Design team members: Steven Pontisso
Supervisor: Garry Schultz
Background
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a term used in business to describe the software, data, and processes that help an organization manage its interactions with customers at all levels. The focus is shifting from acquiring new customers to improving customer satisfaction and developing customer loyalty. The premise behind it is data centralization - ensuring all critical customer information resides in a central location where it is accessible to managers, salespeople, customer support representatives, partners and perhaps even the customers themselves.
Many companies offer CRM solutions that are customizable to match a given organization's current business processes. The leading cause of implementation failure is not having one's business processes well defined. Many companies fail on their first attempt at implementation for this reason alone. The company who approached the design team has failed at their first implementation and wants to re-design and re-deploy it.
Project description
The primary objective of this project is to successfully re-implement this organization's CRM system. A complete analysis of the current implementation is required to identify and rectify its deficiencies. A complete understanding of all business processes across all functions will enable the re-design of the business modules, database structure, and user interfaces. A successful implementation is one that allows users to access the data they need to streamline customer interaction. In addition, it will provide the reporting capability that will drive decision making and focus the organization's future strategies. CRM systems typically evolve with an organization. This project will also facilitate that evolution.
This organization cannot afford to take its current implementation offline for a complete re-design and re-deployment. The challenge is then to not only design a successful system, but also to design an effective way of deploying it while maintaining existing functionality.
Design methodology
Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems. It focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, then proceeding with design synthesis and system validation. The complete problem is taken into account at every step of the way. This includes operations, performance, test, manufacturing, cost and schedule, training and support, and disposal. [1]
A thorough analysis of all business processes across all functions was performed. This began by gathering input from each of the functional groups and then conducting extensive workshops to fully understand the needs. At the end of the Needs Analysis phase, the project was broken down into several mini-projects or activities that each focus on implementing a particular process or function of the system. Each of the activities is carried out with the integrity of the entire system in mind. The success of this project lies in the completion of each activity in a timely manner.
Each activity can be considered as an individual implementation. An example of such an activity would be implementing the entire Order Processing function of the system. These mini-projects will include a gap analysis and design phase, an implementation phase, a testing and corrective action phase, a documentation phase, and a training phase.
[1] International Council on Systems Engineering (1999). What is Systems Engineering? [WWW Document].