Forrester: How To Get A Good CRM Consultant

Another useful report from Forrester, this time on how to select a CRM service provider, authored by analyst William Band, titled "How To Select a CRM Professional Services Provider."

Burning their usual copious amounts of shoe leather, the researchers find that "although enterprises place high importance on the quality of the firm that they engage to support CRM projects, four out of 10 would not recommend their CRM PSP to others."

Forrester finds that enterprises continue to invest heavily in CRM-related capabilities, expecting enterprises "to spend about $3 billion worldwide on new CRM software licenses in 2006." Total spending with CRM application vendors, including vendor services and maintenance, "will exceed $8 billion."

Yes, the consultants will get their slab of all that cherry pie: "Expenditures on new CRM software licenses are only a small portion, perhaps 25 percent, of an enterprise's required investment to implement new CRM technologies," Forrester finds. "Worldwide expenditures on CRM consulting and systems integration are likely in the range of $6 billion per year."

Forrester recommends paying attention to three areas when looking for a PSP:

Competence. The most essential evaluation criteria for evaluating CRM PSPs are their knowledge and skills pertinent to the problems facing the enterprise. Is the PSP highlyknowledgeable about the needs and requirements of your specific industry? Does itunderstand the specific business processes related to the scope of your CRM technology implementation?

Relationship. Will the PSP be easy to do business with after you have contracted its services? Will it help you find ways to lower your total cost of ownership for the CRM software technologies to be implemented? Will it adhere closely to the agreed budget?

Results. Will the CRM PSP help you quickly realize value from the CRM applications? Will it provide good value for investing its services to formulate and implement CRM strategies, processes, and technologies?

Band's report summarizes four main points of competence for a good PSP:

Your PSP's CRM technology skills must be solid, since, well, competence in the technical nuances of the CRM products is kind of what you're paying them for. Make sure that the consultants assigned to your project are certified by the vendors.

Seek a partner that you can work with easily. You need a consulting partner that can work effectively with your people.

Require – don't ask, require – that your budget be respected. Consultants now have deep experience about the costs and benefits that can be achieved in given circumstances. Insist on fixed-price contracts to ensure that the consultant bears its fair share of the risk for project delivery.

Demand value from your consulting partner. Find a CRM professional services partner that can provide references attesting to business results they have achieved. Redefine project success metrics to include not only cost and schedule milestones, but also to include business outcome metrics.

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.

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