Knowing people and company associations will improve your productivity in the use of CRM and accelerate business relationship development.   An overall goal our clients will mention is the need to identify relationships among the people and company accounts they do business with.  They need to manage the entire relationship with customers and strategic partners. They need to track this relationship information and have it handy for conversation planning. 

Previously in this series of 12 Tips to be more Effective using Infor CRM we have delved into:

1. Setting up your default options to work the way you want to work. Do this once to make life easier.

2. Using Groups - segmenting all types of information into intelligent bit-sized, digestible pieces of information.

3. Using Filters - to more effectively use information from Groups in finding patterns or drilling into the details

4. The effective use of Activities - something you have scheduled but is not yet completed.

5. Living in Outlook and using Xbar - manage CRM from Microsoft Outlook

Gain Valuable Market and Product Insights with CRM Emarketing Integration

Now you can swap those static web site lead capture form for interactive capturing of data directly into your CRM system. Capturing more leads and gaining valuable information qickly are benefits of the eMarketing integration with a contact management or CRM system. eMarketing is 

effective in a lead generation strategy when valuable content is provided. For example, your web site would have a call to action that allows the reader to download a white paper that relates to the benefits of your offering.

Controlling Your Own Destiny

Join the Infor CRM webinar Wednesday, June 3 at 11 am Eastern.

Infor CRM 8.2 is about to be released and we're excited to show you the new features which provide you more control and greater flexibility with your CRM experience.

Join the 30-minute webinar to be among the first to witness the enhanced filter and group management tools, innovative self-service features, new language selector, and import options with configurable field mapping.

During the live webinar the Infor CRM Product team will talk through a live demo of Infor CRM 8.2, sharing specific details about the value of the latest updates including:

Start with an expectation that Changes will occur

Working as a business partner for Sage Saleslogix then Swiftpage Saleslogix and then Infor CRM (formally Saleslogix) there is knowledge to be shared if you are currently using a Windows SalesLogix 7.5.x system and are planning to migrate to the latest Web version of Infor CRM.  

So come prepared to be briefly frightened or overwhelmed (unless you love change and technology).  A lot has happened not only with extending the product capabilities from 5+ years ago but also from moving from using a Windows desktop application experience to now using a current web browser to access a 24 x 7 x 365 days system over an Internet connection.  Mobility has been with hot trend and will continue to do so. It's about having the right data available at the right time using your mobile smart phone, a tablet or a desktop computer.

Consider these Key questions when selecting between Infor CRM and Salesforce.com:

• What is your CRM budget over the next 5 years?

A smart business will use the tools and systems to continually get better - to grow smarter and faster.  

According the Gartner:

“Analytical CRM, which includes predictive analytics and segmentation applications, grew close to 9% and represented nearly 25% of CRM spending.” *

“Organizations will need to become better at exploiting and managing higher volumes of customer data, and at increasing their use of analytics to keep pace with the empowered consumer.” *

Slice and Dice to give you answers Instantly

Make informed business decisions and shape strategic priorities based on actionable analysis.

Advanced Analytics 3.0 with Infor CRM lets you filter your data interactively, and gives you answers instantly. It also lets you rapidly create clear and concise, yet sleek and colorful visualizations in the form of bar charts, cross tables, scatter plots and many more valuable tools that will help you respond to events that affect your business.

With a simple click or drag of the mouse cursor data can be visualized using filters.  In this case opportunities can be filtered by any combination of estimated close year, status, sales process stage, opportunity type, and close probability.  Additionally there are filters for opportunity manager, state or country of account, Lead source, account status, account type, sales process

Share Results and Move beyond Static Reporting

Additionally Advanced Analytics lets you share your results.  Static reports can be limiting to good business in this fast-paced world of data. Infor CRM Advanced Analytics allows you to create dynamic reports that help you ask new questions, as well as be able to quickly turn your reports into instant presentations to show to your colleagues and customers. 

The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is now a central focus of many businesses. The CRM system is responsible for holding contact details, communications, social media profile data and valuable leads – the data that sales teams live and breathe every day. In theory, the CRM acts as a colossal ‘brain’, or hub: an application everyone can dip into for data.

Yet the CRM is, in itself, a framework: a holding bay for data. It cannot function if it is not populated correctly. Yes – everyone uses the CRM, but who owns it? Ask any user, and they will likely say: “not me”.

The opposite is true. And here’s the challenge: up to 46 percent of CRM systems are failing. That’s a figure no sales department can work with. But there is one way to turn it around.

Causes of CRM Failure

CRM systems are central to productivity across organisations. They are also not cheap. Gartner estimates that the CRM industry was worth $18 billion in 2012, and will be worth $36 billion by 2017.

Clearly, adoption is accelerating, and more businesses are storing data in CRM software. Yet we are no better at managing that data. Why?

#1 Succeed where others fail with CRM

Just a decade ago, fewer than half of sales organizaions took advantage of CRM, but today, nearly 83% have implemented CRM.₁ Achieving a competitive advantage is no longer about being the first of your peers to deploy a CRM system; it's about making the wisest use of customer information to evolve your sales, marketing, and customer service best practices.

CRM can only help improve sales and the customer experience if it’s fully and consistently adopted throughout the organization. Many companies have implemented CRM solutions, but too often, actual adoption and usage among employees remains low.

In a recent survey of sales and marketing professionals, 87% indicated they were required to use CRM, but 79% of those professionals admit they just “check the box” to satisfy their bosses.₂  Adoption requires more than forcing employees to check the box. Employees need to add real value by inputting useful information into the CRM system and following business processes that take advantage of its capabilities.

Looks may be superficial but sometimes they are baked in. 

Strong seed genetics create the foundation to generate great looking crops. Likewise a well-used CRM has to have a strong foundation that shows through.  Purpose-built CRM like Infor CRM has both the adaptability and good looks baked in.  An engaging user interface is normally not ugly and definitely has some essence of beauty by design.  Apple has taught all of us that beauty in design will increase engagement and positive experiences that people talk about.  Make sure your CRM solution has the foundation to be adaptable and will be able to grow on those who use it.