In a few hours, I'll be winging my way to Chicago (City of the Big Shoulders, home of deep dish pizza and the Blues Brothers) to cover Sage Summit. This is the customer counterpart to Sage Insights, the partner event held on Mothers Day every year, which I also attend annually (sorry Mom).
This year there's a difference: Not only will I be reporting on the announcements and whatnot that come out of the show—and there should be plenty, what with Sage's recent executive shakeup—but I'll be hosting a discussion on end-user adoption of CRM. And I must say that I'm a little nervous.
It's not that I haven't performed in front of crowds before, goodness knows. Or that I don't have some experience dealing with the topic at hand. I'm just wondering why it's still an issue. How is it possible that, after 20 years, businesses can't get their employees to use software of proven value. Whether it's simple contact management software or more full-featured SFA/CRM, a decently implemented app can help workers stay on top of their accounts, earn more, and keep the boss happy. And that's just the old-school CRM we're talking about—heads might explode if I go all social media on my audience.
I need to figure out how to bring some real insight to these people about how to get their workers involved, without merely rehashing the old crap. (Also, it would be good manners to not mention Sage competitors like Entellium, since they're paying for my trip and all.) I'm not on the hook for the entire hour, fortunately; I'll have a couple of guests (whom I haven't met yet) who can share their own stories of successful adoption. In fact, I'm hoping they can really sell the hour for me, since nothing teaches like examples. Everybody in my audience will come from different backgrounds, verticals, company sizes, and all the other variables that make for a headache in reaching the masses.
I could say something here about how the companies I'm trying to reach are customers for purposes of this event, and Sage does a good job of maintaining a two-way conversation with them. And they do, no question about it. But if they need to get a schmuck like me to talk to their customers about user adoption of established, well-liked, and not unreasonably complex applications that will help those users, I wonder what the future holds. This is a CRM topic, but it's even more of a business process and operations topic; who's going to lead the talk on how to engage customers on their own terms, which is where things are moving? Who reminds them that the best CRM system in the world can't answer the need for keeping your business practices up to date and being willing to relinquish a hefty chunk of the power to the customer?
I guess it's me. I'm not sure if I can do it alone.
I love this idea and i think I could get my friends join up quick.
Posted by: Laptops | May 19, 2011 at 12:25 PM