So, now that you’re shopping for sales and marketing software, how do you weed through all of the choices? Picking a package for yourself is relatively easy: just look around for a tool that does what you want within your price range and go for it. Establishing a tool to be deployed across your whole company is different matter, entirely – one that can quickly turn into a corporate-wide initiative. Over the last 10 months, I’ve worked on a pilot team to deploy a company-wide CRM to a 1,600 person company with sales and marketing personnel across the country. In this issue of Prospecting, I share some lessons learned.

Deciding on a company-wide CRM is far more complex than choosing a personal one. You can configure personal software any way you like and tailor it to fit all the idiosyncrasies of even the most unusual daily work life. As the number of people using a common system grows, so do the challenges. The processes must then be more generic, flexibility diminishes and your ability to make the software fit the specific needs of each individual deteriorates. If you establish a system that is simple, very easy to learn, and low in price, chances are you will sacrifice functionality. If the system is very complicated and full of features, you might sacrifice ease of use. The key is determine what you do (and do not) need from your system.

What are your organization’s objectives for the new system? Will it be used only by sales and marketing, or will it be linked to the company’s enterprise system? This is important because complications can arise due to differing needs of departments outside of sales and marketing. Is the intent to provide information about key activities and opportunities, or to track detailed day-to-day sales activities and replace each person’s individual system? This can get tricky, depending on the management philosophy of the company and how closely management wants to monitor activities. How will we implement training? Resistance to change makes any company-wide initiative a challenge, and the manner in which it is announced and rolled out to front line users is critical in making sure it gets used.

The products are many and there’s something to fit any organization at any budget. As long as you identify what you want from the system, first – who will be using it, what types of information you want to distribute and gather, and how it will be presented to the users – you can more easily pick one that will enhance productivity.