CRM capability goals , CRM process maturity and making a strategic impact — then & now

In 20 years at large enterprise companies , I accumulated a rich repertoire of consulting, revenue & product growth experiences . A significant % of this experience spans the CRM / CX ( Customer Experience) industry segment.

I was rummaging through my treasure chest over the weekend, and found a CRM blueprint executive deck that I presented in 2002.

COO’s & RevOps practitioners will find similarities in the challenges they seek to overcome.

Identifying capability goals is a great place to start

Some context before I deep dive.

In 2001, CRM was still maturing as a three letter acronym, ERP being the dominant sibling. Siebel dominated the landscape ; Salesforce had just launched its subscription service and PeopleSoft (Vantive) CRM was the only “Pure Internet Architecture” platform .

Organizations had established customer focused processes and some systems ( largely in-house custom built) in place . and were migrating to CRM apps to deploy best-in-class front-office processes.

The basis for the blueprint exercise was to undertake a review/check-in of outcomes enabled through PeopleSoft CRM implementation and define follow-on transformation initiatives.

To undertake this exercise and to benchmark CRM maturity , I defined 6 front office ( or CRM) capability goals – all with the customer at the center . Each of these capability goals were then calibrated at different performing levels using a Carnegie Melon’s CMMi ( Capability Maturity Model). I found these capability goals just as relevant to revOps practitioners today.

Note: Images are updated slides from my deck in 2002

Fig1 : 6-Dimension model to assess your CRM maturity.© Loglens Insights PVT Ltd.

Use the maturity model to deep-dive into each dimension

RevOps leaders of today seeking to create strategic impact could explore “optimizing” and “leading” levels.

Fig2: Aligning a Capability Maturity Model with Customer focused processes.© Loglens Insights PVT Ltd.

Double-down on strategic capability levers

Two capability levers for RevOps to consider

1. Manage customer information as a strategic asset
2. Integrate across business units

Shared below are maturity models for these two capability goals, as put together in 2002. With some adaptation, they are just as relevant now.

Lever 1 : Manage Customer Information as a strategic asset

Fig3: Manage customer information as a strategic asset-maturity model.©Loglens Insights PVT Ltd.

Lever 2 : Integrate across business ( functional) units

Fig4 : Integrate across business units — maturity model. ©Loglens Insights PVT Ltd.

As a RevOps practitioner, What do you think ? Share your comments.