Learn how J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc., is using a phased roadmap to implement SAP CRM. See the original planned phases and how J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc., re-validated and modified the phases after an 18-month delay.
Key Concept
When taking on any implementation, it is important to have planning steps in place. These can include strategic assessments, deciding how to break the implementation up into phases, and building an appropriate implementation sequence. A phased implementation approach can help you identify the high-value, low-risk phases that can count as quick wins for your company.
In my last update, I described the strategic assessment we conducted at J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc., to select SAP CRM to replace our aging legacy sales and marketing systems. After making our decision to implement SAP CRM, we had to develop an appropriate implementation plan and sequence. We did not believe a big bang approach would work for us, so we had to identify a way to break up the implementation into manageable phases and determine the correct sequencing for them.
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We believe a big bang implementation is not the best approach for J. J. Keller for a couple of reasons. First, we want to implement in phases to allow our internal staff time to build up our SAP CRM expertise. We want to do the majority of the implementation ourselves and need time for training and to develop the knowledge and skills we need.
Second, there is a significant risk in replacing all of our systems and processes at once in a big bang approach. We believe a more prudent approach is to implement new technology to empower low-risk, high-value processes first — all the while learning and becoming more effective at implementation — and then tackle the highest risk processes last. The implementation sequence provides value to the organization at every step. However, the value proposition is maximized after all the implementation phases are complete and the new technology is empowering all of the improved processes.
Why SAP CRM
We determined that SAP CRM best addressed our business objectives and requirements, including real-time capabilities, software functionality, vendor stability, implementation considerations, human resources considerations, and financial resource requirements.
Specific considerations included the software company’s investment in research and development, financial stability of the company, software license costs, implementation complexity, and the human resources and skill sets needed to implement and support the system.
For example, when considering the human resources requirements, we knew we would need to update the skills of many of our IT and business associates. We had some in-house SAP skills because we have had SAP R/3 (now upgraded to SAP ERP 6.0) implemented since 1999, but we knew we would require expertise in the newer SAP modules such as SAP NetWeaver Portal, SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI), and SAP CRM. By choosing SAP CRM as our front-end system, we would be able to focus our resource and skill requirements on one vendor’s technology rather than having to learn multiple platforms.
The main differentiator for us when selecting a CRM system was the integration with our SAP ERP system. While there are other very powerful CRM tools available, we determined that SAP CRM would offer us the functionality we wanted with the end-to-end integration that we needed throughout our enterprise.
To assess the functionality we required, we identified 10 critical, end-to-end business processes, diagrammed them, and performed a high-level mapping of how they could be implemented in CRM applications from SAP and another vendor. Through this evaluation, we determined that SAP CRM had the functionality, stability, scalability, and integration capabilities to meet our needs. You can read more about our evaluation process in “Essential Steps for Planning a CRM Implementation: Selection Strategy.” This article is located in the CRM hub of SAPexperts.
The Phased Roadmap
We developed a roadmap of multiple phases to implement over several years. These phases were identified based on some of our critical business process streams: marketing campaign analytics, customer analytics, campaign management, pipeline/opportunity management, and sales and service management. The implementation sequence was primarily based on a risk-value assessment.
Figure 1 shows how we plotted each phase on a matrix of business value and risk. The high-value, low-risk phases were seen as early wins and identified as a good place to start. The business value of the different processes was evaluated on the revenue generation of each process, growth opportunities, and efficiency and cost saving opportunities. We began with strategy and planning phases, starting small to educate and train internal resources. This allowed us to build momentum with early successes. We also factored in our organizational risk tolerance and the availability of financial and human resources.
Figure 1
Implementation sequence matrix showing the business value and complexity/risk for each implementation phase
Our original planned phase sequence included:
- Marketing planning and campaign analytics
- Customer analytics
- Operational campaign management
- Operational pipeline management
- Integrated sales, order, fulfillment, support, and service
Although this sequencing made sense to our organization at the time we performed the analysis, we would not begin the implementation for another 18 months after the plan was developed. Because of this, we had to re-validate that the roadmap made sense and subsequently made some modifications to the phase sequence.
The modifications to the sequence were based on changes within J. J. Keller and SAP. At J. J. Keller, new corporate initiatives surfaced that caused us to alter some of the original phases. These initiatives included the expansion of our field sales presence and the installation of a new telephone system. The initiatives introduced opportunities for mobile sales and computer telephony integration.
The SAP changes that impacted us most were the increased prominence of SAP NetWeaver Portal in the SAP landscape and the new versions of SAP NetWeaver BI and SAP CRM. We have now implemented SAP NetWeaver Portal 7.0 and SAP NetWeaver BI 7.0. We are anticipating implementing SAP CRM 2007.
The 18-month delay to begin the implementation was necessary for two primary reasons.
The first was competing corporate priorities. A couple of large initiatives were going on at our company and we didn’t think we could effectively execute all of them simultaneously.
The second reason was that we did not believe we had addressed organizational change management completely enough and thought there might be significant resistance to change. During this delay, we met regularly with the CEO, continued our implementation planning, and developed cost and human resource estimates. We also addressed the change management concerns through corporate communication and a road show of the implementation strategy and benefits.
By sharing the core reasons for the implementation and explaining how the organization and individuals would benefit from it, we were able to improve the perception of the program and improve associate buy-in. The main focus for our program is to implement a system that will allow us to serve and satisfy our customers and clients, to become a real-time enterprise, to be more agile and responsive with product and service launches and new market entries, and to support future growth.
The New Roadmap
After the review of the sequence, we decided to implement SAP NetWeaver BI for customer analytics first, followed by SAP CRM for marketing campaign management. Starting with the SAP NetWeaver BI implementation made sense for us because we have been operating on a decentralized, ill-supported, and ineffective reporting platform. We saw a great opportunity to improve our reporting and analytics capabilities in a low-risk implementation while gaining great experience for our internal team.
We will follow this roadmap with operational pipeline management and save the sales, order, fulfillment, service, and support phase for last, as it is clearly the most complex and risky. This new sequence is similar to our original plan, although it contains some additional phase detail.
Our new implementation roadmap consists of the phases in Figure 2. We have completed phases 0.1 through 3.0 and we are currently working on phase 3.5 (master data realization). However, there are challenges that come with a long roadmap and the sequence we selected. Here are the key ones we faced.
Figure 2
New implementation roadmap *click here to make image larger
Addressing Customer Analytics (SAP NetWeaver BI) Before CRM
We decided to implement SAP NetWeaver BI for reporting and analytics before SAP CRM. To accomplish this, we developed custom flat-file extracts from our legacy system and loaded the SAP NetWeaver BI system nightly from our legacy system. While this system provides great value to our organization now, it will require rework when SAP CRM becomes the data source. This rework includes changing the data source from the legacy system to CRM and reconfiguring our InfoCubes to support the new data.
Although many organizations implement an analytics solution after SAP CRM, we feel the benefits from the improved reporting and analytics capabilities and the experience we gained through the implementation overshadow the rework. Another benefit from the SAP NetWeaver BI implementation was gaining a much deeper understanding of our current data structures in the legacy systems. This will be extremely valuable as we move to our master data realization phase.
Master Data Synchronization
As this is a multi-year implementation, we will have the legacy and SAP CRM systems running in parallel for some time. To accomplish this, we need to create a new master data structure in SAP CRM. Also, SAP CRM will be the master data system of record for our multiple legacy customer masters. Doing this requires significant data and interface work. All of the legacy systems that require master data will become reference copies of the data and will need to subscribe to the master system.
Phasing in Sales Areas Over Time
Our roadmap calls for rolling out the SAP CRM system to the sales areas over time, probably over 18 to 24 months. To do this, we will have sales areas running in the legacy system and in the new SAP CRM system simultaneously. This will be a challenge from the perspective of master data, transactional data, business process, training, change management, and customer service and satisfaction.
Lessons Learned
We are almost two years into our SAP implementation roadmap and have identified several lessons and key success factors. These lessons learned are from our entire process of strategic assessment and the implementation of our first five phases.
Communication across the entire implementation team is critical. Communicate often, celebrate key successes, identify lessons from delays or challenges, recognize the efforts of the team, make all communication meaningful and applicable to the reader, and look ahead to future phases. Also, keep the executive sponsor informed and engaged with regular meetings and simple dashboards (red, yellow, and green lights).
Select a competent and experienced implementation partner, as well as individual consultants, who will work well with your team. Make sure you understand your business processes, and have the processes, process objectives, inputs, and outputs documented before you bring in consultants. This will save you from a very long and expensive blueprint while the consultants are on site waiting for you to figure out your processes. The consultants know the new system, but they don’t know your business processes. Use internal process experts to do that first.
Know what success looks like. Before you start your program and your phases, have a clear understanding of what success looks like. What are the specific measurable goals that have to be met? In our case, we developed a list of measurable business metrics that we could baseline before and track after implementation. These metrics include average order size, campaign response rate, and customer loyalty index. These metrics can be tracked with the help of our newly implemented SAP NetWeaver BI system.
These are just a few strategies that helped us prepare for an effective implementation. Although the specific process may be different, every organization should conduct thorough pre-project planning to ensure a successful SAP CRM implementation.
As we progress through our multi-year implementation, we will be tracking some key performance indicators such as average order size, campaign response rate, and customer loyalty index. We also anticipate experiencing improved efficiency in our process execution in sales and marketing, which will allow us to grow our size and output with the same number of people.
Tom Ditzler
Tom Ditzler has been employed at J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc. for 10 years. He has served in sales, marketing, and business analyst positions and now is leading the company through a multi-year implementation of SAP CRM, SAP NetWeaver Portal, and SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence. Tom holds numerous certificates in project management, training, and education.
You may contact the author at tditzler@jjkeller.com.
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