IT chump information technology and system administration

Best Practices

Benchmarking

In many implementations there may be opportunities to quickly review key client metrics against other similarly sized or like industry organizations in order to gain a comfort level or possibly provide insight to the client for future planning. In a CRM implementation, there are likely to be many tasks and processes where the client may ask itself “Is this the best way to do this?” Oftentimes, that answer can be provided by comparing process benchmarks and benchmark metrics with similar global organizations. ERP and CRM-specific benchmarks that may be meaningful for an Aplicor client professional services engagement include the following:

Account Manager operational metrics (for example, the number of accounts managed, average number of touch points, frequency of touches, etc.)
New Hire Time To Effectiveness
Suspect to Lead to Prospect to Closed sale ratios and cycle times (for export successes)
Lead generation response and conversion rates

Benchmarking reviews are sometimes closely aligned with best practices achievements and also provide a basis to quickly compare an organization’s own way of doing things with the methods of other like organizations. Oftentimes, the correct apples-to-apples comparisons demonstrate reference points which provide management confidence while on other occasions management can identify inefficient processes and target them for improvement in the future.

Sample benchmark types and figures are presented below in order to illustrate the type of benchmarking data which may stem from the Aplicor system and be a part of a client benchmarking project.