I am working remote this month from our office in Brazil. One of the things I am growing accustom to here is siesta, which is a 2 hr break in the middle of the day from noon to 2pm. As an American, when I first experienced this I thought it was rather inconvenient since I was used to working through the lunch hour and it always seemed to be when I was able to get the most done.
Well it has taken several trips here now for me to get used to it and rethink my planning of a regular work day. However, what I have found is that it can actually help me be more productive with less stress and better insight since the "down time" time allows me to recharge a bit and enables me to be able to jump back to my work with new perspective and fresh ideas.
When I think about this concept I can not help but notice how the same mindset or process can be effective with Project Management. The tendency with most projects is to charge forward and get everything done in as short of a life cycle as possible and then transition into maintenance mode. While there are many advantages for this methodology there is also value in shorter spurts of forward progress with brief cooling off or reflection periods to help you gain perspective and evaluate where you are and where you are going. This can reduce the potential for mistakes and add more insight and creativity to your outcomes.
Of course every project is unique and there is not a cookie cutter solution for every project. There is value though in taking time in your process to reflect in a way that is not under intense pressure for a deliverable.
There is a old saying about "not seeing the forest through the trees" and it is my opinion that a little "Siesta" at appropriate times in your project life cycle is a good idea for seeing both with clarity.
Every couple years our family ventures back to my wife Sony's native country of Brazil. When we do this it always offers an outside looking in perspective on what we are doing at CNP and gives me a chance to reflect on the things we should be focusing on to ad value to our customers. I am often making comparisons between the many cultural differences and observations about the many similarities . My analogy is that it is the same ice cream with slightly different flavors. Our second home in Navegantes SC is a community exploding with tourism and the people come from all parts of Brazil to vacation there. In some ways it is a step back in time since there are a lot of local folks that have not caught up with use new technologies since this grew out of a fishing village. Many of the visitors are well in pace with the trends of globalization so this makes for an interesting perspective on how technology is getting integrated in to the commerce and culture here. It makes me remember the importance of human relationships and something we should never lose in our engagements with customers or friends and family.
One interesting example of this community is when I wanted to purchase a used bicycle and was asking a group of older local gentlemen for directions to a place that would sell me a good used bike, since a gringo on a new bike stands out and I just want to blend in and relax a bit when I am here.
The response was... "go up the road to Edwardo's place and ask anybody" since everybody knew the guy that sold used bikes. Well I think you can get the idea here that these directions implied first the value of reputation since Edwardo's place was just an ordinary house of someone respected in the community. It emphasizes the importance of gaining the trust and awareness of real people in your community since it is often how others will navigate to your business. In a virtual web world this is kind of like saying "go to Google and type in "XYZ" then read the comments of others for direction".
I will be the first to admit that I am a bit of a geek and I like my techno toys/software and all of the magic they can do but one of the lessons I take from this is how important it is to not get distracted by all of the "cool" technologies we have and lose sight of developing real relationships in the right circle and community of your piers.
The priority should always be the relationship and the technology should never get in the way or distract from nurturing quality relationships.
This past week I was contacted to review a CRM Timeline. This timeline covers many of the high points in the evolution of CRM and is very interesting for a general overview of the evolution of CRM (Know more now as Social CRM) as an industry. One of the recommendations I made was to include the open source movement for CRM that really began with the SugarCRM project. Since projects like Joomla! CMS have help to pave a way for open source and the adoption of Social Technologies for small businesses so too has the branch of SugarCRM called info@hand and it's powerful integration with the Joomla! CMS. This combination is an ideal solution for Social CRM or as we affectionately call it "Social CRBM".
Discovery of the Info@hand CRBM
Our company CNP Integrations jumped on this bandwagon of "CRBM" (Customer Relationship Business Management) early on just as Sugar was gaining momentum and generating buzz in the open source community. After using the Community edition of SugarCRM we found that it just did not have a complete solution so we started exploring other options that were more inclusive. It was then that we found Info@hand CRBM which has more features useful for business management rather than just salesforce automation and it seemlessly integrated with Joomla! CMS.
Since this new CRM system integrated with Joomla! CMS as a frontend customer portal solution and I was already on my was as an evangelist for this amazing new platform, I quickly grabbed Michael Whitehead's book "Implementing SugarCRM" and a few others including Paul Greenberg's' "CRM at the Speed of Light" and I set out to become "An Expert". Well the journey I found to be quite significant and I will never gain the depth of knowledge a CRM guru like Paul Greenberg has, but I was able to become a power user of the info@hand CRBM platform and found that our experience was worth sharing with other customers to offer extended support as a VAR partner for the info@hand CRBM. Support for Info@hand was a natural addition to our portfolio of services to the Joomla! CMS community since we already had this expertise.
One great integrated platform is a lot to keep track of
Well that was four years ago and though the CRM timeline introduces the birth of SugarCRM they did not include the birth of the Info@hand CRBM solution in this evolution as they rightly should have. Folks like Paul Greenberg have been keeping track of the massive complexities and ongoing growth and transitions of the overall CRM industry while we have been closely involved in the specific evolution with info@hand CRBM as a VAR partner. Believe me, I do not know how Paul does it since we have our hands full with just staying on top of one mighty platform and what we believe it is by far the best choice for small b2b and b2c businesses that use Joomla CMS!.
Keeping Pace and Stride with the big players
We have watched a significantly smaller well focused development group at the Long Reach Corporation combined with a dedicated user group and partner network surpass products with big money behind them. While many of the CRM platforms like Salesforce which have significantly deeper pockets both for development resources and marketing, the Info@hand CRBM platform has been steadily growing in features functionality and stability to offer a competitive edge for features but significantly lower cost of entry for small to midsized business enterprises. With the gigantic buzz around Social technologies and "Social CRM" Joomla was the perfect marriage for info@hand since Joomla Now has one of the best platforms for building out Social Communities.
Time fly's when you are building any business
This has been a fast passed path and keeping up with the comparisons has been a rather time consuming process we are not always able to keep up on documenting but every time we do we see Info@hand clearly taking strides over their peers. In our own info@hand timeline, we have seen the evolution of integrations with QuickBooks, Microsoft Outlook, and eCommerce transaction management (Sync with Virtuemart Shopping Cart System for Joomla! CMS) with inventory, shipping, and ERP functionality. Integration with DimDim conferencing and GoogleDocs, Calendars, event, email campaign and subscription management and much more... Perhaps someday we will have the spare time to gather our own timeline and present it but for now we are just happy this platform delivers such robust features with a fraction of the overhead costs.
"Surf's up"
One day very soon this best kept secret of the Info@hand CRBM with Joomla! CMS is going to catch the right wave in popularity with the big boys and we will see small businesses flocking the call out of "Surf's up for Social CRM"
I wrote a piece a while back about Customer Conversation Management or "CCM" which is really the essence of the new CRM 2.0 and now getting the label Social CRM. Regardless of the term you prefer to use to describe it the reality is that the customer is in charge of the engagement these days since they now have so many choices and your competition is global. I have plenty of blog articles here that further explore this concept but when I found this video, I had to put it up since it hits the core of the problem many companies have today with their customer engagements.
Build Value by following a success program and planning carefuly
I have been following the ITtoolbox.com discussions lately and ran across these comments below. It reinforces much of what we have learned and why we have designed a consulting practice around our Value Building Methodology. Notice the date of these articles. In other words this is not new information but folks are still making the same mistakes nearly 4 years later.With the new Social CRM and social technologies that we have to now integrate into these systems it is only going to get more challenging.
Invest in good training, support and consulting to align your initiatives
To implement CRM effectively it often takes an outside consulting team to help plan, execute, train and align an organization's people and processes with the technology. Thinking you can just buy some software that an ambitious CEO or IT manager likes and that you can implement it without a full support package from a qualified consulting firm is a path for disaster. It tends to be a rather expensive proposition on so many levels when you do not invest in the right balance of consulting with your technologypurchase. It is a myth that one you purchase the software and turn it on that your investment is over. This will become a paridigm shift in most cases for the way you do business and will continue to evolve over an extended period of time.
Open Source solutions positions you for future needs
This is one of the reasons we like solutions built off of an open source code base. The cost of entry on the software is much lower so you can get more implementation resources and training for the same investment while not being held over the barrel on the software should you want to modify the system to meet unique requirements down the road. Many of these requirements you may not even know you need yet.
Full Article:
Disclaimer: Contents are not reviewed for correctness and are not endorsed or recommended by ITtoolbox or any vendor. Popular Q&A contents include summarized information from CRM-Select discussion unless otherwise noted.
1. Medium-size company wanting to facilitate revenue growth purchased SFA software without any sales strategy. They expected that the software would make their life easier. As most SFA software, it came with its own pre-packaged best practices, which did not fit the company's processes. The implementation dragged out as the company realized that they had to re-examine their processes.
2. A large company purchased call center software to address the growing backlog of thousands of unanswered customer emails. After the software was implemented, training followed. During training, the users scream: we can't use this system, we won't use this system. Two reasons: first, same as #1, little effort was made to align process to packaged functionality, and second, no effort was made to engage the users and build champions among them.
3. A fast-growing company with a solid CRM strategy purchased and implemented SFA, Call center, and Marketing automation software. They did not, however, consider the importance of data quality in the beginning. The Result: reports could not be trusted, pipeline and trending was worthless, and the project went through a major crisis until these issues started getting addressed.
After a number of years, the company in #1 has abandoned the original SFA software and opted for a more simplistic and less costly solution from an SaaS vendor. The company in #2 has taken a step back, re-examined their CRM strategy, re-mapped its processes, and rebuilt most CRM components. The company in #3 has continued building upon the described solution, overcomming the initial data quality issues.
Outside the scope of pure CRM systems, but within the scope of business-critical systems, plenty:
All boil down to: 1) Rubbish needs analysis 2) Rubbish solution analysis and selection on top of poor needs analysis 3) Poor end-to-end implementation, with little outcome-based assessment of the implementation team (with a serious stress here on training and external change mgt) 4) Zero, or poor metrics in place to measure success, not only before, but during, at time of go-live, and for 12 months minimum after.
The key points are 80% point one, and 20% point two. The third and fourth are merely confusing factors, that while important, could not *really* (other than in a completely dysfunctional org) exist without the first two.
CRM implementations fail for three reasons, and it all boils down to Human Nature! If a business owner can overcome these three things, CRM will pay for itself rather than be a huge expense.
1) CRM implementations live and die by its EMPLOYEES acceptance... PERIOD!! If the user refuses to use it, IT BECOMES AN EXPENSE!!!
2) Not only is there no BENEFIT for a user to learn and use a CRM application, it's actually a DETRIMENT for an end user to learn and use a CRM application!!!
3) If you encounter a businessman who is looking to purchase a CRM solution, regardless of price or company, they should be able to answer, INTELLIGENTLY and TRUTHFULLY, this one simple questions... "How will your EMPLOYEES benefit from learning and using a CRM application?" If they cannot, they will LOSE MONEY ON THE PURCHASE. Let's see if they can actually ENFORCE the use of a CRM if their sales department is under the impression that it will help line the pockets of the CEO/OWNER even further while THEY have to work harder with no compensation to learn and use it for that purpose.
Our core team of service and support technicians,
configuration specialists, project managers, Sr. CRM Consultants, creative content designers and subject
matter experts all share a common thread with our "Value Builder Methodology".
We make sure the chosen web solutions align with your top
priority business goals.
Our proven integration process assures expectations are realistic and clearly defined.
We are committed to deliver Superior Value and Return on Investment
People, process and technology
all have to live in harmony.Whether you are implementing a
complex business management platform, a simple web site or e-commerce portal they
all must target your intended business goals.
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Each associate displayed a high degree of integrity, responsibility, competence and ambition. Their good judgment and
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which resulted in the completion of our project ahead of schedule –
exceeding our expectations.
The services which CNP
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Ahh it is siesta again... 
