Demand Generation Machine

No I didn’t come up with that statement, this is what the research firm Gartner has to say. “No matter how much money and effort go into a CRM solution it will only be as good as the data that feeds it”. I just completely agree with them. You will often see large budgets put aside to deploy the latest CRM technology, kept aside to pay the license fee, have administrative staff to manage the solution and maybe some more staff to look into the analytics and reporting for those weekly and monthly presentations. When those presentation figures don’t look so good you start to wonder “Well I’ve been spending so much on this CRM which is supposed to wonders to our sales so why isn’t it working for us?”

Its simple. The results are not about the fancy reports. A well managed CRM can improve your process and efficiency of selling but the end result or output can only be as good as the data that goes into that process. Pricewaterhouse Coopers carried out a survey on poor results and reported that 75% of those surveyed reported significant problems due to defective data. Where you source your CRM data should be just as important as which are the latest CRM add ons you should invest in or how many more report formats can we get, if not more. Add the right target company information, add the right contact information, add the right account intelligence, feed it with precisely what you need, keep the data updated regularly and you can make that CRM work for you!