Comments on: As CIO, you’ve said CRM is your differentiator. Now what?

By: Geoff Major

Geoff Major — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:23:36 +0000

Agree with the article and would add that CRM & customer ‘intimacy’ (nee focus, nee delight nee experience nee the brand experience) were sadly misunderstood by many CIO’s (and mis-represented by some vendors) when the technology was seen as a panacea and introduced.

CRM is a way of working (I’ll avoid the temptation to use the word ‘culture’), an end-to-end process and a positive cost/benefit if implemented properly as we know.

By: Do You Achieve Customer Intimacy? « Customer Insight Blog

Do You Achieve Customer Intimacy? « Customer Insight Blog — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:46:02 +0000

[...] Maoz of Gartner wrote an excellent blog post recently, “As CIO, you’ve said CRM is your differentiator. Now what?” In it, he cited from a recent Gartner survey that “the highest percentage of CIOs (54%) listed [...]

By: Ross Pemberton

Ross Pemberton — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:44:05 +0000

I read this article about the real value of CRM to the business with interest.

My experience with ROI cases is that it depnds on how people term the ROI? I belive there to be 2 ROI options, functional and financial.So to adopt this idea to the post could be to say that the financial ROI is easier to measure, and at the same time easier to fault.

The second part of the post refers very much to the functional return, customer intamacy, better comms, more acurate forecasting. This should still be viewed as a positive return, as the financial measures are often affected by outside forces such as the economy, ability to execute a sale, poor client management

So perhaps it can be measured a success? and its a matter of setting expectations with the client in advance to ensure project success and customer value?

By: Ken Knickerbocker

Ken Knickerbocker — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:31:54 +0000

Welcome back Michael. A good point to be sure but you have to ask if CRM systems do in fact generate revenue?

According to CSO Insights’ 2008 Sales Performance Optimization survey, less than 30% of companies have seen an increase in sales, gross margins retained or shorter sales cycles as a result of implementing CRM.

Correspondingly over 50% indicate their CRM system have increased the accuracy of their forecast and improved internal communications. But its hard to build a credible ROI around better forecasts and improved communication.

The jury remains out on this one.