15 Practical Challenges In CRM Implementation

Challenges in CRM Implementation can be broadly categorized into:

1. People Challenges
2. Technology Challenges
3. Business Process Challenges
4. Other Challenges

People Related Challenges in CRM Implementation

​#1 Lack of senior management sponsorship

• CRM initiative solely driven by IT team without management buy-in
• Business users unclear or unconvinced on benefits of CRM
• Management not willing to commit to enforce CRM adoption
• Underestimating Change Management demanded by CRM

Mitigation: Having an internal CRM champion from executive management.

​#2 Expecting too much, too soon – Boiling the Ocean

• Trying to accomplish all CRM objectives in the initial launch
• Adopting a ‘Water-Fall’ methodology instead of ‘Agile’ methodology for CRM project implementation
• Under estimating end-user transition by giving them full-featured, complex CRM system from get-go

Mitigation: Adopting “Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast” strategy for CRM.

​#3 Lack of scope clarity & budget overruns

• Not committing adequate time & budget to requirement discovery
• Underestimating integration effort
• Not anticipating quantity & quality of data to be migrated to the new CRM
• Underestimating end-user resistance and training costs
• Underestimating infrastructure costs and customization & implementation costs

Mitigation: Detailed requirement discovery workshops adopting Agile project methodology that allows early identification of these issues.

​#4 Underestimating Change Management

• Active resistance due to perceived threat from CRM
• Passive resistance to adoption due to inertia of changing old habits
• CRM interface slow or un-intuitive, making it cumbersome to use
• CRM viewed as ‘something that benefits management only’

Mitigation: Making end-users aware of what benefits they get out of CRM. Incentivizing (both positive & negative) to use CRM system. Ensuring an intuitive, easy to use, fast CRM system. Planning adequate training exercises.

​#5 Changes in Key Stakeholders in Middle of Project

• Internal CRM champion(s) leaving the organization or having change of role or department
• Arrival of new IT Head or Business Head, who has a different vision for CRM
• Changes in key personnel from CRM vendor’s side that roll-back the progress made on vendor’s understanding of organizational objectives

Mitigation: Adequate documentation of CRM project objectives and intermediate progress sign-offs. Enlisting more than one internal CRM champion for redundancy.

​#6 Lack of Expertise of the CRM vendor

• Vendor does not have enough experience with the CRM product being implemented
• Vendor does not have technology or process maturity of delivering CRM projects of similar scale
• Vendor not fully aware of the challenges in CRM implementation and is ill-prepared to anticipate and deal with them adequately

Mitigation: Adequate due diligence at vendor selection stage to assess vendor maturity and expertise.

Technology Related Challenges in CRM Implementation

​#7 Lack of CRM Product Fit

• Product cannot support multiple deployment options, namely – On Cloud, On-Premise, Private Cloud, etc.
• Product not flexible enough to allow for deeper customizations to enable fit with organization’s growing and changing needs
• Product not keeping pace with current CRM trends, such as – Global, Social, Mobile, etc.
• Product not intuitive or user-friendly, thereby hindering user adoption

Mitigation: Adequate due diligence at product selection stage to ensure fit not only for current business needs, but also for organization’s growing and changing needs.

​#8 Integration Related Issues

• Existing legacy systems don’t support modern, web-services based integration that is required with CRM
• Lack of adequate support from other vendors of existing systems that need to be integrated with CRM
• Data integrity issues and uncertainty over ‘single source of truth’

Mitigation: Adequate due diligence at requirements discovery stage, identify what data needs to be pulled from where and involve existing systems’ vendors in discussions early on. Develop prototype where needed.

​#9 Infrastructure Related Issues

CRM On-Premise

• Inadequately sized hardware leading to poor CRM performance for end users
• Underestimating the budget for setting up a true High-Availability, secure CRM setup, leading to cost overruns

CRM On-Cloud

• Underestimating cost of scaling up on cloud
• Lack of complete control over your own data and accessibility at all times
• Compliance/Regulatory Issues

Mitigation: Plan carefully upfront. Best, choose a CRM that supports both models.

Process Related Challenges in CRM Implementation

​#10 Data Migration Gotcha!

• Data fragmented and silo-ed in various existing applications and difficult to integrate and consolidate in the CRM
• Data integrity issues in the migrated data
• Incorrect assumptions about the quality of the data to be migrated. Adequate time and budget not planned for the inevitable data cleaning/scrubbing exercise

Mitigation: Know you Data! Having clarity about your data in terms of how much, how good and where is mandatory.

​#11 Impact on Existing Business Processes

• Considering CRM as just a technology, instead of business transformation tool
• Inflexibility to change existing way of doing things, giving up entrenched (bad) business practices and adopting best practices that CRM enables
• Implementation that is overly disruptive of existing business practices
• Complexities in re-architecting customer facing processes through CRM

Mitigation: Recognize the transformative power of CRM, be flexible to adopt best practices. Enlist a sponsor from executive management early on.

Other Challenges Unique to Large Organizations

• #12 Difficulty in deploying a single CRM system spanning multiple geographic regions due to differences in business practices and the required localization
• #13 Artificial time pressures created due to end-of-contract situations with existing vendors. The urgency and impossible timelines can derail the change management efforts required for implementation & adoption of new CRM
• #14 Change in business priorities mid way through CRM implementation, e.g. reallocation of CRM budget, shifted focus on mergers & acquisitions, changes in regulatory environment, etc.
• #15 Complexities in information security due to differing encryption standards, Govt access & control over data, industrial espionage in certain regions etc.