How to Conduct a BPR for your CRM Implementation

What to expect from a Business Process Review engagement

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In my previous articles, we learned that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology is not a ‘silver bullet’. The application only enables a company to execute its customer-centric strategies. The ‘secret sauce’ consists of two other critical ingredients: understand the users ‘Why’ and align with their goals, and conduct a Business Process Review (BPR).

This article, the last of the three-part series, introduces the framework for facilitating a BPR engagement. But let’s answer a few questions first.

Why conduct a BPR?

Skipping a BPR is like never learning how to swing a club in the game of golf. All three swings — drive, chip, putt — are critical to a sound game. Owning a set of golf clubs doesn’t mean one can play a game well. There are techniques and processes on how to select and swing a club at the right time in the game. In the same way, Business Process Reviews that refine your customer-supporting processes are just as critical to the success of your CRM solution.

BPR benefits include saving project time and money, ensuring processes are aligned to corporate strategies, and increasing user adoption. Benefits are realized at a higher rate when a BPR is conducted prior to a CRM implementation. Business Process Reviews provide adopting companies a competitive advantage in implementing their CRM platform, by establishing a clear direction of priorities and measurement, ensuring the business stays on track.

The goal of a BPR engagement is to formalize an organization’s processes; elevate the company to a level where it can operate efficiently, effectively, and is better positioned to acquire and retain customers. According to CSO Insights*, a company’s processes typically fall into one of the following levels:

• Level 1 — Random Process: There are no documented or overarching processes. Professionals do their own thing their own way.
• Level 2 — Informal Process: There are documented processes that professionals are exposed to and expected to follow, but use is neither monitored nor measured.
• Level 3 — Formal Process: There are documented processes, professionals adhere to them and inspected regularly.
• Level 4 — Dynamic Process: In addition to the formal processes, analytics and technologies are used to continually modify the process to ensure close alignment with the customer’s path.

A BPR engagement ensures companies that currently operate with Level 1 or Level 2 transform to Level 3 and Level 4. This ensures their processes are up to date, designed for the upcoming state-of-the-art CRM technology, and can dynamically adjust to market changes.

In addition, according to Salesforce’s recent research, “83 percent of B2B buyers expect the companies they do business with to understand them and their needs. In other words, the market is demanding more personal engagements.” If an organization is not certain it is meeting its customer’s changing needs, then a BPR would be a beneficial exercise to reevaluate the approach technology supports in acquiring and supporting customers.

When should a BPR start?

The quick answer is, “The earlier the better.” Ideally, this activity should be complete before embarking on a CRM implementation — whether that is a new CRM platform or an upgrade. If the organization does not know what the future should look like, the delivery team might design a system for archaic processes, which will cost time and money in the long run.

In addition, BPRs are beneficial prior to adding any new functionality or a new team to the CRM ecosystem. As both users’ requirements and the application itself matures, a company should consider conducting follow-up sessions to re-evaluate its business processes to ensure the organization is operating smoothly and continues alignment with the ever-changing corporate objectives.

Who should facilitate the Business Process Review?

Many companies are well qualified to identify and document their current business processes on their own, and then analyze the processes to identify the gaps and issues. However, redesigning processes to a future state with the existing mindset and current technology constraints rarely achieves the company’s objectives.

From my experience, companies excel in their CRM implementations when their BPR is facilitated by a third-party CRM consulting firm, providing outside perspective and CRM expertise. CRM consultants know their technology well. They are extremely skilled in industry best practices and the ‘Art of the Possibility’ — utilizing technology beyond the organization’s vision — to guide the enterprise toward their optimal future.

For example, a company might have not realized ChatBots could be used on its website to immediately attend to a customer’s questions about their support issues. Or maybe the sales organization has always used an off-line tool to guide their team on prospects to target next. However, with Artificial Intelligence, the system itself can provide strategic sales direction. Knowing these technological possibilities transforms and elevates the future state processes beyond the customer’s dreams.

What can be expected in a CRM BPR engagement?

Each Business Process Review session can vary; however, most align with the following framework.

• Assess & Document Current State — If the company has not completed one themselves, the teams should review and document their current state processes and supporting tools. Every process anticipated to be supported by the CRM application should be considered. In this exercise, consult every division, team, and business role that participates in customer relationship activities. This will uncover the different process variations and tools used, providing the CRM consultants a realistic view of the company’s current state of operation.
• Analyze & Highlight Areas for Improvement — Assess the current processes to determine the redundancies, gaps, and opportunities for improvement. The CRM consulting team can also assist with this effort as they review the documented current state processes and tools.
• Gain Alignment — It’s important to remember, the main objective for CRM is to break down silos between teams and ensure all groups are aligned with the current corporate strategies. Many processes end for one team but then serve as the beginning for a downstream department. Consider gathering representatives from all groups during a BPR activity when processes are addressed, even if the team is not directly involved in that process. Participants are amazed at the insight they receive — what might be a minor task in one department’s processes is critical for another team. Not only does this approach build alignment within business groups and between cross-functional teams, but ensures each has ownership in the future state. They work together while remaining focused on the ultimate goal — improving processes to align with current customer-centric strategies.
• Identify Success Metrics — Determine success metrics & KPIs to monitor the processes, ensuring they remain dynamic — Level 4 — so each can quickly adjust to meet the ever-changing market.
• Define Future State — Apply industry best practices to define the future state solution for all related business processes, with CRM/Technology in mind.

To what level are future state business processes designed?

During a BPR engagement, I like to understand a company’s business processes with, what I call, “The Space Shuttle landing” approach — circle the targeted landing site at a very high-level, then continue to descend toward a safe landing.

1. 100,000 ft view — First identify and understand the customer-facing processes at a very high-level — 100,000 ft view. This provides a catalog and overview of the process(es) at a departmental level or above.
2. 30,000 ft view — Next descend to 30,000 feet to obtain medium-level detail. Here the high-level processes are broken down into more detailed steps and key milestones. This will reveal ‘what’ the company is seeking from its CRM system. This is an appropriate level for the CRM consultants to clearly understand the high-level business requirements and produce other BPR documentation.
3. Ground-level — After the BPR and upon commencement of the CRM implementation, the responsible CRM consultants will review the resulting BPR documentation and then guide the organization to the ground level — the landing. Here the team gathers the detailed requirements for the future application. This will determine ‘how’ the system should be designed. Most CRM delivery teams utilize the Agile development methodology; thus, the detailed requirements are captured in an iterative manner as User Stories with Acceptance Criteria.

What is delivered from a CRM BPR engagement?

BPR programs can vary based on scope, time, and budget, so can the deliverables. Before initiating BPR activities, the organization and its CRM Business Partner should identify the key customer-facing processes and prioritize based on your company’s customer strategy objectives. For example, if improving customer service is a critical business objective, then the CRM Support processes might be addressed first.

Once the BPR engagement is complete, companies can typically expect the following deliverables:

• Future State CRM Processes — Documented processes — at the 30’000 ft. level — are redesigned or refined with CRM technology in mind.
• Persona Audit — List of future state persona names who participate in the processes above.
• Epic-level CRM Business Requirements — Prioritized product backlog of defined epics (or key features) that represent the high-level business requirements for the future state CRM application.
• Product Roadmap — A logical Product Roadmap based on business strategies & requirements prioritization.
• CRM Discovery Plan for Implementation — A plan to capture the ‘ground-level’ processes and detailed requirements for the upcoming CRM/Technology project.
• Discovery SOW — A Statement of Work that includes scope, resources, timeline, and budget for the Salesforce Discovery phase to define ‘ground-level’ processes and begin to gather detailed requirements for the CRM/Technology implementation.

One thing to note, the BPR deliverables should be CRM technology agnostic. The documentation tells the story of ‘what’ the company does and needs, not ‘how’ the application should be built. The outcome serves as a foundation — a blueprint — that sets the groundwork for the future CRM implementation, whatever the application might be. If conducted early in the CRM lifecycle, companies frequently use their BPR documentation for the CRM selection process to ensure the right product is chosen for their business needs.

If your company is about to embark on a CRM journey — new implementation, upgrade existing application or add teams or processes to the platform — consider hosting a Business Process Review engagement. The consultants at Slalom have proven success in improving, optimizing, and aligning teams and processes toward the company’s customer initiatives. We are happy to help!

Related posts:

Part one: Your CRM Software is Not the Problem

Part two: Are Your Business Processes Ready for CRM?

Author:

Michelle Lessard is a CRM Consultant for the Slalom Consulting Salesforce practice in Phoenix, Arizona. For nearly 25 years she has helped companies select and implement CRM technology to reach their customer-centric goals and high user adoption.

About Slalom:

Slalom is a modern consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation. In over 35 markets around the world, Slalom’s teams have autonomy to move fast and do what’s right. They’re backed by regional innovation hubs, a global culture of collaboration, and partnerships with the world’s top technology providers.

*CSO Insights. Leading the Organization to Higher Sales Performance Through Sales Process Improvements. April 02 2019.