Picture this: You had a broad sales automation vision and were searching for the right technology partner. You were approached by five to ten CRM solution providers in the past few months and you tested all of them to narrow down to Peri CRM because of its ease of use, bug-free, glitch-free experience, minimal effort for the frontliner and a consultative sales approach. Is your job done? Not really, in fact, as most of our implementation consultants would say “the most difficult part is about to come” which is implementation.
When the first step towards a holistic CRM strategy i.e. picking the right CRM, (Read: How to pick the right CRM for your business) , has been completed successfully, the second step is to map out your approach on executing it. With years of experience working and consulting alongside executives and HR professionals, Peri’s team has charted out a method to simplify and overcome barriers that are expected to arise.
People’s aversion to change creates resistance. Deploying a successful CRM implementation strategy is greatly dependent on a proactive change management. In such a case, using a tried-and-tested way for deploying Peri CRM solution can help make the task much easier.
Here is a breakdown of a step-by-step approach to achieving this:-
1. Define the need
The first and foremost thing while implementing a CRM strategy is to define the need and the outcomes expected from the implementation. Having a clear route helps to stay focused and get everyone onboard. Examples of few clear goals may be: increasing the number of sales calls, adopting the discipline of visiting market, defining productive beat plan, managing claims, on a day to day basis and scaling market expansion during launches.
Understanding how Peri CRM’s modules can accelerate your daily tasks helps give a broad idea of what to expect and sketch a roadmap for maximizing utility of features.
2. Align the key stakeholders
Implementation of CRM solution involves a lot of changes. Although Peri CRM allows almost seamless integration, the mere factor of change can hold resistance. Since the various stakeholders are the key drivers, it is important to identify their needs, attend to their challenges and elucidate to them the results which speak to them directly.
Top Management level: People on top of the pyramid derive the benefit of— business analytics which helps in decision making, reduced time and cost in sales processes, Overview of performance, Effective sales team, Product Management, and informed decisions using insights from customer interactions.
Sales Manager: Peri helps in Employee Management, shelf management, Easier Reporting, territory management and charting out monthly plans for teams as well as managing target of team member.
Sales Front liner: Peri offers easier order and dispatch management, Expenses management, real-time update of targets, manage customer details, minimal data entry, memory efficient, visually appealing dashboard and easy navigations.
Having a solution like Peri CRM alleviates the stress of change by addressing to each stakeholder group’s need. Easy adoption allows for active participation and successful implementation. ( Read: How to ensure your workforce adopts a CRM system)
3. Decide on goals and relevant metrics to elucidate them
Deciding beforehand the metrics which would define the target, and results, helps everyone speak the same language and understand them in a similar manner. Prioritizing needs and quantifying progress is useful in planning a course to achieve them. Some key KPIs to keep in mind are:
- Time spent selling
- Sales by region
- Average sales per rep
- Sell-through rate: sales versus the total inventory
- Product performance
- Sales to date
- Sales growth YTD
- Average purchase value
4. Define timeline and responsibilities
For Indian businesses, this is an important stage. Since India still uses rudimentary business processes, it is important to have key individuals on-board and actively participating at this stage. It’s imperative to have a Senior sales manager with experience of the field, an MIS resource, and few supporting resources to have the system reflect the real world utility.
It is advised to divide the backend implementation into clear stages as defined below: –
- Planning and preparing data
- Define and register core modules such as data regarding Employee, Products, Outlets, Inventory, and Order management
- Updating other non-core modules. These are the supplementary modules that help organize core data.
- Deploying the CRM system to the sales team. If the product array is very large, this can be rolled out in phases
- Interview sales force and get feedback regarding utility and course correct accordingly
After clearly defining the stages and accountability of various resources involved, set a clear timeline to keep things on track. An organized approach helps address issues and measure improvement simultaneously.
5. Commit to common routines to create a smooth workflow
The most elemental function of a robust CRM system is to automate and simplify repetitive, iterative processes. Sales Managers can be the key decision maker at this stage who can identify such routines.
- Establishing a common process helps new recruits get onboard faster.
- It simplifies complex steps by distilling them to bare essentials
- It brings efficiency and uniformity to the system that helps in identifying areas for improvement
To bring things to perspective, let’s consider some key areas for the frontline workforce. They are, inter alia, order management, dispatch and distribution management, contact management. Peri CRM system allows minimal data entry to speed up the process by simplifying it. These habits become almost second nature due to easy navigation and user-centric design.
6. Getting the customer-facing staff onboard
This may by far be the easiest of all the steps since the application was designed around the needs of the field force staff. It has received an overwhelming response from over 500+ sales representatives.
Peri’s initial onboarding training helps the entire sales fleet to work in tandem with each other. Its user interface is highly visual and is structured with real-world usability in mind.
Designed to encourage stickiness, the mobile app offers benefits of:
- Minimal data entry
- One click report export
- Target management: which provides continual feedback
- Geofencing
- Real-time update with the central database
- Simple UX/UI
- Gamification
7. Stay savvy with the insights
Current Market is flooded with competitors continuously eyeing for a piece from the market pie. It becomes pertinent in such a case to stay aware of your current standing and compare it with competitor analysis. Furthermore, it’s important to plan forward and stay dynamic to market shifts. Data derived from various interactions in the market help analyzing the landscape. But data that does not speak your language is cumbersome and time-consuming, even futile when the market corrects itself after a shift.
This means that for a top sales performer, planning a year ahead helps manage resources that can offer a real top-line impact. A leading sales report suggests that ”45% of fast-growing companies invest more than 6% of their sales budget on activities supporting goals that are at least a year forward.”
Peri CRM’s robust analytics helps visualize data. The analytics helps translate trends into plans for the forthcoming season and year ahead. Pattern analysis helps the business make better decisions regarding their product, territory, strategy, workforce, budget et al.
These 7 steps to ensure an airtight deployment based on our experience of the FMCG industry of India. Strategy implementation usually takes some time to have everyone on the same page and straighten up the backend. Peri CRM team supports the process and training when onboarding the company to make the implementation process easier. It may take weeks and months to ensure a smooth workflow, but it provides manifold returns in the long run.
To further learn about what are the things you can do with Peri CRM, Read: 5 things you didn’t know that a CRM can do for you.
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