CRM
Is a 1000 Percent ROI from CRM possible?
Here we try and figure out whether it is indeed possible to achieve 1000% ROI. The factors that add to the cost of a CRM deployment include software license fees, maintenance fees, hardware, consultant fees, hardware costs, and administrative costs. These costs increase as deployments drag on. An interesting method of getting an idea about the ROI on your CRM investment is to find out the cost of not implementing a CRM solution. Find out the value you are losing to procedural lapses and administrative gaps that can be plugged with a CRM solution. Your ROI will ideally be as great as your need for CRM. So, if your pain points are too many and the business cost of letting them be is high, there is every chance that your ROI will also be high.
As far as projected ROI is considered it should be at least twice the cost, which means a 200% ROI. You also need to consider an on-time deployment, if the deployment drags on then you should consider a phased roll-out so that returns happen fast.
Since ROI valuations made before a project and after a project can vary substantially, you should have a tolerance value built into your balance sheet calculations. ROI is both tangible and intangible. Tangible ROI includes increased revenue from increase in sales, cross-selling, up-selling, better inventory management, reduction in cost of customer acquisition, reduced cost of sales, reduction in number of customer facing staff, improved margins, etc. Intangible benefits include better brand recognition, greater customer satisfaction, improved market intelligence and improved communication with channel partners.
As a business when you measure ROI, you consider both tangible and intangible ROI benefits. Several intangible ROI benefits have an extremely positive impact on your business and add manifold to the ROI.
As mentioned in the beginning, some CRM vendors, mostly those that offer the SaaS model do claim to offer 1000% ROI. The basic reason being that on-demand CRM slashes down capital costs to a great extent when compared to the on-premise mode of delivery. Lower operational costs and continuous vendor support helps a business work through organizational and process barriers. A drastically reduced implementation time also leads to a quick and high ROI.
Conclusion
It is entirely possible that your business can earn a 1000% ROI on your CRM deployment if you are going in for an on-demand solution. In fact, you can try and achieve a very healthy ROI on your existing CRM deployment if you add some on-demand capabilities to it. These capabilities will depend on what your most pressing requirements are and how long will it take for you to adjust to the new on-demand functionalities.
[Photo courtesy of ONCONTACT.]
