Author: Richard Boardman

I wrote a blog post a week or so back about the merits or otherwise of recruiting in-house developers as part of a CRM project. I put the post on LinkedIn’s CRM Experts Group for comment, and one of the things that got mentioned was the alternative of using contractors Continue Reading

I’ve had a few conversations in recent weeks with organisations who are considering recruiting an in-house developer for their CRM system, rather than use, or solely use, the services of a third-party implementer.  Please note I’m referring to the in-house developer implementing a commercial CRM application such as Salesforce.com or Continue Reading

A lot of businesses invest in CRM technology, but surprisingly few use it that well. The majority of systems that get implemented sort of get used, but don’t necessarily make a fundamental difference to the bottom line. By contrast a relatively small minority use CRM technology very successfully, and often Continue Reading

When you’re looking at CRM pricing, which is generally stated on a person per month basis, it’s easy to underestimate the long-term cost of a system. £70 per user per month might not sound that much, but over the life of the system it’s going to add up – £420,000 Continue Reading

A couple of weeks back I wrote a piece about what I saw as the key roles in a CRM project. In this article, to help anyone planning a project, I’m going to outline what I see as the key phases. So, largely in sequential order: Initial planning and feasibility Continue Reading

So, your CRM project has the green light, and now it’s time to start work working out who is going to do what. The first question to answer is what project team roles are you going to need to fill? If you’re going to be successful, there’s probably seventeen that Continue Reading

Over the last few months we’ve been assessing the CRM mid-market, specifically analysing the 20-120 user space. The result is a report which sets out our thoughts on the top CRM technologies in this area of the market. The aim is to help potential buyers speed up the research process Continue Reading

I got involved in a forum thread on LinkedIn over the last week, the gist of which was whether the implementation approach was different depending on whether you deployed CRM in the cloud or on-premise, and what the pro’s and con’s were of the two means of deployment. I can’t Continue Reading

I’ve worked on a couple of system reviews in recent week for clients who felt their CRM system wasn’t living up to expectations. Interestingly, in both cases the systems were reasonably sound. What was missing were the finishing touches. This is a common problem. Salespeople often dazzle their customers with Continue Reading

As products like Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics have increased in functionality and moved up the food chain in terms of target market, opportunities have inevitably opened up for new entrants in the CRM market. One of the most successful has been Pipedrive. Set up in 2010, and based in the Continue Reading