Jobs involving technology?

If selecting CRM technology is a #JTBD, what jobs need to be done before this, what actors play a part and do these jobs, in fact, belong to the CRM family if jobs?

• Here are a few things to consider with regard to this question. The premise is that CRM software does not guarantee business outcomes. Do you understand what your customers value (it's not your product)? How do you measure that and how do you track change over time? What process do you go through to design product solutions, service solutions and/or experiences which align to this value? How do you design your strategies for getting these things to market and supporting them during their consumption? How do you determine your internal capabilities, and those of your partners (or customers) and how do you develop them where they fall short? What is your plan for measuring the results of these things and adapting as the market changes? Is there more opportunity for the CRM industry to help companies get more (and more important) jobs done that happen before we begin selecting technology? What do you think?

• Answer:

  I think the short answer to your question is "yes." There are important questions that need to be asked, decisions that need to be made, and processes that need to be created (tweaked, optimized, and tuned) before CRM packages can be evaluated and selected. I think this applies to most software, but the challenge is particularly prevalent in CRM. In most instances, we can assume that CRM is being integrated into a somewhat flawed sales process (no process is 100% perfect). Because we tend to view software as  helping us accelerate, organize, and optimize, we hope that the implementation of CRM will help us clean up the problems that exist in our processes. This is rarely true (the business world is littered with failed CRM implementations). I think there is a huge opportunity in the CRM industry related to helping organizations clean up these processes before selecting and implementing CRM. The problem i see is that software providers are typically put in a "software provider" bucket in the buyer's mind. Working up the chain to "sales process consultant" is extremely difficult. It takes a great salesperson to help a client understand that before they spend a bunch of money implementing CRM, they should spend a bunch of money addressing the other "jobs" that you mention in your question.