Automating your Business
When it comes to business automation, most organizations are constantly looking for the competitive edge. Today, acronyms like customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) have been so misused that end users can find it hard to make sense of it all. Add the marketing message from vendors claiming their wares are designed for businesses of all types and sizes, and you’ve got a recipe for utter confusion.
So how does a typical business cut through the noise and confusion, and obtain a tight concise list of solutions to review that provide the automation needs they actually need? The first thing to remember is that no one solution by itself can do it all. Despite what the vendor claims, solutions are always designed with an ideal target customer in mind, and it’s up to you to figure out if you’re that target customer.
What Everyone Does That You Shouldn’t
It’s no secret that business application roll-outs meet with more failure then success, as many case studies can attest to. A small business customer relationship management and e-business suite solution provider, I’m constantly hearing potential customers talk about past mistakes, so in this regard I’ve become somewhat of an expert. “I’m calling you guys because we got into this mess and now we need to fix it” is a common cry for help. But after hundreds of these conversations, you start to see common patterns emerge. I should first state that almost all of these data points come from small businesses of perhaps 10-200employees that got in over their heads. So what’s the common pattern you ask? Well, inputting together a requirements list almost everyone puts all the emphasis on license or rental price, features, and brand recognition. What else is there you might be asking? What no body seems to understand until its too late, is that while it was arguably relevant to Casanova, in the realm of business automation, size really does matter - business size that is. It’s because too many business failed to understand how the solution they chose failed to impact them in this one regard, that I get so many cries for help
[Keywords: CRM, Business Management Software ]
June 16th, 2007