7.4. Garnering Leadership's Support

Different levels of leadership are needed in order to guarantee success. At the highest level, the executive sponsor provides strategic vision, influence, and (hopefully) money. The program manager and project manager bring continuity and tactical experience and leadership.

7.4.1. Sponsorship

Ah, my favorite topic: the all-important subject of sponsorship. I must confess that I am one of those people who dismissed the value of executive sponsorship. I thought that getting a sponsor interested in what you were doing and keeping his support was just too hard. All you really needed was a good plan and quick, positive progress. I was wrong! A sponsor is not sufficient to guarantee success (you also need a good plan and quick results), but a sponsor is necessary. Having an executive sponsor is critical because nothing in a project ever goes 100 percent right. An executive sponsor who understands this reality and understands the overall benefit the program brings to the organization can smooth over much resistance and remove many barriers. The sponsor should be as close to the top of your organization as you can get. If it's your company head, you're really in luck. In many large organizations, the sponsor won't actually be an active program participant, so his time commitment will be small but essential.

How to Find a Sponsor

The best situations occur when the sponsor finds you. If a senior executive in your company recognizes that if the company doesn't adopt a CRM approach, it's going to be very tough to stay competitive in the new marketplace, then you've got a great opportunity. In many cases, especially in larger companies, the momentum for CRM is identified somewhere in the middle of the organization where the chance of working directly with customers is greater.

If you are faced with finding a sponsor, here's what to look for.

• Someone who knows that no company is successful over the long haul unless it has loyal customers (and who believes that CRM can help)

• Someone who has realistic expectations and wants to know what is really going on, not just the good news

• Someone who is willing to take risks along with the team and is able to the take on the responsibility of removing barriers

Of course, not every executive understands that these are the responsibilities of a sponsor. If you find someone who is really enthusiastic about the opportunity and is “trainable,” then you may be fine. Sometimes the sponsor is chosen for you. But if your new sponsor has a reputation for thinking that customers are irrelevant, for wanting only good news, or for having wild dreams about what CRM can do to solve world hunger, then you should look for another sponsor. If that's not possible then perhaps you should walk away. If there's no senior executive who really “gets it,” your company may just not be ready for CRM.

How to Keep Your Sponsor Engaged

The most important things that a high-level sponsor can do for you are to keep the CRM program visible at high levels within the organization, keep the visibility positive, and keep executive expectations realistic. The best way to keep a sponsor engaged is to keep him very well informed.

Keeping you sponsor informed doesn't mean that you should come to him daily with problems to solve. But it is important for the sponsor to know the whole truth about what's going on. If he cannot answer questions or concerns that come up, he will quickly lose credibility for himself and for the program. It's also critical that he wants to know. If you're working with someone who only wants to hear about what's going well, get a new sponsor—or a new job!

Keeping him informed also doesn't mean loading him down with problems to solve. Use the sponsor as rarely as possible to resolve the most difficult problems or remove the worst roadblocks. The more the team can resolve and accomplish on its own, the more confidence the sponsor will have in your program. Cherish the time you get from your sponsor, and don't bog him down with little details or problems that the team can solve for itself. Briefly keep him aware of what problems and issues the team has been able to resolve so he can become informed about the complexity of a cross-functional program such as CRM.

The other key role that your sponsor can play is team building. Ask your sponsor to present the company's vision/goals/objectives for the future and to address how CRM will help make that happen. Help him to express appreciation for accomplishments at periodic team events. This is great for the team and maybe even more important for the sponsor (so he feels his ability to impact the program).

7.4.2. Chief Customer Officer

Frankly, the concept of establishing a position of Chief Customer Officer who is part of the CEO's staff and is responsible for the total customer experience has not been widely adopted by many companies today. It is very rare for a new senior staff position to be established. Too many factors, mainly tradition and political concerns surrounding power and span of control, stand in the way of enlarging the executive staff. The creation of the position of Chief Information Officer is a good example. Information Technology emerged under the direction of the controller because accounting and finance applications were the first business processes to be automated. As technology spread throughout the organization, there was lots of talk of having the head of the IT Department report directly to the head of the company because technology impacts the entire company. It's true that in the last few years many companies have established a Chief Information Officer (CIO) but in many cases, the CIO still reports into the head of Finance.

Still, the CCO is an idea that's worth discussion. The concept is a great one. Just as the CFO is responsible for seeing that financial considerations are taken into account during executive planning and decision making, the CCO is responsible for ensuring that customer considerations are taken into account. Customer privacy, which we cover in Chapter 22, should be one of the responsibilities of the CCO. Privacy is much more a customer relationship concern than a legal or political one.

7.4.3. Program Manager

The Program Manager brings good business perspective and continuity across all the projects that make up your program. The program manager must have a strong functional background and, in the case of CRM, often reports into the Marketing function, from which the leadership for CRM should spring. In some organizations, the CRM program manager is (temporarily?) assigned to the IT Department. This sometimes reflects that the company considers information technology truly strategic, but usually it means that the business functions have delegated the entire responsibility. Be very wary of this situation.

7.4.4. Project Manager

Each project manager brings a specific perspective and relevant experience to the management of each individual project. There may be several project managers assigned to different CRM projects at the same time. Each one is responsible for keeping the program manager and the core team apprised of the project status and any issues or risks that need resolution or escalation. The project manager is responsible for seeing that the infrastructure development project stays on schedule and meets expectations. For this reason, project managers often (but not always) report to Information Technology. The project manager is responsible for leading project team checkpoints and status meetings.