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In-Depth Information
established, including the critical support staff such as the training manager, the resource man-
ager, and the project administrative staff. This team will have to prepare a plan and schedule for
the implementation project, including the various activities, the manpower required, the duration,
and the schedule for completing each of these activities.
The CPO will have to form another team to look after the procurement, installation, and pro-
ductive operation of the basic infrastructure, including the hardware servers and clients, network-
ing hardware and software, operating systems, databases, and office automation software.
6.4 Critical Success Factors
Various factors are considered critical for the success of the SAP CRM projects. We'll look at each
of them in this section.
6.4.1 Direct Involvement of Top Management
SAP CRM implementation is not an IT project but a business strategy project. As with any other
business strategy project for new product development, new marketing strategy, BPM project, and
so on, a SAP CRM project should get the direct attention and involvement of the senior manage-
ment. If this involvement is confined only to the initial stages of the project, the project is certain
to falter later.
One of the issues in which top management is required to demonstrate and encourage full
commitment to the SAP CRM project is the deputation of key managers from different depart-
ments. Particularly in consumer goods industries, participating in IT-oriented projects might be
considered a non-value-adding activity in terms of its ability to further managers' career goals.
This perception must be corrected because SAP CRM implementation is not an IT-driven effort.
Furthermore, for employees who would use SAP CRM for their routine operations, their full par-
ticipation in the project is very critical. This can be ensured only by deputing the key managers of
the company for this effort.
6.4.2 Clear Project Scope
It is very important for a project to have a well-defined scope. Any ambiguities lead only to diffu-
sion of focus and dissipation of effort. There are always adherents especially for increased scope,
and a series of such increments in scope would render any project unsuccessful. This is also referred
as
scope creep
. Hence, the CPO must be vigilant on any creep in the scope of the project.
6.4.3 Covering as Many Functions as Possible within the
Scope of the SAP CRM Implementation
Companies that are multidivisional and multilocated develop differently at different sites and
acquire a character of their own at each site that may not fit into a uniform mold across the orga-
nization. A CRM package must have an ability to provide a comprehensive functionality to imple-
ment such deeply ingrained differing ways of operations at different locations. It should be able to
provide ready-to-use, best-practice processes that incorporate such varying ways of executing any
business transaction or process. We have mentioned that the more functions are integrated and
performed in real time, the more competitive the organization would be. For this, it is essential
