November 25, 2011 at 13:16How much does it cost not to implement MRM?
Good Friday, Habr! Readers of our blog are always welcome!
When it comes to introducing a new IT solution at an enterprise, you can for a long time, in detail and colorfully describe the capabilities of the proposed system, how it is convenient to use and how it “improves efficiency” and “promotes the integration of processes”. If you do this really well, the client to whom you are trying to sell this solution will listen to you, and perhaps even with interest. But then he will inevitably ask the SAME question. No, not even "how much does it cost?" And "why does it cost SO much and why do we even pay for it"?
The question is relevant for any IT-solutions aimed at optimizing business processes - be it electronic document management systems, CRM, ERP, and ... that they still have time to invent. And it might be interesting to know how BrandMaker responds to it.
For MRM solutions, to which BrandMaker belongs, it is doubly difficult to answer this question, because assessing the effectiveness of marketing work in itself is a very non-trivial task. And here you also need to understand how the implementation of the new system will affect this efficiency.
But, nevertheless, you can answer. And for this you need to look at the situation a bit from the other side. And how much does it cost NOT to implement MRM? How much does the company cost “working the old fashioned way” and ignoring modern capabilities for automating business processes?
In one of the previous articles - about what specialized software for marketing really can provide - partially formulated areas of savings. There are at least two or three “iron” arguments that can be given when asking about the direct measurable economic effect of the implementation.
First of all, it's time. Any specialized software ensures that typical work operations are performed much faster. Well, otherwise why is it needed at all.
But there is a nuance. If you show the system to ordinary performers and prove that, for example, with a single repository of media objectsthey will spend on searching and transferring the desired file not in half an hour, but in a matter of seconds - they will appreciate it. But not their leader. The leader, and especially the owner, needs to talk not about how the system will make life easier for his subordinates, but about the direct benefit. And therefore, saving time must immediately be converted from minutes and hours to rubles.
If we talk about BrandMaker, then, based on the existing implementation experience, the system allows you to save up to 30% of the working time of marketing staff by automating and speeding up typical tasks. The exact figures for each client, of course, are different, and more or less accurately assessed only after the audit of business processes immediately before the implementation of the system. But at the beginning of negotiations it is better to have at least approximate figures than none at all.
So: if you save up30% of the time of your employees is, in fact, 30% of the salary fund for employees of marketing departments. This is the time they are now losing from month to month for all sorts of small unproductive operations related to sending files by e-mail, ordering and agreeing on small alterations of advertising layouts, monitoring the execution of small orders, compiling reports for management, and so on and so forth. According to some estimates, all this purely administrative routine takes up to 2/3 of the marketer's working day. And for the remaining third, you need to have time to do what the marketers are actually paid for - to develop ways to promote products on the market.
Secondly, this is a reduction in the risks associated with the influence of the “human factor”.
These risks are always present in any field of activity. In marketing, these are, for example, mistakes in advertising layouts, because of which you have to reprint the print run. The price of the error, of course, is also different, and depends on the size of the client. It’s one thing to screw up a batch of business cards of 500 copies, and it’s quite another thing, for example, to agree to print 100,000 booklets with an error in the main telephone number. And, of course, you should never talk about a 100% guarantee of the exclusion of the “human factor”, because in any case there is a risk of incorrect use of the system or intentional violation.
Thirdly, it saves on outsourcing services . In the case of BrandMaker (if using Web-to-Print technologies) - this is saving on small orders for the designer - on typesetting corporate business cards and badges, for example, or adjusting texts on ready-made layouts.
Well, after talking about these three things that are associated with specific economic effects, you can already move on to the topic ofspaceships plowing the effect of synergy, integration of processes, strengthening control, and so on and so forth. These are also very important things, which ultimately have an economic effect, but calculating it in advance is much more difficult. This means that it’s more difficult to convince the client that this effect will be.
BrandMaker Russia www.brandmaker.com
When it comes to introducing a new IT solution at an enterprise, you can for a long time, in detail and colorfully describe the capabilities of the proposed system, how it is convenient to use and how it “improves efficiency” and “promotes the integration of processes”. If you do this really well, the client to whom you are trying to sell this solution will listen to you, and perhaps even with interest. But then he will inevitably ask the SAME question. No, not even "how much does it cost?" And "why does it cost SO much and why do we even pay for it"?
The question is relevant for any IT-solutions aimed at optimizing business processes - be it electronic document management systems, CRM, ERP, and ... that they still have time to invent. And it might be interesting to know how BrandMaker responds to it.
For MRM solutions, to which BrandMaker belongs, it is doubly difficult to answer this question, because assessing the effectiveness of marketing work in itself is a very non-trivial task. And here you also need to understand how the implementation of the new system will affect this efficiency.
But, nevertheless, you can answer. And for this you need to look at the situation a bit from the other side. And how much does it cost NOT to implement MRM? How much does the company cost “working the old fashioned way” and ignoring modern capabilities for automating business processes?
In one of the previous articles - about what specialized software for marketing really can provide - partially formulated areas of savings. There are at least two or three “iron” arguments that can be given when asking about the direct measurable economic effect of the implementation.
First of all, it's time. Any specialized software ensures that typical work operations are performed much faster. Well, otherwise why is it needed at all.
But there is a nuance. If you show the system to ordinary performers and prove that, for example, with a single repository of media objectsthey will spend on searching and transferring the desired file not in half an hour, but in a matter of seconds - they will appreciate it. But not their leader. The leader, and especially the owner, needs to talk not about how the system will make life easier for his subordinates, but about the direct benefit. And therefore, saving time must immediately be converted from minutes and hours to rubles.
If we talk about BrandMaker, then, based on the existing implementation experience, the system allows you to save up to 30% of the working time of marketing staff by automating and speeding up typical tasks. The exact figures for each client, of course, are different, and more or less accurately assessed only after the audit of business processes immediately before the implementation of the system. But at the beginning of negotiations it is better to have at least approximate figures than none at all.
So: if you save up30% of the time of your employees is, in fact, 30% of the salary fund for employees of marketing departments. This is the time they are now losing from month to month for all sorts of small unproductive operations related to sending files by e-mail, ordering and agreeing on small alterations of advertising layouts, monitoring the execution of small orders, compiling reports for management, and so on and so forth. According to some estimates, all this purely administrative routine takes up to 2/3 of the marketer's working day. And for the remaining third, you need to have time to do what the marketers are actually paid for - to develop ways to promote products on the market.
Secondly, this is a reduction in the risks associated with the influence of the “human factor”.
These risks are always present in any field of activity. In marketing, these are, for example, mistakes in advertising layouts, because of which you have to reprint the print run. The price of the error, of course, is also different, and depends on the size of the client. It’s one thing to screw up a batch of business cards of 500 copies, and it’s quite another thing, for example, to agree to print 100,000 booklets with an error in the main telephone number. And, of course, you should never talk about a 100% guarantee of the exclusion of the “human factor”, because in any case there is a risk of incorrect use of the system or intentional violation.
Thirdly, it saves on outsourcing services . In the case of BrandMaker (if using Web-to-Print technologies) - this is saving on small orders for the designer - on typesetting corporate business cards and badges, for example, or adjusting texts on ready-made layouts.
Well, after talking about these three things that are associated with specific economic effects, you can already move on to the topic of
BrandMaker Russia www.brandmaker.com