Debate - What benefits have we seen from CRM?

What Benefits have we got from CRM?

So, we’re back from holidays. We’re feeling inspired and energised (although, for me, that might be because the kids started back back at school 3 hours ago). The Christmas campaign is on the verge of kicking off, or already well underway if you’re in the digital team!

With that in mind, I’m hopeful that today’s newsletter dropping into your feed, marks the end of ‘August LinkedIn’ - the month where LinkedIn completely failed the Turing test of fooling people into thinking that actual real-life people have been writing posts on it.

Something that repeatedly floated around in my feed during the past week or two was a story that 95% of AI projects fail. It’s a good headline because it plays into everyone’s innate belief that if something seems to good to be true… chances are, it is.

But, as ever, it’s worth reading beyond the headline and making your own mind up. The report is full of good reminders about what makes tech projects succeed (and could equally be applied to most tech projects over my career) - pilot, learn from your pilot, minimise bespoking, look for immediate value.

It is also good on analysis of why AI pilots fail - Unwillingness to adopt new tools, Poor user experience, Lack of executive sponsorship, Change management challenges.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of the tech world will recognise these as prime factors in every tech project failure report for quite a long time now.

So, Great news! AI projects aren’t new. They fail just as easily as good old-fashioned IT projects have done for many years. There is no magic bullet, and you’re highly unlikely to lose your job to AI, unless your company has an outstandingly effective tech implementation team.

Which brings me nicely to today’s episode.

Season 3, Episode 5 - What Benefits have we seen from CRM?

In this feature-length (ie ‘long’) episode, we have a debate around what success and failure looks like in the world of CRM, and more importantly what we can learn from this for future big tech investments.

For this special, I’m really lucky to be joined by three celebrities from the world of NFP tech - Laura Dawson from Leaderly , Tory Cassie from mhance and Kevin Antao. We spend an hour debating what we’ve seen - and look at it from the point of view of senior leaders, CTO’s, consultants and implementation partners. We mostly focus on two ‘big’ CRM Platforms - Salesforce and MS D365.

We talk about operational benefits - what benefit we actually got from projects. We also think a little bit about when a Product is right, and when a Platform is better, and what this means for different sized organisations.

But most importantly, we think about the future, including how we think of data as an organisational asset, how we avoid ‘Magic Bullet Solutions’, and also the importance of cohesive leadership.

As ever, views expressed are the views of the individuals concerned, and don’t necessarily represent those of any organisations they are, or have been associated with.

Applying Lessons to Future AI projects

As I’ve been doing these podcasts, I’ve been seeking to understand what challenges charities will face with AI, and how I can help improve the success rate on investments. Over the past 12 months, through Virtue Chain, we’ve run a variety of initiatives with different charities to better understand the problems they face, and have partnered with experts in their field to develop solutions. From all of this work, I’ve compiled my top six problems below - with tried and tested solutions applied within the charity sector.

Lack of knowledge / readiness for AI at Leadership / Board level - AI Readiness for boards one hour webinar - book now onto the next free session on 26th September. Hard to prioritise projects as organisational strategy not developed with AI in mind Understanding Organisational AI Maturity Workshops - a series of workshops developed to help give clarity to current AI maturity across the organisation, and identify differing aspects of maturity required to deliver strategy. Opaque planning processes, lack of organisational clarity on future direction Developing an (AI) Roadmap. Workshop-led approach to deliver actionable roadmaps to get pilots underway. Bloated internal processes, unclear where value lies, and where money is being wasted Prior to implementing AI solutions, engage an expert to undertake a Value-Stream mapping exercise to find out where the value lies in your organisational processes. Lack of maturity in internal change management approaches Improving Agile Approaches and Change Management - improve the skillsets of staff likely to be involved in change. Staff use AI well in their personal lives, but we don’t see benefit from our AI tools Train your staff in AI Adoption - delivered with partners who are expert in this.

Does any of that sound familiar? If any of those six problems are happening in your charity, get in contact with me at [email protected]. I’ve run the solutions above alongside expert partners at different charities over the past 12 months, and can advise how you can unblock the organisational treacle that is holding back change.

Stay Tuned for more insights in future episodes

If you’re new to the podcast - then definitely take a look back at some cracking episodes in the previous two seasons. Whilst there is a storyline flowing through the episodes, they work in any order, so don’t feel obliged to listen to them chronologically.

If you like this newsletter and podcast, and want it to stay free, please do consider reposting it on LinkedIn - we love watching our audience grow. Also do get in touch if you want to get involved, or sponsor anything.

If you’re keen for me to feature something going on in your charity, please get in touch - and do comment on anything in here, or in the podcast that you like.

Remember – follow on your favourite podcast platform, today, so that you don’t miss an episode.

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About our host and guests

Laura Dawson is the founder of a business, leadership and technology fusion: Leaderly.

Laura has worked as a CIO of effective Technology and Service Delivery teams for over 25 years in both public and charitable sectors. She has worked in Save the Children, UK, the RSPB and the British Council with her last role as CIO of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Her objective in all her roles and now with her clients is to make sure they get the value they expect from their investment in Digital Technology. Laura’s role is to make it easy for everyone in an organisation to do their jobs, making sure they are influencing in the right places, getting the right resources, and maintaining their expertise.

The big vision is to make sure teams are fully converged, to recognize that they are the business too and that they have authority and influence and should know how to use it. She also advocates for creating a culture where devolved technology can thrive by introducing clear authority, decision making and standards, pioneering DDT practice management.

She is a strong advocate of treating information as the third major asset class in an organization, particularly one with knowledge workers at the heart and a passion for making technology teams exemplary in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

As a result of her time at RSPB, she has an interest in nature and embarrassingly can get a bit distracted if ‘something interesting’ flies past. She is also a Watford FC fan and has an extensive collection of strategic board games (she has over 70 at the last count).

Kevin Antao is an experienced technology leader with a strong track record of driving digital transformation in non-profit and commercial sectors. As a Digital Trustee, CIO, and Technology Advisor, he has spearheaded strategic initiatives that optimise technology infrastructure, enhance cybersecurity, and improve operational efficiency across global organizations.

Tory Cassie For the past 25 years, Tory has worked exclusively within the Nonprofit sector and has been instrumental in driving growth and success in Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit within mhance. Having worked with many hundreds of organisations of all sizes, she is passionate about using technology to make a positive impact and help organisations achieve their goals.

Stuart McSkimming, Podcast Host

Stuart is an independent consultant and founder of the sector-specific Technology consultancy, Virtue Chain . He is an award-winning leader with over twenty years’ experience in NFP/Charity leadership roles, predominantly in the technology/digital and transformation space. He is an expert in getting the most from teams and focusing organisations on strategic goals to get the most from Technology & Digital. He is passionate about organisations focusing on inclusion and finding ways to attract a diverse mix of top talent into their teams. He has worked as a CIO for two organisations – Shelter and Royal British Legion, and also a variety of roles elsewhere. Stuart is extensively networked in the not-for-profit sector both in the UK, and internationally, and is the Vice Chair of top membership organisation, Charity IT Leaders. Stuart enjoys regular public speaking, and also has been known to do stand-up comedy gigs occasionally.

Virtue Chain builds the link between enthusiastic and talented technology teams, and organisation strategic goals. By focusing on people, strategy, governance and decision-making structures, Virtue Chain can help your charity get the right leadership approach across Technology, Digital, Data, AI, and transformation. We use maturity models, and partnering approaches to help trustees, CEO’s and exec leaders see the potential for technology in their organisation, and understand where to start in turning ideas into action.

Get in contact with [email protected] if you’d like to chat. Typically the conversation starts from either a trustee, CEO or CTO level.

In case its not obvious, views expressed are Stuart’s own view, and don’t represent those of any organisations he is working with or mentions.