Research Enterprise CRM/CLM

Provide guidance, write research plan, interview questions, and surveys, for an American Fortune 50 multinational corporation of a ready-to-eat/ready-to-drink franchise chain known for coffee.

 

Lead a 3 person research team to gather requirements about the CRM/CLM application, and the needs of stakeholders. The research team's specialties include supply chain management, audit, and user experience design. We met with the CEO and his team to kick off the research, to discuss their needs and timeframe, and the results they are seeking. The CEO gave us carte blanche to meet with anyone in the company.

 

The stakeholder engagement proposal suggests that organizations should provide opportunities for input and contribution to decisions that impact individuals or groups who can affect or are affected by the organization's purpose. Inclusive engagement enables interaction, which fosters buy-in and ownership. Encouraging stakeholder participation results in more effective and efficient change management.

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The scope incorporates conducting interviews to decide on which integrated CRM/CLM system is capable of managing all aspects of the relationship between the licensee and channel partner and the organization.

 

This research initiative involves three organizations: international retail, global channel development, and North American licensed stores. The primary objective is for the selected system to support corporate channels and licensed growth through enhanced productivity and collaboration engagements throughout the contracting lifecycle.

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To achieve this goal, three key areas are addressed in formulating the research questions and decisions about whom to interview based on initial gap analysis:
1. Contract lifecycle management, which will focus on improving productivity and collaboration across all stages of the contracting lifecycle.
2. 360 customer relationship management, to provide a single solution for tracking, analyzing, and managing workflows across licensee and partnership performance, operations, and compliance. This drives a holistic understanding and coaching approach to managing business relationships and partnerships.

3. Standards lifecycle management, to establish a central repository for partnerships and licensees to seamlessly access Global Standards while enabling efficient processes throughout the standards lifecycle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who are the CRM/CLM users?
•    Channel Development
•    Design and Store Delivery 
•    Digital Marketing / Sales
•    International Audit
•    Legal Team
•    Marketing and Branding 
•    Ops

•    Product
•    Regional Offices 
•    Store Licensing
•    Strategy / Long Term Planning
•    Supply Chain
•    IT

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What are some issues is the company trying to solve?

The corporation faces complex challenges that require solutions from a CRM / CLM system. They aim to strengthen and streamline their business development and strategy by improving license scorecard throughput, documenting and sharing engagement notes, tracking joint business decisions, synchronizing launches with contracting, and making operational assessment reporting easier.

 

They also seek to enhance their licensee portal, improve visibility to coverage on local sourcing approvals, and manage orders and shipments. Additionally improve local sourcing request infrastructures, track manufacturing site requests and approvals, and monitor major supplier evolution during regular business reviews.

 

They need workflows and tracking for new product development processes used to manage the development of new products, from ideation to launch. Improve the stages and gateways that the product passes through during development, and marketing approvals, as well as validate channel sales, document tribal knowledge/processes, and track and memorialize economic decisions.

 

Completion

After 25 video and phone interviews and a survey, we determined that Salesforce had the best functionality of the three proposed CRMs. It was confirmed as the right choice due to requirements that were also outlined in the discovery phase of the proposal. The need for the legal team to draft and store custom licensing agreements was a requirement that only Salesforce fulfilled. 

 

We met with the CEO and team to present our findings, with the conclusion, and then provide detailed illustrations regarding why this is the right decision. The legal teams using this functionality were the determining factor so they can track and trace all changes, riders, and amendments to the licensee contracts now and in the future, significantly reducing the time spend to make edits and locate various versions by date using timelines.

 

I prepared the PowerPoint presentations used for the proposal, findings, and recommendations. The company agreed with the recommendation and licensed the product per our recommendation.