Solvis Consulting, LLC

CA and Salesforce.com Forge Strategic Partnership to Deliver Agile Development Management in the Cloud on the Force.com Platform

Image via CrunchBase

SAN FRANCISCO – Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference – November 19, 2009 – CA, Inc. (NASDAQ: CA), the leader in Enterprise IT Management, and salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced they have partnered to deliver agile development management in the cloud on the Force.com platform.

via www.ca.com

We like this! As practitioners of Agile and Scrum, we like having an Agile Development Platform powered by Force.com.

Want to share your ideas on the platform? Go to this Idea site for the CA Agile Planner.

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The Scrum Framework for CRM in 10 Minutes or Less

We here at Solvis have mentioned before that when implementing Social Media or CRM SaaS solutions, we support the use of the Agile Methodology and particularly the Scrum Framework. So how can one learn this in 10 minutes or less? Read on:

Lance Dacy, a certified Scrum Master and Product Owner based in Dallas, TX, (DFW Scrum Alliance) has been a great mentor for us in implementing Scrum. He recently shared the following with us regarding a summary of The Framework:

"Scrum uses the real-world progress of a project — not a best guess or uninformed forecast — to plan and schedule releases. In Scrum, projects are divided into succinct work cadences, known as sprints, which are typically one week, two weeks, or three weeks in duration. At the end of each sprint, stakeholders and team members meet to assess the progress of a project and plan its next steps. This allows a project’s direction to be adjusted or reoriented based on completed work, not speculation or predictions.


Philosophically, this emphasis on an ongoing assessment of completed work is largely responsible for its popularity with managers and developers alike. But what allows the Scrum methodology to really work is a set of roles, responsibilities, and meetings that never change. If Scrum’s capacity for adaption and flexibility makes it an appealing option, the stability of its practices give teams something to lean on when development gets chaotic."

Also, there has been a video that has gone "viral" in the Scrum-world recently, that does a great job demonstrating the Scrum concepts in 8 minutes (be sure to click on the "HD" button on the bottom right side of the screen for better visibility), please click below for the video:

Scrum in 8 Minutes at YouTube

Agile Development; Using the Scrum Framework with CRM SaaS

By  Earl LaChance

On Solvis' most recent CRM SaaS implementations, we've been using the Scrum framework to help manage the projects.

Wikipedia Definition of Scrum: "Scrum is an iterative incremental framework for managing complex work (such as new product development) commonly used with agile software development. "

The general idea is to deliver a functional piece of software every sprint (2 - 4 week time frame). Remember, this does not imply "production ready". This is an iterative approach to developing a product toward production-ready status, with a focus on constant improvement.

Our Scrum process flows as follows:

1.User Stories are created, based on requirements. These are created in “ScrumWorks”, a software package that offers a free version (Basic) at http://danube.com/.
2. Tasks are added to each user story and we assign an estimation to the task in hours
3. A point person is assigned to each task
4. User Stories are then placed into "Sprints" which are short development cycles.
5. At the end of each day, the Project Manager or the “Scrum Master” collect these hours and update the task in ScrumWorks.
6. We conduct a daily "Scrum meeting" where we hold a development review: what was completed, what is planned, and roadblocks.

(Graphic from Mountain Goat Software, Inc)

One of the important results of the daily scrum is an understanding of the daily burn-down calculation, which shows us:

a. Total hours for the sprint
b. Total days for the sprint
c. Ideal number of hours to be ‘burned’ daily
d. The number of hours we burned the previous day
e. The delta between how many hours we should have burned to stay on track vs. what we actually burned
f. The number of hours left in the Sprint
g. The number of hours we NEED to burn today in order to stay on-track and to not fall behind.

Using Scrum, we know on a daily basis the following:

1. Who completed which tasks and which tasks are planned
2. How much time a resource spent working on the sprint
3. How the team is tracking toward on-time delivery of the sprint

Although I have personally been an Agile practitioner for some time, I am now very much a Scrum framework advocate!  This is the an excellent example of the marriage of a management process to a software package(Scrumworks).

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Managing International CRM Projects

By Jesus Hoyos

During the last 15 years, I had participated in many CRM projects in Latin America.  Many of these CRM projects were deployed by Latin American and U.S. multi-nationals implementing many technologies and programs.  Two typical characteristics of international CRM projects are the ability for the CRM software to have multi-language capabilities and roll-up forecasting for different countries or regions. What this means? Well, many CRM projects focus on functionality that take advantage of easy configurations such as business units, multi-region reports, multi-level security, role-based access, collaboration within opportunities and territory management, among others. 

Unfortunately, many international projects do not take into consideration the other parts of CRM: people, data, metrics and local culture. I have compiled a list of areas to take into consideration when deploying an international CRM project, especially in Latin America.

20 areas to consider for your International CRM Project:

1. Consider in-country and region cultural differences. Doing business in Medellin is different from Bogotá, and doing business in Perú is not the same as doing business in México. There are many business and cultural differences in Latin America. Do not make the mistake of thinking that all countries and regions in Latin America are the same.
2. Address Formatting. Many CRM systems are design to only manage US and Canadian addresses. You need to consider the different address formats for each country. Look for local address validation software or services in each country. The same goes for Name (First and Last Name, Company Name) formatting for both personal and company names – your dup logic needs to take into consideration Portuguese, Spanish and English names.
3. Use local Project Managers from you own company and I strongly suggest you use a Program Manager that is from Latin America. This will help you assimilate the local cultures and business practices.
4. Make sure you have a realistic budget for processes, technology, training, change management and data conversion. Your budget must include travel expenses. Webex and Gotomeeting  are all good, but you need to have a lot of face-to-face meetings in Latin America.
5. Internal Politics. Make sure you have an excellent change management process to manage internal politics. Politics will kill your project if they are not well managed.
6. Geopolitical risks. Make sure you have developed scenarios and what-if situations for all kind of economic or political situations.
7. Design your CRM program and software globally but deploy it locally. Your strategy needs to be aligned with all business units. I have seen projects failed when one business unit is customer-centric and the another one is focused 100% in cutting costs.
8. Make sure you have standard processes that can be adjusted to the realities of each country.
9. Make sure that the functionality deployed can be changed quickly. You do not want the local business unit to wait six months for new functionality.
10. Involve all type if users with conference room pilots to get their feedback and buy-in.
11. Many CRM practices in U.S. are not really best practices in Latin America.Best practices some time are bad practices when deployed in many countries. Make sure you monitor all processes and functionality to make sure if they all make sense as best practices.
12. Validate the differences between SaaS and OnPremise for your deployment.  I have seen SaaS software to be more successful with international projects. No software, database or hardware to worry about.
13. Do not push your CRM projects to the countries. HQ and the local business units need to buy-in the project and a good change management process need to be in place.
14. Select 2 or 3 business units or countries to run pilots. Compare results, made adjustments, re-deploy. Have a phased approach after you get the final results of the pilots.
15. Training, training, and training. Have local companies do the end-user training. Use your software vendor for the technical training.
16. I think you heard this one before – “Start with the early adopters or power-users”. I will recommend the contrary, start with the employees that will give you problems with change management or adopting the CRM strategy. You need to start early with the late adopters, then bring the early adopters to close the loop with change management.
17. Support. Needs to be local and in the local language. Use HQ or area regions for Level 2 or 3 support.
18. Your CRM software needs to consider the different definitions for customers and segments for each country or region. But make sure you at least have a base definition for reporting purposes.
19. Communicate, communicate and communicate. Employees need to know the details of the implementation and strategy. Not knowing creates dissatisfaction between business units and countries.
20. Data & Information sharing is a must, especially when your customer base is the same across business units.

In summary, you must be sure you apply project management standards to manage your international project taking into account my 20 suggestions. You must also understand that international CRM projects are risky and complex, but if you keep your project simple and consider the local nuances and business practices of each country, you will at least have won part of the battle. 

Many companies will try to standardize functionally and processes - this could help your project fail. Just make sure you have the basic functionality and process are covered, and then allow the business units or countries to adjust them to their local requirements.

Twitter conversations about crm and project management.

This post was originally written for myCRMCareer.

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How to reach Latin American Customers using CRM

Image by Sam Kelly via Flickr

By Jesus Hoyos

Miami is well known as the hub for doing business in Latin America as well as the center for many Latin Americans to shop at the many stores in South Florida. It is well known that many Colombians travel to Fort Lauderdale over a weekend to buy for special occasions. Many Mexicans shop at Miami malls during Thanksgiving, especially on the famous Black Friday.  This trend is evolving, since many Latin Americans have U.S. forwarding mail boxes in order to shop at Amazon.com or Target.com. For example, they purchase a Wii or Playstation using a Miami address and once the shipment gets to Miami, it is then forwarded to the final destination in the region.  One clear case is also the customer experience, I know many of my friends shop online at Victoria Secrets or Bath & Body Works, and are anxious to have local stores in many of the countries to be part of the in-store customer experience. There are more than 1,500 friends in Facebook requesting that Victoria Secrets opens a store in Puerto Rico.

What this means for your business? It means that your online and brick-and-mortal strategy needs to include the differences of targeting Hispanics and Latin Americans.  Differences? Yes. Targeting Spanish speaking customers is not only about messaging and branding, but about segmentation, targeting, execution and campaign follow up (and the Long Tail). Your on-line and off-line campaigns should be appropriately versioned to different Hispanics or Latin American segments. Spanish speaking audiences are not identical and geographic differences play a large role among the different audience groups, such as cultural traditions, country of origin, and the Spanish language.

The challenge is the diversity among all the Latino audiences. This can make it very difficult to achieve your marketing goals, especially if your company does not understand this diversity. The diversity gets complicated when you need to understand that it is the same language but different cultures, Latin Americans living here with work visas vs. 2nd or 3rd generation of Hispanics, bilingual vs. "Spanish only" as the main language, tourists visiting, or simply anybody from any country that buys on-line. Each country or Latino group has its own identity and with their own nuances.  You even have regions within countries that have differences in lifestyles and industries, such as Mexico City and Monterrey, or Buenos Aires and Cordoba. Puerto Ricans in New York have differences from Cubans in Florida or Mexicans in Chicago.

Many companies have taken the blanket approach of using the “Se Habla Español” strategy.  Who are you targeting when you use this approach in your direct mail, email marketing, web site, store and call center?  --- If your business is using the “Se Habla Español” marketing strategy, are you targeting 2nd generation Hispanics, Latinos traveling to the States, Mexican or Argentinians living in their respective countries, Puerto Rican living in the States or the island, or John Davies, Hispanic living in Miami? --- I used to get many promotional emails from a major hotel chain in both Spanish and German. I figured out that I was getting the Spanish email since my first name is Jesus, and the German emails since my last name has its roots in Germany.  I also get many Spanish promotional materials at home, but I rather get English promotions, but as of today, nobody has asked me my preferences.  They are assuming that I want my promotional materials in Spanish. It is a mass marketing strategy. “Se Habla Español” is a mass marketing strategy. One size does not fit all Spanish speaking customers; there are distinctions in marketing all Hispanics (in the United States) and Latin Americans (from México to Argentina, including Brasil).

Production Support Services

During the last few years, Solvis has participated in many CRM production support engagements with different types of CRM systems and in different industries.

1. Salesforce.com - Telecommunications, Software
2. SAS Marketing Automation - Retail Banking
3. Amdocs/Clarify - Telecommunications
4. Peoplesoft CRM - Government and Education
5. Vantive - Telecommunications, Software

We have the capabilities to provide CRM Production Support services in United States and Latin America. We follow industry standards such as ITIL, Project Management Institute and Change Management procedures. Our services include remote and on-site support for both functional and technical activities.

Other technologies where we can also help: Siebel, Oracle, DBA and BI.

How Solvis can help your company? Contact us. We can help identify your production support needs with our Business and Technical Assessment - it is a 2-day free assessment that will cover 8 tactical CRM areas, including your CRM technical solution. Based on this assessment, we will give you options to help you with your productions support needs.

How Solvis can help with your CRM initiatives?

Don't know where to start with your next CRM initiative? Solvis can help your company in many ways, from educational programs to CRM strategies, and from software selection to the implementation of technologies, processes or change management.

The three main types of services we offer to help you with your CRM needs are: education, strategy and implementation. All three services are designed to provide quick implementation of your customer retention or acquisition initiatives.

If your organization is a small business in United States or Latin America, don't worry, we have different versions and options of these services based on your budget. At Solvis we have experience working with small companies, enterprises and holdings, as many organizations are looking to integrate their CRM synergies with technology and processes.

CRM & Social Media Education

We offer 2 types of educational seminars where we can bring our CRM experts on-site.

SaaS, Cloud Computing, On-Premise?

Presentation about SaaS and Cloud Computing (Spanish) given at the Mundo-Contact CRM event last year (November 2008).

Que Es SaaS V2.1

View more presentations from Jesus Hoyos. (tags: crm hoyos)

2009 CRM Recomendations

During the past few weeks Jesus Hoyos wrote a series of posts about how to improve your CRM initiatives in the areas of marketing automation, campaign management, sales and customer service.You will find "call to action" recommendations that you can implement anytime during 2009.

1. Parte 1 - Marketing Automation: ¿Qué actividades de marketing automation debo hacer para conocer a mis clientes?
2. Parte 2 - Campaign Management: ¿Qué debo hacer para manejar el ciclo de relacionamiento del cliente?
3. Parte 3 - Ventas: ¿Qué actividades y tácticas puedo hacer para mejorar el ciclo de ventas?
4. Parte 4 - Servicio al Cliente - ¿Que puedo mejorar en el área de servicio al cliente?

CRM Vendor Selection Process (SaaS vs OnPremise)

Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, SugarCRM, Salesforce.com, Aplicor and many other CRM packages now offer multiple options of CRM software to choose from. You have single-tenancy vs multi-tenancy, open-source, and SaaS vs OnPremise options. Within each vendor you have different options regarding modules and functionality. The good news is that you have choices based on your requirements, needs, priorities, IT policies and budget.

We at Solvis can help you decide which CRM vendor (software package or service) you need. We have a Software Selection Methodology that looks into processes and functionality that will help your business (small or large) select the proper software. Our methodology offers quick steps to make decisions. We can start with a short or large list of vendors, and we can offer proof-of-concepts and pilot programs for your implementation.

No matter what your software needs are, we can help your business select any CRM vendor: operational, analytical, collaborative and interactive - from call center to marketing automation and from SFA to customer service under any model: SaaS or OnPremise.

Our methodology includes the following steps:

1. Gather Requirements and Functionality
2. Identify Key Decision Criteria
3. Determine Weighting
4. Prepare and Send Out RFI
5. Refine Process Flows, Scenarios and Functionality
6. Conduct Vendor Demos
7. Complete Scorecards
8. Perform Reference Checks (Due Diligence)
9. Perform Gap Analysis
10. Conduct Vendor or Reference Site Visits
11. Evaluate and Select Vendor
12. Refine Business Case
13. Develop Proof-of-Concept
14. Develop Pilot

Depending of your business needs, some of the above steps are optional. We can also work with your software or implementation vendor in developing the proof-of-concept and pilot (quick win), before any major implementation. Time frames also depends on your business needs, but we can help you select software solutions from 5 to 8 weeks, or, we can just help you make a decision if you already have a short list of vendors.

Note: we have templates, tools and related documentation to facilitate a smooth selection process for all 14 steps of our methodology,

For more information contact us.