Aviant Group
Aviant Group has extensive experience developing CRM strategies and implementing CRM solutions. This experience includes clients from a wide range of industries with revenues ranging from $10 million to $10 billion. Aviant has developed CRM strategies for clients that have sales forces with a handful of members to multi-national clients with thousands of users spread across the globe. With CRM there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Aviant's experience and technology agnostic approach enables us to develop and implement solutions that enable cliients to achieve a competitive advantage. True competitive advantage is only possible if CRM is viewed as more than just technology; it is a strategy that affects all parts of the organization.

Why Are Companies Turning to CRM?
CRM offers dramatic improvements in company performance through:
  • Higher revenue per customer through more effective cross-selling and up-selling.
  • Understanding and managing customer profitability.
  • Higher customer retention and loyalty.
  • Increased sales productivity.
  • Personalized and customized service and support.
  • Reduced marketing expense through improved target marketing.
  • More effective proposals as a result of better access to historical information.


Sales, Marketing, Service
Vendors have been developing CRM tools and technologies that drive towards providing a 360° view of the customer to all facets of the enterprise.


CRM is a strategy, not just a technology
In order to realize the true benefits of CRM, an organization must evaluate and optimize its processes, personnel and all key business relationships - to build and maximize the relationship with its customers. CRM is a business strategy that:
  • Identifies the firm's most valuable current or prospective customers and key business relationships.
  • Differentiates these customers in terms of their values and needs.
  • Customizes the firm's products and services to deliver the highest possible value in a profitable way.
  • Focuses on integrating and implementing the processes, personnel and partners of your organization to achieve marketing, sales & service objectives.
  • Aids the management of external relationships with channel partners, suppliers and other alliances that are critical to delivery of differentiated products / services.
  • Continually monitors the customer's expectations and requirements so as to deliver products and services that will provide an unique customer experience and build a long-term relationship.
  • Delivers a consistent message across the organization.


CRM Approach
The approach to CRM should be self-reinforcing and highly structured, while allowing for iteration and flexibility. Customers, technology and market changes require constant evaluation and consequently, organizational agility and adaptability to meet new requirements. CRM requires a coordinated, structured management approach:
  • Business strategy that directs the CRM initiative through a value proposition that fully exploits CRM capabilities.
  • Sales, service and marketing operational strategies that standardize business processes, personnel, data, channels and technology into an integrated enterprise.
  • Human capital management strategy that generates the appropriate customer focused skills behaviors within the integrated enterprise.
  • Alignment of organizational incentives and rewards which reinforces and drives behaviors and commitment to strategic and operational objectives.
  • Technology strategy that evaluates the current technology infrastructure, the strategic and operational requirements and selects the appropriate CRM technologies and tools to complete the solution.



Phase IV
  • Results v. Plan
  • Market Knowledge
  • Issues / Resolution

Phase III
  • Program Management
  • Multi-Disciplinary Team
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Change Management
  • Quality Assurance
Aviant CRM Approach
Phase I
  • Identify CRM Objectives and Opportunities
  • Organizational Assessment
  • Performance Review / Benchmarking (optional)
  • Technology Strategy / Impact

Phase II
  • Solution Model
  • Detailed Process Design
  • Fit-gap Analysis
  • Detailed System Design
  • Refined Cost / Benefit Calculation
  • Implementation Roadmap


Causes of CRM Failures
Business Issues
  • Lack of coherent CRM business strategy
  • Lack of sales & marketing process change
  • Lack of senior-level support
  • Lack of training and internal support
  • Poor measures of sales & marketing results
  • Failure to adjust individual incentives & metrics
Technology Issues
  • Lack of cross-functional planning
  • Inappropriate IT investments
  • Poor business representation on project team
  • Poor vendor selection criteria


Ensuring CRM success
  • Start with the Business Case.
  • Must be based on financial measures targeted for improvement.
  • Develop clear strategic objectives and a commitment to implement.
  • Objectives must be clear, achievable and prioritized.
  • Identify the necessary operational changes and impacts.
  • Focus on acquisition, retention and penetration of key customers and alliances across touch points.
  • Employ an implementation of personnel, process and technology that integrates:
    • Process requirements
    • Role criterion / enhancements
    • Management activities
    • Performance metrics
    • Rewards & recognition



Change Management Factors Driving Success
  • Sales people are being asked to use more technology, divulge "proprietary" information and provide information upstream that is valid and predictable.
  • Fear of "Big Brother" must be addressed early and often.
  • Mine the data collected to make sales reps more effective -- reward their efforts by helping them sell more.
  • Marketing departments need to interact with IT more as analytical CRM grows within an organization.
  • Marketing should be the guardians of the data in the CRM system.
  • IT departments must acquire the resources and skills to manage and maintain the new CRM applications, supporting architecture and technologies.


CRM Trends
Sales Force Automation
  • Provide sales people with the "tools they need for battle".
  • Management of contacts, leads, opportunities, sales activities, opportunities, marketing collateral, time & expense reporting and reporting tools.
Sales Management
  • Functionality aimed at managing a sales force have been introduced in the last few years.
  • Territory management / account assignment, quota management and headcount / productivity planning.
Sales Compensation and Incentive Management
  • Tools have been developed to manage a notoriously manually intensive process.
  • Quota programs based on account types or products can be managed for different sales groups or territories.
  • The latest tools can manage "what-if" sales plans and ad-hoc queries, rapid changes of sales incentive programs, stimulate pay transactions and offer interactive reporting to sales people.
Interactive Selling
  • Interactive selling tools aim to extend SFA and can manage selling interactions that require little to no participation from a sales person.
  • Sales configurators and on-line pricing / quoting tools that can be used by internal sales people or directly by a customer.
Proposal Development
  • Proposals don't win work. Poor proposals DO lose work.
  • The bar is continually being raised.
  • Complete, accurate, and up to date information. Quality counts too!
Campaign Management
  • Multiple groups are coordinated with a common marketing message.
  • Campaign logistics, budget and goals are documented.
  • Response rates for can be automated to real-time measures.
  • Real Time Marketing
  • Allows the combination of past customer interactions, profitability measures and trend analysis with current information (call, web session) to adapt and make offers that will trigger a desired result.
Marketing & Analytics
  • The integration of marketing functions and analytics has increased.
  • Functional data marts with histories of customer interactions and behavior, revenues generated, costs incurred and demographic data can drive value for the marketing function.
  • Customer intelligence "on-the-fly", data mining and better campaign management functions all become available to the enterprise through use of advanced analytics.


Analytics/Business Intelligence
Analytics are not new. The concept of the data warehouse and associated data marts has been around for awhile, but. . .
  • Customer data is usually scattered over many systems within an organization.
  • Often, they not are designed to be customer centric or are not very user friendly.
  • Analytical CRM is based on creating data marts that store product information, customer profiles, customer interactions and other critical data.
  • Effective use of analytics can allow an organization to:
    • Perform effective segmentation of customers.
    • Create models to understand the drivers of customer profitability.
    • Perform exploratory analyses, and derive customer insights.
    • Analyze customer behaviors and predict likely future behavior using statistical models.
    • Drive campaign management, measure responses and marketing effectiveness.
    • Assist and drive operational CRM components (sales, service, marketing) with customer information.


CRM Implementation Options
Enterprise vendors provide integrated back-office and front-office functionality for the entire enterprise
  • Oracle
  • PeopleSoft
  • SAP
  • JD Edwards
  • Microsoft (SMB)
  • Best Software (SMB)
CRM only vendors focus on the common components of CRM (Sales / Service / Marketing / Analytics)
  • Siebel
  • Clarify
  • Sugar CRM
  • E.piphany
  • Onyx
Niche vendors focus on specific functionality for a one or more components of CRM or for a specific industry or solution set
  • Deltek (Engineering and Construction)
  • MarketSoft (Campaign Management, Lead Management, Territory Assignment)
  • Selectica (Interactive Selling)
  • Incentive Systems (Sales Compensation and Incentive Management
  • Primus Knowledge Solutions (Web Self-Service, Knowledge Base Management)
  • eGain (Customer Service, Email Management)
Application Service Providers - outsource the management of CRM applications
  • NetSuite
  • Salesforce.com
  • Sugar CRM
Outsourcing - Outsourced contact centers, field support, telesales, telemarketing
  • Offshore
  • Domestic
Data Services - Some organizations utilize third party data agencies
  • List Management
  • Data aggregation and cleansing (common in Pharma)
  • Marketing Analysis
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