Mobile CRM - is it for real?

For this week, I thought I’d change it up a bit and talk a bit about my opinions on wireless. CRM is obviously one application for wireless technology. Interestingly, I was discussing wireless applications back in 2001 when the devices were still coming into their own. It really seemed for the last 5 years that there was a lot of talk, but very little action in deployment of wireless applications for sales. Wireless applications have been around for years in areas like transportation (FedEx, UPS) and consumer packaged goods (Frito-Lay, Pepsi). However, the mainstream sales community has really only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible with mobile technology.

I think most folks reading this article would agree that most mobile device usage has been for email, calendar, and contacts only. Most business people carry either a Blackberry, Palm, or Pocket PC enabled device and have a ‘push’ or ‘pull’ set up with their Outlook or other mail client (if there are folks out there still using Lotus and GroupWise)

As referenced in this great interview on Destination CRM (http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=6617&KeyWords=mobile++AND+devices)

The complexity around mobile deployment has a lot to do with all the pieces involved. The handheld and mobile phone market is very fragmented with many devices, networks, operating systems, and applications. Where an organization hasn’t put a corporate plan together – there is always going to be a hodgepodge of technology and vendors to deal with – that is if they even support the end users which aren’t on the plan. If you have a growing sales force or just a lot of customer facing end users which are out of the field – it probably makes sense to start standardizing on a mobility platform. Several of the carriers can offer the device, network, and voice/data plan.

Once you have a handle on the types of devices in the field, there is a lot that can be done from an application standpoint. I recently presented to a new Microsoft CRM client of mine who had standardized on the Samsung Blackjacks and HP Ipaq phones. We showed them the Mobile express client of Microsoft CRM which any device with a wireless browser can access. Their sales team at that moment saw value above and beyond just the device and the capabilities they had experienced so far. Now a sales person in the field can look up a service ticket history before walking into an account. A service technician can check to see if there are large opportunities pending at a ‘hot’ customer to make sure they get extra special care. When corporate data is accessible in the field – the right people, get the right data, in the right format, at the right time.

My client will be using CRM as the hub for mobile access but data will be integrated with CRM which includes inventory availability, open quotes and orders, shipment status, and other information which traditionally required a phone call to operations or accounting to obtain. The sales people will truly become mobile knowledge workers and be differentiated from their competition who has not made the same investments in technology.