InfoStrat's Townsend Report

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is being adopted by a growing number of customers around the world.  The traditional applications for CRM are for sales force automation and customer service, but in a broader sense it is used to track other kinds of relations and other kinds of cases. 

We are seeing government agencies, higher education and non-profit organizations adopt CRM to track interactions with stakeholders and constituents as well as traditional customers.

Increased use of CRM is a good thing, and certainly welcome to companies like our who assist clients with implementing CRM -- but there is no magic in the software.  In nearly every case, the CRM initiative won't work without behavioral changes.

Here are some of the behaviors that our clients are trying to change:

1. A broader view of relationships.  A university, for instance, wants to show many types of interactions, such as prospects, applicant, students, alumni, and parents, and the ways that each de…

Since we started work on government grants management back in the 1990s, we have read hundreds of requests for proposals from government agencies.  We do not have the privilege to write RFPs, but if we did, here are some items we would be sure to include:

1. Tell how many users you need for the system.  If there are different groups of users such as internal and external reviewers, or occasional users, try to differentiate among them.  The number of users make a big difference in the price of software licenses.

2. Tell us your budget.  I know this seems impossible, but it would save a great deal of time for the buyer and the seller.  Buyers have budgets set before they send out solicitations, and some proposals are rejected because they are outside the budgeted amount.   Even bids that are too low may be rejected as unrealistic.

3. Be specific about requirements.   Tell us the details of your particular process and especially what you think makes it unique.   Include samples of form…