CustomerSuccess2015: Cloud-based CRM system implementation and ROI analysis

CRM Project Plan

CustomerSuccess2015

Project Description

Connecting with and keeping customers buying over the long-term is essential for any business to grow over time. One of the most cost-effective and efficient approaches to galvanizing a company around its customers is to use a CRM system (Banerjea, 2011). Cloud-based CRM systems are adept at quickly being deployed across any size organization, providing a more unified view of the customer and greater insights into overall purchasing activity (Harding, Cheifetz, DeAngelo, Ziegler, 2004). The CustomerSuccess2015 project is designed to enable our company to better attract, sell and serve our customers.

Business Justification

The following is from the Project Justification, which shows the costs and benefits of the project:

With a total cost of $90,000 and a monthly subscription fee of $10,000 for all components including integration and security services, the costs of the planned CRM implementation need to be compared with the potential benefits to determine the return on investment (ROI). Currently the following costs apply to the sales cycles for a typical customer: $200 per sales call by a direct sales rep; $160 per order rework (today there are on average seven reworks per order especially on build-to-order tablet orders for distributors and retailers); pricing errors from using old price books ($10,000 a month). The following table breaks out the costs of doing business today:

Sales cycle to close a customer: $160 x 300 customers per month = $48,000

Cost per sales call: $200 x 500 sales calls a month company-wide = 10,000

Cost per re-worked order: ($160 x 7 times per order) x 300 orders/month = $336,000

The costs of getting orders entered correctly to begin with will pay for the entire project for one year. Additional benefits accrued from streamlining and reducing the sales cycle costs to close a customer and reducing the cost per sales call by using the CRM system to more accurately plan selling strategies will save $58,000 a month and $696,000 a year

Required Deliverables

From the deliverables section: The initial deliverable is a statement of work and a project plan, in addition to a definition of key functional requirements by each member of the sales and marketing team who will use the system during their daily work.

Key Definitions and Acronyms

The following are the key definitions and acronyms:

Cloud Computing -- the series of technologies that make it possible to deliver applications over