Do you need to work with a partner to upgrade your on-premise CRM to the cloud?

In a previous blog post, we discussed some of the common challenges associated with a CRM implementation project such as an upgrade to the cloud from on-premise. This is why although it’s not essential to work with a CRM implementation partner, it’s a great idea to.

Let’s discuss why in more detail…

• You gain access to implementation experts and their knowledge
• No need to put together your own team of in-house specialists…
• …or recruit them
• It’s more cost-effective
• You get time back
• Fairly easy to find the right specialists

You gain access to implementation experts and their pool of knowledge

When you turn to an external company to handle your CRM implementation, you automatically gain access to experts and their pool of knowledge. The best consultancies/implementation partners will have years of experience and have worked across a range of industries and with different types of systems.

So, they’re likely to have worked with businesses similar to yours and led implementation projects of a similar scale. This gives you a competitive edge - your CRM implementation project will be handled by people who know what they’re doing and will follow best practices and they’ll be an extension of your team, ready to offer additional support when required.

No need to put together your own team of in-house specialists…

If you keep the project in-house, you’ll need to create a team of specialists in-house and rearrange their daily capacity to accommodate for their additional responsibilities. That might mean delegating their tasks to employees who aren’t directly involved in the implementation project or being prepared to delay other projects.

With outsourcing your implementation, there’s no need to do any of this. Your implementation experts will be provided by the consultancy.

…or recruit them

There’s every chance you may not already have a team of implementation specialists in-house. So, if you decided to take the in-house route, you’d need to hire them which takes time and can be costly.

Work with a partner and you automatically gain access to an exclusive pool of talent - minus the costs associated with recruitment and onboarding!

It’s more cost-effective

Leading on from the above, when you work with an implementation partner, you eliminate the costs associated with recruitment. That means there’s no need to find your specialists, onboard them, pay them or invest in new equipment, for example.

Instead, you have a contract with a consultancy and pay the agreed fee instead of individual salaries. This is why it’s often much more cost-effective to work with a partner than handling the implementation project in-house.

You get time back

Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash

One of the biggest benefits of working with a CRM implementation partner is that you and your teams get time back to focus on other tasks. For example, you don’t need to do any of the actual implementing.

You can communicate your goals to your partner and work with them to formulate a strategy in the initial planning meetings. But after that, they’ll essentially handle all the ‘dirty work’ while you can just dip in for the sign-offs and allocate your time to other vital business tasks.

Fairly easy to find the right specialists

If your partnership with your implementation experts isn’t working out for whatever reason, it’s relatively simple to request a new team or find a new partner. It’s harder to do this with an in-house team and usually takes longer as you’ll need to follow the appropriate dismissal procedure and take recruitment time into consideration, for example.

You can avoid working with the wrong implementation partner by taking various factors into account during your vetting process. For instance:

• Their level of experience in working with companies similar to yours
• Their reputation
• Their range of services

The next step is to find the right CRM implementation partner

By this point, you might be wondering how you can find the ideal partner to handle your CRM upgrade. We mentioned a few factors to consider during the vetting process but there’s more to it.

That’s why we created a guide to CRM implementations where you can read more on the differences between outsourcing and keeping it in-house, what to ask when you’re choosing a partner and more. Ready to get started? Click the button below.