When Is a CRM Application Not a CRM Application?

Jordan's Furniture's Inspired CRM Usage Matches Company's Innovative Culture

Peter Clark had an interesting dilemma. The MIS director for Jordan's Furniture, a Waltham, Massachusetts, chain of furniture stores, was looking for software to help his facilities department manage its properties. The last thing on his mind was Customer Relationship Management ("CRM”) software.

What did concern Clark was that the applications designed expressly for facilities management were either too powerfulăand costly for his end-usersę needs, or they simply weren't robust enough. And the storage requirements for his company's property management were becoming overwhelming. Project development data, property maintenance records, property management records, contracts and service agreements were all maintained in separate systems or simply kept in boxes in separate locations. The simple act of auditing a vendor's performance had become a nightmare and the problems were getting worse.

Clark already had a full plate. His responsibilities included a UNIX/oracle server and a dozen NT servers, 400 PCs and 400 mainframe terminals spread across four stores and two warehouses. And the nagging requirements of the facilities users were growing.

An act of serendipity pointed Clark to a CRM application. Another Jordanęs department was investigating CRM software and Clark found that the open architecture of one of the applications, SalesLogix, might be suited to his needs. "We realized that this was designed for a mobile sales force but I began to wonder if the flexibility in the application might work for us” recalls Clark, "Although the name alone put me off. I really wasn't looking for anything even remotely related to sales.”

Despite his misgivings, Clark contacted SalesLogix Scottsdale, Arizona, headquarters and was referred to Compulan. The Woburn, Massachusetts, VAR had been installing CRM solutions for some 14 years and approached the project cautiously. Mark Engelberg, Compulanęs president, recalls, –Weęd done a lot to tailor SalesLogix in the past but Clark was looking at a whole new order of customization and I wanted to be certain we could do what he wanted before I made any commitment to him.”

Clark and Engelberg met in the beginning of 1999. Although he approached the project cautiously, Clark began to see the possibilities. He remembered the first hints that SalesLogix might be adapted to work as a property management tool. "The fields and columns and tables could all be modified” he recounts, –And the Compulan people didn't try to oversell us. That was very important because we were still pretty leery. They ended up doing quite a bit of work to demonstrate to usăand to themselves, I thinkăthat SalesLogix could work for us.”

By April, Clark was convinced that Compulan using SalesLogix could make the project work. SalesLogix is organized around an account table, a set of records that normally describe the make-up of a customer or prospect. The account record was modified to describe and store information about property records. The parallels went further. Sales reps keep tabs on prospects until they become customers. Jordan's used the same architecture substituting projects possible property acquisitions for prospects and properties for customers.

The requirements went beyond simply renaming data tables. "We needed something that would manage both project management tasks and also offer traditional property management tools. We had to be able to scan documents into the application so that we could associate anything from Gant charts to contract pages to e-mail to blueprints to the various project records. And we needed to be able to identify when a prospective project-a warehouse, a new store, etc.-became a new property and still keep all of the attachments such as e-mail, blueprints or CAD drawings with the project.”

Now the work started in earnest. The modified database had to be designed in detail and a scheme to import records maintained in other applications had to be created. Design meetings lasted into the summer. By mid-July, Compulan delivered a beta version of the database, modified to Jordanęs specific needs. The end-users were trained on the software in August. By November, records maintained in other applications had been imported into SalesLogix.

How did the customization process go from Jordanęs point of view? "It took several passes” explains Clark. "The vendor was pretty diligent and patient too, because as our end-users began to understand more and more of what the application could do, our requirements began to change.

When asked what the hardest part of the implementation was, Clark doesnęt hesitate. "It's getting the finished product to match end-user expectations. Ięve been involved in a lot of software implementations and they are never without changes. You end up with a finished product thatęs bigger than what you expect at the onset because the users begin to understand the product's capabilities and then want more. It was very important to us that the VAR was able to explain, step-by-step what they were doing and how it was beyond the original scope of their engagement.”

A lot changed at Jordan's as a result of this implementation. Instead of searching literally for days through box after box of records for an important document, the faculties staff can call up the records they need in seconds because they files are attached to a property record in SalesLogix.

Clark thinks that other companies might do well to "think beyond the box" and consider an application like SalesLogix for other purposes, but not without a great deal of care and due diligence. –First of all, youęll need a good relationship with the developer and make sure that your communication with all members of the developeręs staff is good.”

How can you be certain that you're working with the right VAR? "Communication is the key” Clark reiterates. "We met several times, and at great length, just to be sure that our vendor could do what they said they could. We gave them an overview of what we wanted and challenged them to prove to us that they could do it. They showed us some mock-ups. Not just print screens with field names changed. They showed us the links and joins. They mocked up one of our warehouses and one of our projects and showed all of the cross-references to our vendors.

"You should be prepared to pay them for the work-ups” Clark cautions. "And you should insist that your end-users participate in the design sessions. Youęll find out that the end-users will come up with great ideas. And if they are not involved, your project will be at risk.”

Thereęs more in the future for Jordan's. The company, an acknowledged innovator in the furniture business is looking for new ways to make more of its business paperless and is looking at overhauling its purchase-order system to make it electronic also. But for now, the iconoclastic retailer continues to "break the rulesę by using a CRM system to manage buildings rather than helping to build customer relationships.

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