First Edition of CRMinIT, October 31, 2008

CRMinIT

IT-focused CRM perspective in a minute

IT support costs are constant suspects in the drive to reduce overhead costs. With goals of economizing, improving productivity, and assisting the strategic transformation of the organization into a customer-centric juggernaut; one of the key areas for IT manager focus is CRM support. Extraprise, a CRM integrator and services provider, has done significant research on the support issue, having recently completed a CRM support survey. Further, Extraprise provides a unique best-in-class CRM support offering, Siebel Onshore Support.

In this edition of CRMinIT, we tabulate the myriad support options and identify avenues to evaluate based on specific organizational goals and specific existing conditions. We also provide a brief diagnostic tool to help guide your journey to support nirvana.

Diagnostics:

• If cost is an issue there are two options: consider some of the options that have a low cost element, or reprioritize activities to focus on the most important aspect of providing satisfactory support. Our research shows the major factor impacting support satisfaction is support resource understanding of the underlying business process.
• If meeting SLAs is a priority, short of piling on resources, you may want to consider one of the options which has both an SLA infrastructure in place and has cost-efficient, flexible staffing capabilities to meet peak demands.
• If your CRM environment is stagnating either in terms of technology or lack of evolution of underlying business processes, you may want to focus on one of the solutions that embeds best practices within its foundation. Outsider views are often potent contributors to identifying fresh ways to improve existing processes.
• If your company is in a hyper-competitive industry, responsiveness is key to meeting evolving requirements. Employing a hybrid of one or more of the high-agility solutions may be the right route.

Next Steps:

• Learn more about CRM Support by looking at our in-depth CRM Survey Report (Stay tuned for further updates!)
• Learn more about Extraprise’s Siebel Onshore Support program by visiting http://www.extraprise.com/sos
• Call us to discuss your CRM situation and options: 1-888-i2i-MKTG Drop by our booth (#323) at NCDM
• Review our Resources page for more articles, white papers, podcasts, or join the dialog on our blog.