Business & Money Trail:

BUSINESS PROCESS FOCUS ESSENTIAL TO CRM SUCCESS

Starting from the perspective of a company's business processes is a major factor to successful implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), a new study by Unisys Corporation's eCRM consulting practice reveals.

"Strategically plotting the desired changes, as well as the impact of these changes upon customers and the entire enterprise, are essential steps in successfully deploying CRM," says Richard A. Fredrickson, managing principal, Unisys eCRM Practice.

The study, conducted on Unisys behalf by the independent agency TechFocus Research Inc, tracked 25 Fortune 1000 companies in various stages of implementing CRM initiatives.

"CRM is a set of business processes that an organization performs to identify, select, acquire, develop, better serve and, above all, retain its most profitable customers," Fredrickson says. "Before you attempt to deploy CRM, you must understand your customer-facing business process and where CRM fits into it. Otherwise, you may well become tangled up in disagreements and end up continually modifying software packages and adding costs in order to accommodate those changes. In the end, the whole thing may become frustrating, unwieldy or flat-out fail."

According to the study, roughly 70% of the companies that successfully implement CRM begin from a business process focus rather than a technology-first or combined focus. These companies base their initiatives on customer-driven issues to find the best solutions from a customer-centric perspective. Successful companies find opportunities to effectively cross-sell and to inject customer input into the end product, the study says.

The study indicates that having a process orientation and a well-defined CRM strategy in place before dealing with the technology allows best-practices companies to overcome pre-implementation fears of gradual integration, piecemeal applications, cost overruns and project management controls.

Among the benefits cited as a direct consequence of effective CRM initiatives were increased sales and market penetration, increased ROI, the ability to more effectively target and win customers, and enhanced customer retention. There are operational improvements as well, including easier customer access to data, the ability to track customer service levels, improved internal processes, and increased employee motivation.

On the down side, respondents noted, implementing CRM requires considerable software customization and a complex degree of systems integration. "It is hardly a plug-and-play operation," Fredrickson says.

Unisys Global Industries services professionals use this unique eCRM approach to support consistent CRM solutions worldwide. Unisys CRM solutions include a full range of planning assessments, customer contact strategies, process re-engineering, architecting solutions, developing and implementing project plans, implementation of the solution, hosting services, solution training and support, and post-project support.

The Unisys white paper, "Getting Started with CRM," reiterates many of the findings in the study. Complementary copies of the paper are available upon request.

About Unisys

Unisys is an e-business solutions company whose employees help customers in 100 countries apply information technology to seize opportunities and overcome challenges of the Internet economy. Unisys people integrate and deliver the solutions, services, platforms and network infrastructure required by business and government to transform their organizations for success in this new era. The company offers a rich portfolio of Unisys e-@ction Solutions for e-business based on its expertise in vertical industry solutions, network services, outsourcing, systems integration and multivendor support, coupled with enterprise-class server and related technologies. The primary vertical markets Unisys serves worldwide include financial services, transportation, communications, publishing and commercial sectors, as well as the public sector, including federal government customers. Unisys is headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, in the Greater Philadelphia area. For more information on the company, access the Unisys home page on the World Wide Web at www.unisys.com.