Lesson 3: Early involvement of users
One of the biggest objections is likely to come from a sales department, the very group the CRM is trying to support. So a CIO has to be ready to address the fear of change and unwelcome regimentation of the traditionally flexible sales process.

"Salespeople don't like to be managed or share information with other colleagues," Bonadio said. However, a great part of a CRM's success lies in the attitudes and the fingertips of the sales staff.

For starters, the CRM user interface has to be easy to navigate, or it'll simply scuttle the project. In addition, standards, such as inputting customer data when a call comes in, have to be set and adhered to--mandates that may cause discontent within the sales force.

To win over the user base, the CIO has to entice people to use the application. One approach is to show how, if used correctly, CRM can make a salesperson appear sophisticated by providing real-time availability to customer data or allowing the salesperson to view product inventories. A sales team might equally appreciate timesaving devices such as speedier ways to file sales reports.

At TidalWire, Augustine showed them "The Promised Land."

By this phrase, Augustine means "you need to show them what they will gain for their efforts, what the benefits are to them--both indirect and direct." Once the sales team is won over, the CIO then has to deliver on the promises quickly.

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Lesson 4: An incremental project rollout
Incremental rollouts contribute to the success of a CRM project and its acceptance. "If you take forever to do something, you lose accountability, credibility, and people lose faith," Augustine said.

First, start with the full list of business requirements and then begin to whittle it down to three manageable mini-projects that will deliver the biggest bang to the users and managers. Each of the mini-projects should take three to five months or less to complete. Then, explain to the project champions and the sales group what's going to be accomplished and when.

At TidalWire, the first phase--the Siebel Sales integration--lasted six weeks and delivered basic account, contact, opportunity, and quote management abilities, as well as pricing management.

The second phase, an extranet application for users via Siebel eSales, took three months. The third phase, which lasted four months, improved upon an Internet-based product catalog by providing a more effective interface and integration of online customer ordering functionality with the CRM. Subsequent rollouts have continued to add functionality, such as an EDI link to FedEx's logistics services, which took place in May 2002.

Lesson 5: Effective end-user training
Today, up to 80 percent of the company uses Siebel in some fashion, said Augustine. The system allows the sales team to manage sales leads, helps marketing pull down customer data to execute targeted marketing campaigns, and lets finance use data for customer credit reporting.

Business development staff can access the progress of new vendor programs, and the executive team can see what customers recently bought (or didn't buy), and the status of all quotes and orders, among other things.

To get people onboard, Augustine established a strong training program. Akibia initially developed a series of training manuals and curriculum that defined functionality and how to use it. TidalWire then converted a conference room into a training facility, complete with PCs that demonstrated functionality, and ran a group of sample exercises, such as how to create an account or complete an order.

An in-house support team was on hand to help users who had questions on how to use the system. When new employees were trained, they shadowed another employee and referred to a cheat sheet.

"They were up and running within a few days with some of the basics," said Augustine, who noted that the system is significantly easier to learn than mastering the value proposition of the company's products--something that should be true at many companies.

ROI can still be difficult to measure
With CRM, TidalWire has been able to:

• Flatten out variability in product pricing.
• Reduce the sales cycles via enhanced tracking and reporting of sales leads.
• Increase visibility of things like product demand and accounts outstanding.
• Improve marketing campaigns by pulling customer data to do target marketing.

And while the sales staff still grumbles a bit whenever the system gets enhanced, the tech leader takes it all in stride. For instance, one gripe had to do with the quote sheet and a request to include an additional piece of information. Yet, as Augustine noted, "two years ago, they didn't even have a quote sheet."

Going forward, Augustine plans to continue tweaking and enhancing the system. "We consistently seek ways to enhance the capabilities we provide to our internal staff as well as external customers and prospects," he said. Presently, Augustine's tech group is enhancing functionality to the company's extranet. In the future, they'll be migrating to Siebel 7.5.

"We'll never be done [with the rollout]--and that's the key."

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