How to Navigate CRM Implementation Risks

If you plan to implement CRM software to manage customer data more efficiently, streamline customer-facing operations, or drive other business improvements, it’s essential to get acquainted with the typical risks that can undermine your project’s success. These include scope creep, security issues, low user adoption, and other concerns that can negatively impact CRM ROI if not appropriately addressed.

By identifying these risks early in the process, you can mitigate their impact, thus increasing the chances that CRM system implementation succeeds and pays off. Here, we’ll go through some common CRM implementation risks—and the useful practices that can help you avoid them.

What Are the Most Common CRM Implementation Risks?

Budget overrun. CRM implementation requires significant financial investments—depending on the CRM project’s complexity, total implementation costs can reach tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. And undoubtedly, your company would like its investments to pay off. Therefore, you should promptly detect and mitigate budget overruns, which can happen due to multiple reasons, including uncontrollable project scope expansion (the so-called scope creep) and inaccurate budgeting.

Delivery delay. Timely solution delivery is critical to the success of a CRM project, as even minor delays can cause concerns for your company, ranging from stakeholder dissatisfaction to lost market opportunities. Thus, you should identify and prevent the root causes of potential software delays (underestimated project complexity, inadequate testing, etc.).

Poor code quality. Even if you are not planning to build a CRM system from scratch but implement an out-of-the-box CRM solution instead, your project can involve coding activities, such as customizing the solution’s go-to-market functionality to your unique needs. If your implementation team cannot generate high-quality code, you risk gaining an inefficient, insecure solution, and one that is too difficult to maintain.

Security issues. If CRM software is not secured properly, it can be vulnerable to hacker attacks targeting your corporate data, including sensitive customer information. And even a single data breach can devastate your business reputation and cause severe financial losses, which is why minimizing possible security risks should be one of your top priorities throughout the project.

Low user adoption. If end users cannot utilize their new CRM system effectively, the software will not generate any business value for your company, so your implementation investment will be wasted. Insufficient user training, poor user support, and lack of acceptance testing are the typical causes of low CRM software adoption rates among business users.

How Do You Reduce CRM Implementation Risks?

Before we proceed, it is worth noting that there is no silver bullet for CRM risk management, as each implementation case is unique, and risk context can vary from project to project. To navigate risks adequately, you should identify the prospective ones during the project planning phase, evaluate them, and build a tailored risk mitigation strategy that would respond to each of them. The following recommendations will help you implement an effective risk mitigation strategy:

1. Define CRM system requirements as accurately as possible.

A clear definition of the stakeholder requirements for a future CRM system is key to minimizing scope creep risks, which traditionally lead to extra time and budget expenses. After all, if you precisely define stakeholder needs before the project starts, you minimize the chances that new and unplanned requirements will emerge later on and that the implementation team will have to do unscheduled extra work.

To understand functional and nonfunctional requirements of stakeholders clearly, your implementation team can hold a series of brainstorming sessions with the marketing, sales, and customer service teams, system administrators, and other stakeholder parties to discuss the following matters:

• What specific capabilities should our future CRM system provide (lead scoring, customer data analytics, etc.)?
• How would you prioritize these functionalities, from the least important to the most important?
• How would you like the CRM system to look and feel (should it have a laconic user interface, be accessible to people with visual impairments, etc.)?
• What are your requirements in terms of the CRM system’s scalability, security, and integration capabilities, if there are any?

After collecting stakeholder requirements, your implementation team should document them thoroughly so that none of them are missed. Later, the team can use this comprehensive requirements list to conceptualize a CRM solution that would match stakeholder needs and develop a CRM implementation road map. Having a more precise understanding of project scope, you can now communicate this knowledge to stakeholders to set their expectations and thus reduce the chance of scope creep.

2. If CRM software has to be customized, ensure code standardization.

Standardizing custom code according to corporate coding rules is one of the proven ways to improve code quality and avoid a range of related risks, including technical and security issues. By following a well-rounded and reliable coding standard, a team can minimize the likelihood of problems and errors in the code and, as a result, create a more secure, well-structured, and maintainable code base.

Before launching a CRM project, ensure that your corporate coding guidelines specify rules for all critical coding aspects, including code formatting, code organization, and error handling, and include best practices relevant to the chosen programming languages. You should also guarantee that team members can easily access all necessary coding documentation, regardless of their locations. You can also consider investing in developer training before project launch to ensure all team members can write code while adhering to your standards.

3. Implement a well-rounded CRM testing strategy

Thorough testing is vital in any software project (those related to CRM implementation are no exception), and a solid testing strategy will help you avoid many development risks. A comprehensive strategy should include various tests targeting different aspects of the CRM solution, as it can help you discover many issues that might otherwise go unnoticed. Here are some examples of tests you can include in your strategy:

Data validation and integrity tests. Since the primary purpose of CRM is to organize and store customer data, your strategy must include data validation and integrity tests, helping ensure the accuracy of your CRM data and guarantee overall system reliability.

Functional tests. You should also study your CRM system's functionality thoroughly to ensure that all features, integrations, and APIs work according to the software specifications and stakeholder requirements.

Security tests. To minimize the risk of data breach, you should thoroughly test a CRM system from a security perspective by conducting security scanning, penetration testing, and other security tests.

User acceptance tests. To manage and prevent user adoption risks, consider integrating different types of user acceptance tests in your strategy, including operational acceptance testing, business acceptance testing, and so on.

Final Thoughts

Although CRM implementation can bring numerous advantages to your company, you should keep in mind that it always comes with risk. And if you cannot manage project risks properly, you will not be able to maximize implementation ROI.

If safeguarding the CRM project from risks is your top priority, consider getting advisory support from third-party CRM experts before implementation starts. An experienced CRM consultant will analyze your business case and provide a tailored risk management strategy to help you address risks efficiently throughout the project.

Roman Davydov is a technology observer at Itransition with over five years of experience in the IT industry. Davydov monitors and analyzes the latest technology trends, helping businesses make informed software decisions that align with their strategic goals.