Facing Re-Implementation vs. Upgrade dilemma for your CRM systems?
For a long time, enterprises have been embracing CRM initiatives for different reasons and over the period have been building up functional capabilities on top of those systems. These capabilities that were being built have often made the applications more complex to manage and enhance. Over a period of time, however, these enterprises are bound to cross through a juncture at which they will be forced to take a decision on whether to upgrade or re-implement their existing CRM packaged application(s) to leverage the capabilities from the latest product offerings. While this is the case, each enterprise might have different reasons and criteria to decide between these two approaches, some of which include but not limited to, leverage additional functional capabilities, beat competition in the market place, reduce time to market, streamline & improve process efficiencies, meet the changing industry trends, enable regulatory compliance, leverage technological advancements etc. I would like to discuss some of the key aspects that I think; an enterprise should consider before choosing between these two options and would be using Oracle’s Siebel CRM application as my example.
What Oracle’s Siebel CRM has been doing?
Over the last many years, Oracle’s Siebel CRM has been continuously expanding its breadth and depth of functional offerings, technical capabilities to meet industry standards, provide focused industry specific vertical solutions along with significant architectural and data model improvisations. Siebel has been the market leader in offering the broadest set of CRM functionalities & capabilities around Sales, Service, Call Center, Marketing, Analytics, Field Service, Channel Partner Management etc., in addition to a wide range of Industry specific solutions for Communications, Financial Services, Energy, Pharma, Retail, etc. It has been on a constant flux of improvisation leading from the front. With the acquisition of Siebel by Oracle, it has only strengthened the gamut of offerings like the Oracle RTD, OBIEE, Haley’s Rules etc.
What Enterprises have been doing?
During this course, however, enterprises have been evolving simultaneously to meet the changing demands in the market place, ensure better customer experience & loyalty, expedite the decision support mechanism, gain control and vision over the customer data within the enterprise, comply with regulatory requirements, differentiate themselves from the competition etc. Some enterprises have been successful in leveraging the latest Siebel capabilities that were available at regular intervals while some have chosen to configure and customize their existing CRM applications on the same version to meet their growing and changing demands, and in the process, fostered a monstrous application. Maintaining such an application is not only difficult but also adds to high cost of ownership, increased dependency on few individuals with the required context, and application inflexibility etc.
What Should an Enterprise do?
With the advent of internet, the world becoming a level playing field, and the customer becoming more knowledgeable and demanding day by day, enterprises are facing stiff competition in the fierce market place today to retain existing customer base and to acquire new customers. Added to this is the economic uncertainty that engulfs the enterprises even before they can realize and react to correct the situation. Enterprises are eager to leverage the enhanced capabilities from the latest CRM product offerings, in order to differentiate themselves quickly from their competition, to improve customer interaction experience, enhance customer loyalty, improve time to market capability, enhance customer service levels, ensure data integrity, leverage current architectural and integration frameworks etc., the list goes on.
This is where enterprises have to make decision, on whether to out-grow their existing CRM application(s) or to leverage the enhanced capabilities from the latest versions of the CRM Products. Enterprises which choose to leverage the advanced product capability over customizing the existing CRM application, have two distinct options in front of them – either to upgrade and enhance their existing CRM instance or to re-implement these capabilities in the latest version of the package. I don’t think there is a single pill panacea for all such situations. There are some key criteria / aspects that need to be considered before an enterprise can take the right and informed decision on these two available solution options.
Will discuss these aspects in detail in my next post, meanwhile, do pour in your thoughts on this :-)
Comments
Hi Ram
My thoughts on your blog:
Well, this is a typical challenge which is encountered by every CIO for its entire range of packaged application irrespective of the fact whether it is Siebel, SAP suite of products, Oracle or any other. Your last para is the crux of the whole article that there are various parameters on the basis of which upgrade Vs. reimplementation decision needs to be made. And this decision is critically important because of the huge financial implications and downstream product offering in either scenario. The important factors which come to my mind on the basis of which this decision needs to be evaluated are as follows:
* Where do you want to be? : If your package is highly customised and has been in operation for a long time, the chances are that after upgrade it will still remain customised. On the other hand, reimplementation will take you closer to a more standard solution. Now the question needs to be answered by the organisation, that where do they want to be? To an upgraded but customised solution -or- to a new but more standard solution?
* Change management: Is your organisation ready to forego a well accepted customised version of a package for a new but standard solution
* Cost Imperatives: Cost of upgrade Vs. Cost of reimplementation
* Extent of customisation to a package: The lesser is the customisation, the easier will be the upgrade and vice-versa. Pretty often organisation finds upgrade to be hugely complex and hence opt for reimplementation.
* Technical challenges of upgrade path: I can quote from SAP CRM perspective that older versions (Hi Ram
My thoughts on your blog:
Well, this is a typical challenge which is encountered by every CIO for its entire range of packaged application irrespective of the fact whether it is Siebel, SAP suite of products, Oracle or any other. Your last para is the crux of the whole article that there are various parameters on the basis of which upgrade Vs. reimplementation decision needs to be made. And this decision is critically important because of the huge financial implications and downstream product offering in either scenario. The important factors which come to my mind on the basis of which this decision needs to be evaluated are as follows:
* Where do you want to be? : If your package is highly customised and has been in operation for a long time, the chances are that after upgrade it will still remain customised. On the other hand, reimplementation will take you closer to a more standard solution. Now the question needs to be answered by the organisation, that where do they want to be? To an upgraded but customised solution -or- to a new but more standard solution?
* Change management: Is your organisation ready to forego a well accepted customised version of a package for a new but standard solution
* Cost Imperatives: Cost of upgrade Vs. Cost of reimplementation
* Extent of customisation to a package: The lesser is the customisation, the easier will be the upgrade and vice-versa. Pretty often organisation finds upgrade to be hugely complex and hence opt for reimplementation.
* Technical challenges of upgrade path: I can quote from SAP CRM perspective that older versions (< SAP CRM 4.0) were hard to upgrade to the latest versions SAP CRM 7.0 because the entire UI technology got changed. So similar challenges can happen with other packages.
* Extent of users, geographical locations, language implementations have other implications on this decision making.
Either ways, there are no direct recommendations but broad parameters which can help an organisation decide this critical decision.
Posted by: Vishal Mani | July 30, 2009 6:19 AM