Another topic discussion on CRM systems really reminded me of this issue: Governance Planning.

With certain types of technology systems, with CRM & Collaboration Systems at the top of my list, if your organization does not have a stakeholder-generated plan that outlines the how/when/who and more of what you hope to used  it for, you are far more likely to not get as much benefit as you are paying for.

Do  you use a CRM system, and have you created your plan? If so, what works? What’s missing?

@calevans For clarification, let me say this is User Governance, not IT governance. I learned through personal experience that CRM systems can easily get out of control, or have inadequate information, a database that ‘s not properly segmented and more.

The governance plan should include stakeholders from across a company, so everyone knows how it will be used. For example, Marketing wants a “clean” list that can be segmented in many ways so they can easily target specific types of campaigns. Customer service might need to know that a customer is looking at a new product or service, while Sales should know if a customer has a complaint or technical issue. This is only one aspect.

Will you use automated workflows? What are individual users responsible for? where does the buck stop? What type of training is given? What about new employees?

That just scratches the surface, really.