Maybe the question has already been asked, but we are going to ask it here. What can Business Relationship Management (BRM) take away from a system like Infor CRM? 

Before we get there, a better question might be how do these two relate? Well the truth is, in any discussion about BRM, you also have to discuss Customer Relationship Management (CRM), as the two work hand-in-hand towards effective BRM. 

The relationship between the two is simple. BRM revolves around business units successfully meeting the needs of internal business partners and the external service providers. CRM, in general, helps to manage new, existing, and future customer relationships.  However, the core link between these two is the customer intelligence that is captured and maintained by CRM systems.

Avoid the Risks of Lost Knowledge 

Is there years of information in your CRM that seems hidden?

Does it take an person in IT to generate reports?

Need to translate those digital 1's and 0's into accessible knowledge?

Have you ever felt that you CRM has years of knowledge built up and you need easy ways to get at the information?

You need a way to perform a rescue?

With an adaptable, well-designed CRM system there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

Selling could be more Effective

While visiting with a growing small business founder and CEO recently, Robert mentioned that one of the key challenges in the business was to have a more integrated system and not so many parts and pieces that are not talking with each other. There were segmented groups of people (silos) that were not working as a fully functioning team.  Information with one group was not easily shared with another group.  Robert wanted help in designing and creating an "integrated CRM system".  He had read the Aberdeen Group report that "businesses integrating disparate systems enjoy an 88% greater year-over-year increase annual revenue compared to others".

CRM enables you to:

Grow your revenue share within your existing customer base

• Understand the true cross-sell and up-sell opportunity of every one of your customers in order to
  maximize the profitability of every relationship.

• Dramatically reduce your cost-per-lead by delivering highly targeted marketing communications to specific customers or customer segments.

• Cut the amount of time and cost it takes to resolve service issues without compromising an exceptional service experience that keeps your customers loyal.

• Provide decentralized empowerment to your customer-facing staff in a way that will drive their productivity and effectiveness while still retaining central control over headline resource, performance and budget management.

Customer relationship management software makes it easier to handle your whole selling process and keeping connected with the best contacts. This goes for any business, whether you have a sales team of one or 100. But if you think of CRM systems only as a way to add efficiency or improve customer service, you’re missing a big part of the full value of CRM.

CRM systems also help you increase your selling results dramatically with purpose built CRM that is well-used. Being well-used comes from an engaging and helpful CRM system. Here are 13 ways businesses boost their sales using CRM software and turn prospects into long term profitable customers. Read more here, Value Creation - Determining the Worth of Well-Used CRM

When I'm collaborating with entrepreneurs and executive management, we'll get to discuss the business benefits that matter most to them when deciding upon and then implementing a Customer Relationship and Management system.  The following are 7 key benefits that will be discussed.

1.  Build loyal relationships by maximizing the effectiveness of every person's interaction.

We all know that successful business revolves around the depth and breadth of the relationships we have with prospects, customers, clients, partners, vendors, employees, etc.  CRM provides the one trusted source where your company's domain knowledge about people and companies resides.  Consider the added advantages of knowing more about these types of people relationships and turn that into actionable information.

Understand more about the 60% importance of People in a well-used CRM system.

Provide a Flexible Alternative to Purchasing ACT Software

Choosing a Contact Management solution is about more than just software.  It’s about finding a product and a partner that fit your needs, and your business.  Finding that right fit can be a project in itself.  

Issue #1: I started my own firm and have used ACT for many years. My assistant needs to be able to access the database and I might possibly want other employees / partner to access in the future. What is the best solution for me now and to grow with?

Issue #2: We are currently running ACT 2011 and have upgraded our Outlook to 2014, thus losing our integration.  Soon we will be upgrading our PC's to Windows 2010.  I'm not in a position to buy the ACT upgrade software licenses as a 'Capital Purchase',  I guess we'll just have to keep doing what we have been doing? Isn't there a better solution for my business?

Issue #3: We need various methosds to work. I want to access my calendar and ACT database information from my PC, iPhone or from anyone else's PC at anytime.

Need to eliminate duplicate effort in updating your CRM, Excel or Word?

Our clients that use the ACT Hosted Premium  are looking for a better solution to easily create quotes and integrate the Quote>Order>Invoice process with their ACT CRM. The ACT solution offers a generic quote development tool that is Microsoft Excel based, but is not customizable to most businesses needs.  ACT users are looking for help in obtaining solutions that would help them develop a quoting tool to their specific business needs.

How long does it take for your sales team to create a quote in MS Word? 15mins. to a half hour? How many times have they sent the quote out to the customer and with incorrect totals or pricing due to manual updating?

Your well-used CRM system has its worth updated every day.  

Your CRM purpose-built system operates the way you need it to operate and so it is adding value to your business every day. Having this well-used CRM system is adding value to people every day in their productivity gains and the level of engagement with the customer. The customer service reps are genuinely helping on each customer support call. Additionally each customer is receiving a better experience they value greatly because of the way your people and your CRM knowledge database interact.  The worth of insightful knowledge of organizations, of people and of the relationships is priceless.

Today you better understand your ever-evolving buyer....

In "Understanding the Value Points for CRM in Your Business" I mentioned CRM is about understanding the buying habits and preferences of your customers and prospects so you can: 

• Build and strengthen customer relationships to keep them coming back.

• Provide value-added services which are difficult for competitors to duplicate.

• Improve your product development and service delivery processes.

• Increase your staff’s awareness of customer needs.

• Reduce customer frustration by not asking the same questions over and over.

Consider the value-added benefits these bring to your organization.  Also consider the Customer Value Improvements, mentioned below.

Measuring the Results of CRM

In "Measuring the Results of CRM" by Ruth P. Stevens covers metrics in three arenas: Cost savings, Revenue Enhancements and Customer Value Improvements.

Helping small businesses centralized multiple disconnected databases into one.

Each of the ACT Pro users are using a different version of ACT for Windows (ACT 2012, 2013 and 2014) on their local PC's. This company doesn't want to have a large capital purchase of software and IT to support the businesse's new growth needs.

To eliminate the headaches and inefficiencies from the multiple disconnected sources of information, a shared centralized database with 24x7x365 access via Internet Browser or Mobile device, effectively organizes and utilized the information needed for long-term company growth.

When moving to the ACT Hosted Premium subscription, the company could better budget overhead with a subscription-based model. As internet bandwidth increases and networks become more robust, stable and secure, more small businesses are choosing to adopt 'cloud based' CRM solutions.