibility by allowing more frequent and formalized forecasting.  Additionally, using technology to handle routine business tasks brings lower cost, eliminates redundancy, and drives new competitive value in the market.

SMBs are far better positioned than they were just a year ago.  Now is not the time to slow down or ease up on the ‘throttle.’  As each SMB weathers the current storm, companies of all sizes can benefit from automating and streamlining processes and adding visibility to performance against plan.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

To ensure that finance meets its objectives, your CFO needs information about issues like total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI). Here’s how you can talk to your CFO and get the information you need to make fiscally sound decisions.

Doesn’t it seem like everywhere you turn there is a new technology to evaluate?  These technologies promise new levels of productivity, better communication, new ways to market and sell, or simply communicate. It is easy to get overwhelmed or accidentally become a ‘manager of technology’ instead of a manager of the business.

Small and medium businesses are faced with a built-in tension that you don’t have in larger businesses.  That is, how to do ‘everything’ with limited resources and how to level the playing field and compete with larger, more sophisticated businesses.  What is a small businessperson to do?

Business owners are faced with a choice.  Do I focus my efforts and resources on what I do best – taking care of my customer – or do I try to do everything?  How the businessperson answers this question will, at some level, determine future success.  Allowing your organization to become distracted in the evaluation, implementation, support, upgrade, migration, and recovery of technology takes away from achieving the next breakthrough in growth, customer service/care, and revenue and profit.

Instead, think about how you can identify a ‘technology partner’ that can take on these critical aspects of your business – allowing you to get back to running your business – and, getting access to the very best in technology with a minimum of capital expenditure.  Make sure your business is always up and running and never held back by the technology.  It’s easier than you think.

Technology outsourcing is not a new concept.  To the small and medium business, the advantages are many:

1.  Improved Cost Management:  Technology costs become more visible and accountable; technology services are utilized as needed, eliminating overbuying; the business can reallocate, reduce, or eliminate technology-focused resources.

2.  Improved Technology Service Quality:  You can get reports on overall performance and availability of the technology; there are extended support hours – ensuring your business has the support it needs, when it needs it; you benefit through proactive technology planning aligned with your business needs or goals; and, you can establish measurable ‘services level agreements’ to ensure your business technology is always available.

3. Best Equipment, Software, and Tools:  Your business is kept on the latest versions, the fastest platforms and network connections without you having to evaluate, test, implement, or support the technology.  Your business benefits from increased cost savings, better process automation, and higher productivity, keeping you ahead of the competition.

4.  Flexibility/Scalability:  As your business grows or changes, you’re never under-or over-invested in technology. 

5.  Accountability:  Like every other asset in your business, you will know the contribution it makes to the business.  No fuzzy thinking or assumptions of contribution.  The technology becomes accountable to you.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner for Texas

Getting the most out of your customer data and business information

Customer relationships matter.  Period.  In an era of fast business transactions, immediate need gratification, and tight budgets, the relationship you have with your customer brings revenue and profitability to your business.

Today, however, many businesses don’t proactively behave as if customer relationships matter.  In the quest for ‘new’ revenue, most businesses look to new customers – often ignoring the single best source of incremental revenue, their past and current customers.

So how does a business reap the rewards of greater revenue and profitability from their customers?  By paying close attention to ensuring their customers are satisfied and continue to do business with them.  In short, businesses that reap the revenue and profitability rewards are those businesses that have learned and formalized their customer relationship management.

Let’s take a look at how you can ‘power up’ your customer satisfaction and retention – leading to more revenue and profit.

1. Mine existing information to uncover new opportunity:  This activity results in two outcomes.  First, you will quickly identify new areas where you can meet your customer needs while also uncovering any lingering or open satisfaction challenges.  Look into your customer databases, purchasing trends, contact information, and cataloged customer needs/requirements.  Chances are you’re not done selling to them yet.  Use this information to introduce new solutions to their existing and anticipated problems.

2.  Formalize your customer satisfaction and retention processes:  Identify, acquire, and implement technology that returns to you specific customer ‘insight’ and trends that help you anticipate needs; this allows you to focus your selling effort for maximum return.

3.  Utilize online collaborative and survey tools:  Don’t assume that you know what the customer is looking for or needs, ask them.  Make it easy to uncover new opportunity areas while also giving your customers an opportunity to ‘speak out’ on where you can serve them better.

4.  Integrate your customers into your business:  Using common collaboration-based tools, bring your customers into your business strategy, decision, and planning.  Link your customer to your business so that it is easier to do business with you and harder to ‘decouple’ you from their business.

5.  Increase your responsiveness to your customer:  Surprise and/or delight your customers by having the ability to immediately respond to your customer’s requirements, customer order status, available inventory, and pricing/quote inquiries.  Accomplish this by allowing your customers the ability to access your company information that is important to them doing business with you.  As you increase your responsiveness, watch your loyalty grow and the revenue and profitability benefits follow.

6.  Drive your customer’s business forward:  Using your business data, you can give your customers the visibility they need into market, purchasing, product, and business trends.  You, in turn, can position your products and services as advantages to your customer in capitalizing on these trends.

7.  Streamline and simplify your internal processes:  Use common productivity tools to streamline and automate processes that face the customer.  Simplify your processes to speed up transaction and response times – getting you ahead of the competition.

8.  Align your company culture to your customer:  It is all too easy for a company to become inwardly focused.  Fight this tendency by instilling values and behavior that is driven to customer responsiveness, satisfaction, and loyalty.

9.  Empower your people:  As overused as the term may be, the concept and result are profound.  Give your employees the ‘power’ to identify, qualify, close, support, and manage customer interactions across the entire company.  Likewise, make sure your employees have the right tools and access to important business information to continually improve your customer’s satisfaction with your organization.

10.  Don’t view customer satisfaction and loyalty as a ‘fad’:  Despite economic or business conditions drive constant improvement of satisfaction and loyalty as inviolable values.  Build these values into every existing and new employee and communicate them to your customers.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Everyone can recall horror stories about mishaps that occur when workers aren’t on the same page. Collaborating effectively to keep business running smoothly and productively.  But, should collaboration break down the consequences can be serious.

Efficient collaboration is rarely simple and it can take many forms. Some needs are internally focused, for instance, keeping employees current on corporate policies and procedures. Others require collaboration with external constituents, such as partners, suppliers or customers. Some needs are short term, as when people need to come together to manage a project, while other requirements are ongoing, like when groups need to access, share and update documents, databases, calendars and directories. And, businesses may need to collaborate within one physical location, or with others at numerous locations around the world.

Because effective internal and external collaboration is vital to a successful business, larger businesses build or buy collaboration solutions that are managed in-house. While this model may work for some, these solutions rarely meet the needs of smaller businesses that often lack the resources necessary to deploy, manage and maintain them. The costs involved, for example, from upfront licenses, hardware and integration expenses, to ongoing expenses for maintenance, upgrades and support are often prohibitive for most small business owners.

Software-as-a-Service – The Small Business Alternative

SaaS allows businesses to subscribe to software over the Web and pay for it on a monthly basis. The services can be accessed online from anywhere with an Internet connection, so remote and mobile workers can always be connected to the home office. Furthermore, because the solutions are hosted, many of the upgrades and maintenance requirements can be automated – a big benefit for small businesses with limited IT resources.

Compared with a traditional licensed software model, software-as-a-service offers businesses many distinct advantages that are quickly driving adoption:

·         Rapid Deployment: Rather than taking months to implement, businesses can be using the solution in a matter of minutes.

·         Less Expensive and More Predictable Costs: Companies pay a set monthly or annual subscription fee, typically based on the number of users. In addition to drastically reducing upfront hardware and software purchases, SaaS also eliminates the need for specialized IT talent, and reduces ongoing costs for maintenance, upgrades and support.

·         Faster ROI: By reducing deployment time as well as initial and ongoing capital investments and staffing costs, small business customers can reduce risk and achieve a faster return on investment.

·         Low or No Risk Trials: Business can test-drive online services over the Internet, enabling a small business to try the application and see if it fits their needs before making a broader commitment.

·         Ease-of-Use: Web-based applications use familiar Web interfaces that are easy for administrators and users to navigate, resulting in higher user adoption and reduced training costs.

·         More Responsive Service and Support: Using a “one-to-many” model, SaaS providers can more easily support, manage and upgrade their solutions. They can see how customers use their services in real-time, get live feedback and fix problems once – for all the customers benefit.

The benefits of SaaS become even more apparent for applications specific to collaboration. Because users can access the service via any Web browser, access is not dependent on using a specific personal computer or mobile device.  All users can access information from anytime, from different locations and desktops.  And because the solutions are scalable and expandable, businesses can start collaborating right away, and then fine-tune processes and functionality as they learn what works and what doesn’t.

So, where is the hidden opportunity?  It is in the ability for your small and medium business to gain the power and functionality of collaborative technologies without the risk and costs normally associated with such solutions. 

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics Patner