Why Customise CRM?

John Eccles, 07 October 2013

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Types of Customisation:

In this blog, I am referring to Customisation in a broad sense – any development of the CRM software or any integration of CRM to other software.  It includes:

•    Customisations using the customisation tools in CRM
•    Workflows using the workflow engine in CRM
•    Custom reports, charts and dashboards
•    Javascript development coding
•    .NET development coding
•    Integrations

Reasons to Customise CRM

There may be many drivers for customisation of a particular CRM system.  Here are some that will be common to many systems:

1.   To simplify the interface.

An enterprise-level CRM system (as compared to a simple contact management system) is complex because it needs to accommodate a lot of applications for a myriad of different organisations.  So it can do a lot more than you need.  The downside of this power-potential is that users have to deal with an unnecessarily complex interface with buttons and fields they will never use.  Some simple customisation work combined with security role configuration can greatly simplify the user interface and thus increase uptake by Users.

2.  To better fit your processes.

Your processes may require capture of different information or automatic responses or generation of reports with data laid out in a certain way. 

3.  To provide new functionality.

Sales management, marketing management and customer service management is provided with Dynamics CRM.  You might want to use CRM for HR management, events management or purchasing/contracts management for example.  Implementation of these systems within CRM may be the most cost-effective solution.

4.  To integrate with other systems.

When CRM is connected to your finance system and your website, it becomes a far more powerful source of data.

The Costs of Customisation

1.  The initial cost.

The cost to customise Dynamics CRM may be significant depending on the scale of the customisation.  This is a cost that can be estimated in advance and the estimate can be firmed up after the Analysis phase and the Design phase.

2.  Upgrade costs.

As Dynamics CRM is upgraded and extended, the customised system may need to be upgraded.  If the system is on CRM Online, upgrades are inevitable.  If they are on-premise or hosted deployments, then you can choose whether or not to upgrade.  The upgrade costs need not be high.  For example Magnetism has quoted upgrades to CRM 2013 to a number of clients with CRM 2011 systems with initial costs of $50,000 - $100,000.  The prices worked out to between $1,000 and $3,000.

3.  Enhancement costs.

When systems and processes change, the CRM system may need to be changed.  Or perhaps the system will be changed in order to be more efficient of provide more value.  And when the base CRM is upgraded, it may be that modifications are needed in order to take advantage of some of the upgrade features.

4.  Support costs.

In general support costs are likely to be higher for a customised system – for two main reasons: The system may be more complex than a non-customised system (more to go wrong) and the person/organisation providing the support needs to know the system (more specialised/specific information required).

Justifying the Cost of Customisation

All software systems should be cost-justified in my opinion.  But you need to consider all the costs associated with the customisation and not just the initial cost.

The costs associated with CRM upgrades and enhancements are nothing unusual.  If a system is not upgraded regularly, it will become obsolete and will under-perform compared with other systems.  On-going investment in software systems to keep them up-to-date is a fact of life.