As users and directors demand ever-more from IT systems, Darron Walton, managing director of the SAP consulting specialist, De Villiers Walton, explains why it’s crucial to use intelligent planning to tackle operational issues in CRM head-on. Here, he presents his top ten tips for smoother-running systems.

The approach that organisations take to tackling CRM pains is often similar to that which individuals may take leading up to a visit to the doctor. While the occasional headache is likely to be ignored when you combine this symptom with other aches and pains, the problem must be dealt with.

In our experience, just as people will develop a series of complaints, businesses too can experience key symptoms in specific areas, in conjunction with a longer list of small issue items that will combine to reduce overall performance and end-user satisfaction.

These potential symptoms can build up in a number of different areas. For example, SAP’s CRM solution is made up of a number of technical layers and in each layer there are specific areas that should be considered when optimising performance.

The technical process required to improve performance can only occur when there is a representative environment for meaningful testing to occur, both from a data as well as a ‘solution build’ perspective. Adopting good habits throughout design and build, and acknowledging the likely occurrence of performance issues early on, can help to ensure that avoidable issues and scenarios don’t play out and catch everyone completely by surprise at the time the project goes live - or beyond.

Here are a few things to consider:

1. Do you have the necessary infrastructure to support the system? Performing an analysis of your hardware needs is essential to ensure the go-live date is not delayed and support user-testing. This is also important when CRM is already in place but the project involves adding functionality and/or additional users
   
   
2. Have you architected the solution properly? Don’t simply try to overlay existing processes or data constructs into the new implementation. It is also important to pay attention to certain functional areas such as territory management, the account hierarchy and the organisation model which, depending on your usage and system release, may lead to performance issues if not implemented properly
   
   
3. Recognise the need for - and enforce - development standards: When serious performance issues emerge during final stage testing they are often associated with project-specific custom developments. It is therefore crucial to be aware of and avoid common pitfalls in custom development, including data migration development work and ensure that the proper development standards are in place from the start of the project
   
   
4. Consider the impact of integration: Respecting the impact that CRM integration will have on back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems is crucial, as changes in CRM can seriously affect back-end systems and vice-versa. To avoid adversely impacting on the users, it is important to respect this integration both in a project and a live environment. In a project environment for example, performing data migration and user testing in a single environment can quickly become very complicated, while in a live environment, mass data changes need to be very carefully controlled
   
   
5. Maximise user adoption: To ensure a high level of user adoption, the system must perform in such a way as to meet the business need. There are a number of technical parameters that can be manipulated to ensure optimum performance based on how the system is configured for your business. Adequate time should therefore be allocated to ensure this important task is completed
   
   
6. Make time for essential training: While advancements in CRM have made many systems far easier for users, it is still essential to dedicate time to end-user training. This is particularly true in areas where the standard functionality does not fit the business process to ensure that users have the potential to make the most of the advanced functionality contained in the system to support their everyday work
   
   
7. System administration: Throughout the project lifecycle - from planning to go-live and beyond - there are a number of system tasks that must be performed. Without this essential groundwork, system performance can suffer over time. When creating a new environment for users, a check-list of basic ‘commissioning’ tasks should be undertaken to ensure that the system is fit for purpose - which could be as simple as ensuring it is possible to log into the web-UI with any one of the pre-determined business roles. There are also a number of ongoing tasks which must be completed to ensure continued good performance such as scheduling the various CRM 7.0 Territory Management maintenance jobs
   
   
8. Living data: The quality and accuracy of data in the system can have a big impact on how users perceive the system. The long-term quality of system data is therefore crucial. Achieving this depends upon a continued focus, not just during the initial data migration and consolidation period, but throughout the life of the data through on-going data quality monitoring
   
   
9. Expiring data: The volume of the data can have a direct impact on system performance. Defining which data is required to run the business on a day-to-day basis is therefore essential to determining which records can be considered for archiving
   
   
10. Performance is key: The ability to access CRM user systems from web browsers has started to place greater emphasis on overall network capability. Renewed focus should be given to representative performance testing from all business locations which may be used to access the system to ensure the network settings and infrastructure are optimised