Top 6 Requirements for Choosing a CRM Project Owner

RightSite is currently assisting a client to implement a CRM system for their company, and we are right now making the most important decision in the process — choosing the right project owner.

In thinking about their CRM, many companies get caught up in the software, the servers or the budget, when they should be thinking about themselves, and who from their team will take the lead in making this project a reality.

The owner is someone from the client side who is able to represent the requirements and interests of the users of the system and who can evangelise for adoption of the system once it is complete.

The requirements for being a good project owner are not technical, and are something that any business considering implementing a CRM should have at hand. Here are the six things you need to qualify as a good project owner:

1. Knowledge of Your Business

The CRM will be built according to the owner’s explanation of your company’s sales and marketing processes along with your needs for reporting on those processes. If you are hoping that your assistant or some newly hired person can be the owner of the CRM project, then you are not likely to implement a system effectively.

2. Time

Hiring great developers is of no use if no one has time available to explain your requirements and to check everything that they do. Working with outsourced web development companies is not much different than working with fit-out contractors. If you trust them to build things on your behalf without making detailed checks of everything they do, then you will get a sloppy product that probably takes a long time to implement. Count on spending at least one hour per day on the CRM project for the duration of the project.

3. Authority, or the Ability to Get It

The owner of the project is in charge of a major initiative for the company and will have responsibility for a project that is likely to be a significant capital expenditure. At the same time, in order for a development schedule to be kept, decisions need to be made quickly. If the owner doesn’t have the ability to make decisions about how to manage any changes to the project mid-stream, then they will need to have ready access to that authority.

4. The Ability to Say No

The biggest problem with most CRM implementations is requirement bloat. As you develop the system, if your team members are at all enthusiastic about it, then you will continually be faced with requests for “Wouldn’t it be great if the system could do…” The owner’s ability to fend off requests for helpful, but non-mission critical features will be key to getting a system built on-time and on-budget.

5. Knowledge of CRMs or Other Online Systems

No one expects the project owner to build the system themselves, or to come into the project with a detailed knowledge of CRM platforms. However, it is best to choose an owner who is comfortable with online systems and who is willing to spend some time learning how the system works. To work together with the developers as a team, the developer needs to understand the client, but the client needs to understand the developers and their product too.

6. Sales Skills

Besides understanding their own sales processes, the project owner needs to have the ability to sell the system to their own team members. While many people get excited about the idea of having an online system to help with their jobs, when the system is being implemented and people are asked to change the way that they work, then you can expect some initial resistance. Your project owner has to be the point person in showing their team-mates that the benefits of the CRM outweigh the hassle of changing the way they do their jobs right now.

For most companies, finding a person on their team who can fulfill these requirements is not hard. Where things get challenging is in making the commitment to take one of their most competent, experienced team members and have them spend a significant amount of their time managing this project for the duration of the implementation.

But if you can’t make that commitment, then spend your development budget on a company retreat and keep using Excel.