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How to Ensure Your Employees Will Want to Use CRM

Executive Summary

As the technologies and demands of the workplace have changed, so too have its workers. “Information Workers”—a new breed of information-dependent, technology-reliant, and collaboration-driven professionals—have become prevalent. The decision to go with a CRM solution built to address the needs of information workers is a smart and valuable investment that recognizes the need to help employees work effectively with the deluge of data available to them in today’s connected, always-on, real-time workplace. In this paper learn how, with the right CRM solution, information workers can increase productivity, improve customer service, and boost collaboration, while the business simplifies complex processes, increases sales, and reduces costs.

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In today’s intensely competitive, rapidly changing busi-ness environment, the need to be market-focused and customer-centric is more critical than at any other time in the past. With increased globalization and competition offering customers ever-expanding alternatives, achieving complete customer satisfaction is the only way to ensure customer retention and corporate success. Furthermore, many organizations are recognizing that there is a direct link between high performance—another critical business goal—and customer satisfaction.

As a result, optimal performance must be a core objective of every organization’s business strategy. To improve per-formance, companies must continually seek out new ways to empower their employees to work more efficiently and

effectively. In this networked information age, the most essential component to per-formance is an environment that encourages workers to effectively use, proliferate, and share information to achieve better outcomes, including enhanced productivity and greater customer satisfaction.

It is imperative for every organization to gather, retain, and use valuable information about their customers to enhance their business strategies, thereby offering customers faster responses, better product and service offerings, and more satisfying experiences.

Customer relationship management—or CRM, as it is popularly known—is an approach to achieving business objectives that facilitates rapid responses to customer needs, leading to healthy and profitable customer relation-ships. CRM solutions manage knowledge and informa-tion; they also enable the execution of activities within and across value chains while supporting all decision-making underlying those activities.

Pioneering organizations such as Centex Homes, Bombardier, and Tektronix have already made the transi-tion to this new business-intelligence concept. For them, customer satisfaction and business performance are not isolated corporate concerns; they are integrated strategic focuses that together contribute to overall profitability.

This paper outlines the technology building blocks that will enable you to create an information-rich environment that empowers your workforce to perform at its peak and use data to its fullest—without having to become IT experts—to ultimately deliver the high performance and customer satisfaction required to compete in today’s market.

The Next IT Challenge: a Truly Real-Time Enterprise The modern organization’s ability to produce, collect, and share information has grown faster than its ability to manage it. Global sourcing, a more connected workplace, and the need for enterprises to adopt a real-time infrastructure—these trends are driving the world toward a future in which “always-on” devices provide a tidal wave of data, forcing companies to contend with an almost incomprehensible amount of information and ensuing data-management issues, while attempting to remain one step ahead of the competition.

Companies know that with more knowledge should come greater advantage, but without the power to make sense of it all and apply it swiftly, they are missing the very opportunity that increased data presents.

The ascendance of the underlying technology of the “connected workplace,” in which people use always-on technologies such as PDAs, smart phones, and MP3 players, is being compounded by the trend toward globalization and the need for greater corporate transpar-ency and accountability. This combination of factors will increasingly force enterprises to regularly transform their business operations to respond more effectively to time-based competition.

Sustaining high productivity in the face of these new complexities is a critical challenge as the culture and dynamics of work evolve. Workers are nearing “informa-tion overload,” and this has no small impact on business performance. IDC reports that workers in North America have faced a tenfold increase in the volume of business-related e-mail since 1997. Studies suggest that workers spend up to a quarter of their time on non-productive information-related activities, and analysts report that workers spend up to 30% of their days just looking for the information they need.1.

Businesses need to change to accommodate this flood of data surging into and out of their walls. The key to this transformation, alongside changes in business processes, is a more agile or “real-time” infrastructure: an infrastruc-ture that increases efficiency, reduces costs, and provides better insight into the immediate future of our businesses. It needs to be capable of capturing, storing, and analyzing millions of transactions and pieces of information, so that we can understand and use data—anytime, anywhere.

But the real outcome of all this change and complexity is that workplace tools need to evolve not just to accom-modate the avalanche of information generated by—and

1. Microsoft, Digital Workstyle: The New World of Work (May 2005).

In this networked information age, the most essential component to performance is an environment that encourages workers to effectively use, proliferate, and share information to achieve better outcomes.

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required to compete in—today’s business environment, but to help workers use, understand, and filter this information to avoid becoming overwhelmed by it in a way that negatively impacts productivity. Performance is about more than just information quantity; it is about information usability. For every exponential increase in the magnitude of available information, there must be support for a corresponding expansion in an information-user’s ability to sort, apply, discern, differentiate, and manage this data in order for increased information to fuel increased performance.

The Rise of the Information WorkerThe rise of the Information Worker is an emerging, accelerating, and seemingly unstoppable trend, and Information Workers are radically altering the modern working environment. It is estimated that 68 percent of the U.S. workforce, or 92.8 million people, are Information Workers.2.

As the technologies and demands of the workplace have changed, so too have its workers. “Information Workers”—a new breed of information-dependent, technology-reliant, and collaboration-driven profession-als—have become prevalent.

Information workers are not restricted to roles we might traditionally define as data- or technology-intensive. As IT tools have spread, information demands have increased, and applications have become more user-friendly,

the number and nature of employees classifiable as “information workers” have expanded, and the tools and practices of information work have been adopted by more roles within organizations. Information needs of diverse kinds pervade every level of organizations today, from executive decision-makers

through to sales, marketing, and customer service teams.

Just as information work stretches across roles in organizations, it extends across industries. For example, a relationship manager for an asset management firm may need to track the financial activities and portfolio performance of clients by retrieving data from over 20 separate enterprise databases; a home building sales agent may need to review homesite plans from a number of different communities with homebuyers, generate contracts, and run sales reports all from a model center;

2. Microsoft Information Worker statistic (Partner Program, Information Worker Center, Solution Opportunities)

and a manufacturing marketing manager may need to engage with different campaign stakeholders—including indirect partner sales managers, direct sales managers, sales representatives, and other colleagues—to plan and act on a demand-generating marketing campaign.

Characteristics of the Information WorkerWhile information workers are found across roles, organi-zations, and industries, they share certain characteristics in their needs and work styles.

Information-Dependent Increased business complexity and sophistication have resulted in ever-increasing quantities and layers of infor-mation. Businesses need to compete globally; they have to deal with expanding and evolving rules and regulations in multiple geographies; and they are required to incorporate channels and resources beyond the tradi-tional nuclear organization, including partners, distributors, and VARs.

The wealth of information that these businesses are producing needs to be accessed, used, and uploaded by information workers in order for them, and the organization as a whole, to operate in an optimal fashion and succeed. Your information workers need to efficiently retrieve and manage multiple layers of information con-tained within their company’s enterprise software systems; they depend on it to perform their roles.

Collaboration-Driven In addition to increased business complexity and sophis-tication, businesses today also face growing external and internal pressures to find creative solutions that leverage all available skills and resources. External pressures from the investment community oblige businesses to look not only at ways of increasing revenues, but also of reducing costs. Internal pressures require businesses to standardize processes, maximize cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, and improve customer retention, among other demands.

As a result of this, information workers need to take col-laboration to the next level, connecting people, processes, customers, and intellectual property to help the organiza-tion succeed. Individuals, teams, and partners need to get on the same page so they can all work together with speed and coordination.

Technology-ReliantTo address increased business complexity, technology solutions have also become more complex, extending beyond the bounds of the enterprise to encompass partners, mobile workers, and the supply chain; incorporating greater interoperability to facilitate company-wide processes and initiatives; and embracing

Workplace tools need to evolve not just to accommodate the avalanche of information generated by—and required to compete in—today’s business environment, but to help workers use, understand, and filter this information to avoid becoming overwhelmed by it in a way that negatively impacts productivity.

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mobile devices and technology, including smartphones, wireless laptops, PDAs, and public wi-fi Internet access. Information workers depend on access to the most current and appropriate technology solutions to do their jobs effectively.

Information Workers and Information IntegrationGiven the rapid increase in information workers and information work in today’s business environment, helping information workers perform at their best is becoming increasingly important. Most organizations are facing extreme external and internal pressures to reduce costs and increase revenues, and failure to adequately support the needs of information workers—and capitalize on their potential—can prove an obstacle in meeting these objectives. To optimize their operations, organizations need to put tools in place that meet information workers’

growing needs.

The exact complement of tools information workers require will vary by industry and role, but one principle remains consistently true across them all: traditional disparate systems aren’t enough. The

era of information work requires more than point-solutions that address individual needs and data sets; to be truly useful, information needs to be centralized, integrated, and assembled.

Wherever possible, information-worker tools need to be organized around a central data repository that brings information together, making it more easily accessible, navigable, and applicable.

With the concurrent escalating emphasis on customer satisfaction and the recognition of its link to business performance, customer data is a perfect nexus for information-worker optimization. Customer data needs to be aggregated and made as useful and accessible as possible to information workers, enabling them to respond to customer demands, quickly and effectively, with exactly the right kind of response.

CRM and the Information WorkerCRM solutions are used by companies to connect data, people, and processes across the customer-facing front-office—sales, marketing, service, and partners. As a core company application, CRM is an important business tool for sales, marketing, services, and support personnel and a critical area of consideration for IT managers aiming to provide for increased information-worker productivity and success. CRM is an information-unifying tool, designed to

increase access to and visibility of information, making it the perfect information-worker solution.

When investing in information-worker-oriented solutions such as CRM, business and IT managers must consider, first and foremost, whether the technology specifically addresses key information-worker requirements, such as the need to access and make sense of vast quantities of data quickly and effectively and the need for collaboration between departments, offices, supply chain members, and partners. But also of high importance is how the solution enables the organization to leverage existing infrastructure such as Microsoft® Office technologies and how it addresses key enterprise technology requirements. These IT concerns are not only important to reducing total cost of ownership and burden on IT resources, but to supplying information workers with integrated, familiar technologies that are easy to learn and use.

Optimizing CRM for the Information WorkerIn selecting CRM for information workers, decision-makers should consider several key requirements in their evalua-tion criteria:

Support for Teaming and CollaborationInformation-worker-optimized CRM solutions should enable individuals, partners, and colleagues to get on the same page so they can all work together with efficiency and agility. The system should encourage information-sharing and communication, and it should support streamlined workflows for complex processes to save time and improve performance.

Information RelevanceTo help information workers increase productivity and avoid information overload, CRM solutions should make it easy for users to access the information that is relevant to their work and disregard that which is irrelevant. For example, the system should provide unique views of customer data tailored to specific roles within sales, marketing, and customer service, in order for them to make business decisions and execute tasks rapidly using relevant information.

Individual ImpactInformation-worker-optimized CRM solutions should promote user adoption by offering tools and information that enhance each employee’s ability to address their core responsibilities. For example, users should be able to quickly build queries and reports on timely information that affects their individual performance.

CRM is an information-unifying tool, designed to increase access to and visibility of information, making it the perfect information-worker solution.

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Streamlined ProcessesTo mitigate the effects of increased process and technol-ogy complexity, an information-worker-optimized CRM solution should streamline and simplify processes to ensure speed and consistency, and reduce administrative burden. It should mask process complexity by providing an intuitive and relevant user interface and simplifying multi-part tasks.

Leveraging Existing InfrastructureAs information-dependent and technology-reliant person-nel, information workers benefit from being able to quickly and easily access information using a familiar technology environment. Given the magnitude of information and pro-

cesses they must commonly engage with each day, the more that can be done to unify and integrate the technologies and programs they must use, the better they are able to perform.

Information workers tend to do most of their day-to-day tasks within the Microsoft Office environment, using programs such as Outlook,® Word, and Excel heavily. Consequently, to truly support and enhance information-worker activities, a CRM solution must integrate as closely as possible with Microsoft Office and mirror its familiar processes.

For example, an information worker should be able to easily access CRM data while using Office applications. It should be effortless to synchronize their Microsoft Outlook calendar, contacts, and tasks with their CRM functional-ity—and vice versa. They should be able to export data from the CRM system to an Excel spreadsheet in a single click. They should also be able to instantly access related SharePoint® document libraries directly from profiles in the CRM system.

Addressing Enterprise Technology RequirementsIT needs to work hand-in-hand with business managers to deliver the right CRM solution for information workers. Enterprise CRM buyers should expand their evaluation focus to encompass platform and architecture criteria that have the greatest impact on total cost of owner-ship—namely, flexibility (as a function of customization and integration), scalability, and deployability. Specifically, for the information-worker-optimized CRM solution, IT should consider:

Integration: Information workers require seamless access to relevant information across multiple enterprise software systems. An enterprise CRM system

should be flexible enough to accommodate diverse integration needs.

Desktop client: Information workers inevitably need to work with multiple programs, but switching between numerous applications can slow them down. An informa-tion-worker-optimized CRM system should offer a single desktop client that can be tailored to the daily activities of specific user roles within a company and allow them to access multiple applications.

Performance: A CRM system should utilize the latest Microsoft database, server, and client technologies to improve application performance, empowering informa-tion workers to work faster and more productively.

Industry standards: A CRM system that leverages industry standards will increase interoperability with other information-worker tools. Look for a system that utilizes the latest XML and Web Services industry standards for building cost-effective connections between enterprise systems.

Flexibility: Optimal application of information workers’ potential requires business agility. IT managers need to be able to make changes to CRM business processes quickly and easily to reflect evolving information-worker needs, without disrupting their day-to-day activities.

The Benefits of an Information- Worker-Optimized CRM SolutionArmed with a CRM solution optimized for information workers, organizations can improve business performance in a manner that has a direct impact on customer satisfac-tion, thereby meeting one of the top challenges of today’s competitive business environment.

The benefits of an information-worker-optimized CRM solution are numerous:

Increased productivity: Optimizing a CRM system for information workers empowers them to work faster and more productively. A CRM system integrated with familiar Office tools, for example, allows data to be pulled from the CRM system into a program like Outlook or Excel, allowing it to be quickly applied to meet a wide variety of purposes, from creating personalized, addressed letters to generating pie charts and presentations. Users are able to do more with the information they have, improving their performance and individual contribution to company success.

Improved collaboration: A CRM system optimized for information workers helps them work together more effectively. Workflows, for example, structure multi-step, multi-stakeholder tasks for fast resolution, and shared information sources keep all employees working on a

To truly support and enhance information-worker activities, a CRM solution must integrate as closely as possible with Microsoft Office and mirror its familiar processes.

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task, such as a service request, up to date on progress toward goals. Automation of information transfer, such as the passing of qualified leads from marketing to sales, increases inter-departmental collaboration and acceler-ates response.

Greater individual impact: Better-optimized CRM helps information workers use more data and tools to increase the scope of their activity, improving the performance and impact of each individual employee. Mobile access, for example, reduces employee downtime and increases the user’s ability to take immediate action on new information. Similarly, access to a greater range of tools

could empower an individual marketer to single-handedly mount complex marketing campaigns, performing each step from targeting and segmentation through performance analysis.

Better customer service: The end goal of any CRM system is to strengthen customer relationships, and a CRM system optimized for information workers will allow them to deliver the superior service required to keep customers happy and loyal. Richer, more accessible customer information, rendered useful and accessible through Office integration, improves support-team responsiveness and gives a more informed, personalized service experience.

Reduced business complexity: By streamlining and automating business processes and masking many of the layers of complexity characteristic of the modern organiza-tion, an optimized CRM system helps information workers from the administrative to the executive level focus clearly on achieving their goals and objectives.

Lower costs: In addition to the cost savings that accompany increased productivity, a CRM solution that leverages existing systems and technologies lowers IT costs in areas such as training and hardware, reducing the total cost of ownership.

Higher revenues: A CRM system that enables information workers to gain greater, more usable insight into customer needs and behaviors is critical to finding new revenue sources, from cross-selling and up-selling opportunities to underserved product niches.

Microsoft and Pivotal CRM: Committed to Supporting the Information WorkerMicrosoft is at the leading edge of technology companies that have recognized the full potential of information workers, and are building or modifying their solutions to

better meet these workers’ needs. A long-time Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner, the Pivotal CRM team has for years worked with the company to ensure that award-winning Pivotal CRM solutions empower users to utilize their existing Microsoft technology tools and investments to the fullest.

Now, as the preponderance of information workers is gaining recognition among businesses everywhere, Microsoft and Pivotal CRM’s commitment to creating tech-nologies that fit the workstyle of the information worker is seeing fruition.

We offer industry-leading CRM solutions that help com-panies deliver superior customer experiences, while also giving them the tools and insight to run their businesses more productively, efficiently, and profitably.

The Pivotal CRM solution delivers rich CRM functionality optimized to information-worker needs right out of the box, enabling organizations to implement quickly with a lower total cost of ownership. As the market’s most cus-tomizable CRM solution, Pivotal CRM enables companies to cost-effectively adapt and integrate the system to fit their unique business processes—making CRM work the way they do—and the way their information workers do.

Furthermore, the Pivotal CRM team has developed seven specific points of integration with Microsoft Office in order to address the specific needs of information workers:

Outlook Embedded: Ability to work in Pivotal CRM as if working in Microsoft Outlook, creating/updating tasks, contacts, and calendar items.

LetterExpress: Mail-merge capabilities with Microsoft Word

Pivotal CRM Research Services: Ability to access Pivotal CRM information from within any Microsoft Office application

Export to Excel: Ability to export information directly to Microsoft Excel from within the Pivotal CRM application in a single click

Pivotal CRM Analytics: Ability to utilize Microsoft Analysis Services to construct data cubes using Pivotal CRM data for analytical reporting, or present the information in dashboards on the Pivotal Portal

Integration to Microsoft SharePoint: Take advantage of a wealth of pre-built Microsoft SharePoint content (within or outside the enterprise) to present information in the right context to suit each Pivotal CRM user's needs

Armed with a CRM solution optimized for information workers, organizations can improve business performance in a manner that has a direct impact on customer satisfaction.

For more information or a complete list of our worldwide offices, please visit www.pivotal.com.

Copyright © CDC Software 2007. All rights reserved. The CDC Software logo and Pivotal CRM logo are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of CDC Software.

Conclusion: Empower Your Information WorkersIn today’s competitive and demanding business environ-ment, businesses must implement new or updated solutions that optimize the productivity of information workers: a new breed of workers who face distinct tech-nology challenges—but who also offer unprecedented potential to improve corporate performance and customer satisfaction.

The decision to go with a CRM solution built to address the needs of your information workers is a smart and valuable investment that recognizes the need to help employees work effectively with the deluge of data avail-able to them in today’s connected, always-on, real-time workplace. With the right CRM solution, information workers can increase productivity, improve customer service, and boost collaboration, while the business sim-plifies complex processes, increases sales, and reduces costs. Pivotal CRM’s unmatched flexibility and integration with Microsoft technologies can help businesses adapt swiftly to meet the evolving market demands they face every day.