Emerging Open Source Markets

I installed Google Earth on the iPhone yesterday.  While the application has a few nice features, it is a huge drain on the battery.

I removed the application a few minutes ago.  It has a few nice features, but for my needs most of the standard apps work just fine and meet my needs.

Busy weekend and a lot of fun.

On Saturday, Pat and I did a Wind Over Wings program at the Westport Library.  It was pouring rain outside but we still managed to have about 150 people attend the program.  It was free to the public as are many of our programs.

We presented a Bald Eagle, Red Tail Hawk, Great Horned Owl, and an Eastern Screech Owl.  Quite a variety of Raptors all in one place.  Attendees get to learn about raptors as well as keeping the environment safer for them and us all.

On Sunday, we had a rare treat.  Pat and I drove down to Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk to see if we could see a migrating Snowy Owl which had been reported here in the newspapers.  We weren’t disappointed.

Here is a picture of him that was given to us by a friend.

Snowy Owls are rare in Connecticut.  They normally reside in Northern Canada.  Occasionally, they do migrate down this far, but it’s not usual.  We may spot one or two of these birds in Connecticut each year.

While this picture is awsome, seeing this bird live is even better. There were quite a few people there with high powered scopes and cameras for the event.  The weather was clear, warm, and sunny which was ideal for watching him.  He pretty much stayed in one place on the jetty for a few hours.  With no one near to bother him he could relax and catch a little sleep.  Like most Owls, this bird is nocturnal.  He will be most active after sundown.

So, why would we even care to use a CRM system like SalesForce.com to process map and report on a Sales Process that is really simple, like the a Stock to Dock sales cycle?  The Stock to Dock sales cycle is simple and probably looks something like this:

• Customer visits company website
• Clicks through to website store
• Purchases Product with credit card
• Either downloads purchase immediately or receives an automated notification from the store with confirmation and delivery information.

This entire cycle probably takes everyone involved less than an hour to complete. This particular transaction actually happens completely outside of the CRM system and the people using it.  Or does it?  Who actually cares about this transaction?  Is this actually the sales process, the only sales process, and the entire sales process?  Hmmm…

Who actually cares about this transaction?

• Marketing cares - This transaction probably happenned because of something marketing did, whether it was web advertising, mail blasts, print ads, trade show, or search [SEO].  Marketing really needs to know how effective their marketing dollars are, what’s working, what’s not.  It has to be measurable.
• Operations cares - they need to be able to fulfill all sales orders.  Measuring sales in real time really helps them manage inventory, do trend analysis, and operations loading.
• Customer Service Cares - These folks get customer calls all the time to help them either solve problems, purchase new products, or help with use case issues.  Having real time data available is critical, including things like tracking numbers, order date, order numbers, serial numbers, log in keys, etc.  Having this type data can make the difference between a great customer experience and an awful one.
• Accounting cares - Accounting will automatically get this information from the store.  That’s fine, but unfortunately many of the accounting systems either lack real time automated reporting or they’re just too cumbersome to extract meaningful data.  CRM can do that quickly and easily.

Looking at the actual  sales process again with a different perspective?  Maybe the process should involve CRM and perhaps look something like this….

• Marketing initiates a campaign, which it delivers and tracks through CRM
• Customer visits company website
• Marketing campaign and customer record updated when customer clicks through and visits
• Clicks through to website store
• Purchases Product with credit card
• Customer record updated with all information to be used by all departments
  
• Marketing campaign data updated
• Either downloads purchase immediately or receives an automated notification from the store with confirmation and delivery information.
• Shipping or operations automatically updated, CRM workflow engine automatically updates shipping queue.

Of course, then there’s the case where the customer has a question before ordering. She calls [or emails] sales, who already has her contact information populated in CRM.  Sales answers the question and then orders the information while on the phone.  This happens virtually since SalesForce is web based, so the actual salespersoncould be located anywhere on the planet.  That’s essential in a “Flat World”, where business is conducted 24/7.

Does any of this sound like CRM {Customer Relationship Management}? Not to me.  This sounds more like an Information System with workflow, business process management, and reporting engines to me.

I’m once again in the final stages of implementing and integrating a CRM system, this one being SalesForce.  These systems have come a long way over the years and labeling them as CRM [Customer Relationship Management] is about as sensible as calling a car a “Horseless Carriage”.

CRM systems are an outgrowth of SFA [Sales Force Automation] and were largely implemented by companies to help manage their sales-force, revenue pipeline, customer contacts, and to some extent their sales process.  No doubt, many companies still use them this way.  That’s fine, but doing only that greatly under-utilizes the product’s capabilities and value.  Further, companies that just use CRM for those tasks find the product to really not deliver value and generally the sales force using the product find it more of a burden than a help.

A tool like SalesForce is more closely aligned to an ERP system and a Business Process Improvement system than it is to a CRM system.  The system is extremely capable of being configured to automate many process tasks operationally within the organization while providing detailed “real time reports” along the way.  This can be invaluable to companies interested in improving operations, reducing costs, and creating a much richer experience for their customers along the way.

Multiple Sales Processes - All organizations have multiple Business Processes executing in parallel.  This is true for sales processes too.  Not only do sales organizations typically have several sales processes that have different sales cycles, they have different process steps.  For example, we may have one sales process which has a cycle of one day and is essentially a stock to dock cycle and we can have another cycle that is six months long and requires a total solution sales.  Different processes, different metrics, and both can managed using a system like SalesForce.

Many companies view the sales process as a process that is discreet from the rest of the organization.  They are not.  They begin with Customer Acquisition [Marketing] move through a fulfillment phase, and end with customer service and back office operations such as accounting.  Reporting occurs at every step along with work flow and task management.

I will examine several of these processes in my next post, including some automation approaches and using process improvement techniques like DMAIC [Design Manage Analyze Improve Control], to really improve organizational performance.

The first steps are to install the processes as they exist today and then work to improve them one at a time.  Really a lot of work but well worth the effort.

I have added a Mutual NDA Template to the site here as another free download. As I have been adding templates I’ve noticed that template offerings on the web can be as high as $300.  While I’m sure that these are more elaborate than the ones I have here for free, my guess is they’re probably more restrictive with editing capability and perhaps less general from a business use case.

I have used this Mutual NDA has been used for quite a few years.  Really simple and fair for both parties.  Great if you’re a small company or startup and need to keep legal expenses down.

Enjoy!