This blog is based on the Eligeo CRM Gap Analysis spreadsheet that is available to download for free here.
Finding the Gap’s in your implementation
What exactly is a Gap Analysis? Specifically, what is a CRM Gap Analysis? This is a very common tool that we use at Eligeo CRM to help us identify conflicts between a current state and future state of an organization. It’s very helpful when it comes to identifying risk and also establishing additional requirements for things such as training and communication planning. The Gap Analysis tool will help you think through the entire process to ensure you haven’t missed anything as you introduce new functionality to your organization.
Using the Free CRM Gap Analysis Template
This exercise is best done with a group of of business stakeholders and typically someone who’s had experience developing gap analysis documents in the past. When you look through the template you will notice a number of columns to fit each row.
What does each row represent? It is basically an objective, goal or situation.
Each row can be any of the following:
- A stated goal (i.e. reduce call volumes by 50%).
- A financially motivated metric such as reducing the cost of XYZ widgets by $10.
- Introduction of mobile device solutions.
Develop Future State Examples
Always start off with your future state example as they are typically the easiest to write down. If for say you want to move all of your database systems to the cloud, this would be an example of future state. This is a very common one for CRM implementations as many companies move off of on-premise solutions to take advantage of the cost savings of moving to a cloud infrastructure.
You can usually find your future state examples by examining business requirements and project goals.
Constructing the Current State
Once you’ve identified your future states you can then start working through identifying where things sit today. If you’ve used the example from the previous section of moving to the cloud then your obvious current state is that you have an on-premise solution to contend with today.
What is the gap?
The idea behind an identified gap is that you’re looking for conflict in the current and future state. Our example that we are working through in this blog shows a movement from on-premise to the cloud. There is an obvious conflict between the two in the fact that we have a huge infrastructure change.
So what is the gap? What actions need to be taken? Once you’ve identified the gap you need to either mitigate it or eliminate any risk that it might pose. It isn’t just to do with technology either as you need to account for such things as people impact or addressing issues related to financial impacts. There are a number of things to account for.
I’ve worked in many projects where some of the actions and steps needed to address gaps required a full blown project of its on. It all depends on the complexity of the change you’re encountering.
For more on handling gap analysis feel free to
contact us.