Selecting a CRM Solution

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Traditionally, construction industry business developers used various programs to manage contacts and relationships - including Outlook, Excel, ACT, and Goldmine. Largely, their choice depended on individual preference.

But BCG’s clients are increasingly interested in sharing client and prospect information across their organization, standardizing business development and marketing. This leads directly to CRM applications.  But identifying requirements for selecting a CRM solution can be difficult.

When selecting an accounting or project management system, organizations have business processes on which to develop requirements. When considering CRM, they likely do not. In addition, whereas the vendor marketplace for accounting and project management systems is clearly defined in the construction industry, a bewildering proliferation of CRM products and tools exists and those targeting the construction industry are not clearly defined. Several accounting system vendors have a CRM module as an add-on, but how well the add-on meets any specific organization’s needs is not easily apparent.

To make selection easier, BCG recommends reviewing the following key areas. Though not a complete list, these should serve as a starting point:

Contact Management
Though it seems obvious in terms of determining requirements, contact management bears consideration up front. Important contacts exist both inside and outside an organization, and knowing how you want to treat and track such contacts is vital.

Following are some initial questions that should be asked with regard to this module:

• What information do you need to track beyond basic address, phone, and email? Criteria could include position, industry, region, turnover, architectural and engineering vendors, etc.

• Do you want to track only those people that work at a particular organization, or should you include those with relationships with the organization, such as lawyers, board members, accountants, club members, etc.? Are these relationships at the company/organization level or the individual contact level?

• Who owns specific contacts? Can all users view all contacts and all information? Should certain details of certain individuals contact information be kept private, visible only to the person who created contact?  How to manage permissions?

Opportunity Management
Tracking opportunities is a frequent concern during CRM selection. Some organizations have invested significant money in their business development team, training them in standardized techniques such as solution Selling.

These require that opportunities be tracked through a standard set of phases/stages; and the likelihood of an opportunity’s becoming a project improves the further it progresses through these phases. Tracking this progression may be critical for some organizations, and not all CRM solutions can provide it. In addition, the detail that needs to be captured about an opportunity- such as the total value of the opportunity, square footage, industry, location, type, etc. - is important. Once tracked, all this information helps improve and drive proposal documentation. Another key component in a good opportunity management module is forecasting and pipeline reporting.

Proposal Development
Accessing and generating proposal documentation can be a problem for regional offices or remote users.  The ability to manage this important process through a CRM solution is an important but often overlooked item. Most marketing or business development departments use Adobe InDesign, Quark, or something similar to create their marketing material; but some use Microsoft Word. Considerations include:

• What support exists within the CRM product for these types of tools?

• Can standard documentation such as proposals, resumes, and project sheets be generated from within the CRM solution, using templates and data from the CRM system?

• Does the CRM system support remote access to finished documents?

• How accessible are the final documents?

PDA and/or Outlook Synchronization
Not everybody in business development will have their laptop with them at all times. However, they are likely to have their PDA or cell phone. What capabilities exist for synchronization with either Outlook or directly to their PDA/Cell phone?

Many other functional requirements should be evaluated and documented before creating an RFP or RFI to submit to vendors. Understanding your prerequisites before opening selection to the vendor community is critical, especially in the CRM arena where vendor marketplace is so broad.