// EDITOR’ S QUESTION //

Every month, we pose industry experts a question pertinent to the issues of the day. This month....

Iqbal Ahmad, Founder & CEO, Britannia School of Academics

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS FOR SMES TO MAXIMISE THEIR ROI IS TO REGULARLY MEASURE THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR CRM.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

MANAGEMENT( CRM) tool is used by businesses to manage, analyse and improve interactions with their customers. It enhances communication and improves customer service. But how can SMEs make sure they make the most of this software system? Four experts answer this question, starting below with a response from Iqbal Ahmad, Founder & CEO from Britannia School of Academics:

Being a leadership mentor with more than 15 years of experience and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, I have worked with various SMEs. In my experience, it’ s not about the CRM that maximises the return on investment, but depends upon how an organisation approaches its implementation and utilisation. Having multiple qualifications such as an MBA and a professional accounting background, I have experienced that if you want to establish a successful CRM implementation, you need an approach with strategic alignment, systematic adoption and continuous optimisation which is also known as a Three Pillar Approach.

First things first, you need to identify your business objectives and align your CRM accordingly. To make the best use of your CRM make sure to focus on the core needs of your business and then utilise the related capabilities of CRM. For instance, in my business, I focus on gathering leads and for this particular objective I have integrated forms into my CRM so that when a learner submits an enquiry form, it directly lands on our CRM. Not only this, I have also integrated the live chat feature into our CRM to differentiate the medium of leads for analysis.

This systematic approach is very important for ROI optimisation. I have seen many organisations which I mentored manage to get better results which understand their business needs and utilise the CRM for ROI optimisation in different phases rather than implementing everything all at once. According to Nucleus Research’ s 2023 CRM Technology Value Matrix, organisations implementing CRM in phases reported 28 % higher user adoption rates in the first year compared to those attempting fullscale deployment.

This is because it would be wise to understand your user behaviours by using data analytics and then utilise CRM features accordingly that address your business needs. As an ACCA professional, I couldn’ t stress more on the importance of data analytics because establishing clear protocols of data entry and auditing procedures enables businesses for informed decisions and makes a CRM a trusted source for their business goals.

One of the most important factors for SMEs to maximise their ROI is to regularly measure the performance of your CRM. Make sure the features you have installed and integrated comply with your business model or predetermined KPIs. Doing so will help SMEs to fill the gaps and with continuous improvement of the system will eventually leads to higher return on investment( ROI).

Finally, one thing that SEMs need to understand is that CRM is not just a technology investment but a business transformation tool. They need to shape it according to their business needs. Even SMEs with low budgets can get significant returns on their CRM investment if they do proper planning as per their business requirements, phased implementation based on data analytics and continuous optimisation.

20 Intelligent SME. tech