The CRM Trap
I’ve been using and dealing with Information Systems for far longer than I would like to admit to. They can come in all sorts of shapes and names. MIS, EHR, and CRM are just a few of them, but they all do they same thing, and come with the same promise. That promise is a sweet smelling trap that companies and organizations for for time and time again.
Let me be clear here, I’m not blaming them for falling for it. Its made to be enticing, almost irresistible, but its still a trap.
The trap is the idea that the system will be easy to use and will solve all the issues your company has with information management. Sorry, but its just not true and has never been true.
Why do I think this?
I was employed by a group of private schools to deal with their information system. They called them an MIS. Just like similar systems, they have customers, workers, reports, sales, invoices, logistic etc, so don’t think an MIS has nothing to do with a CRM. There are several companies that offer an MIS based around the Open Source CRM Odoo. All you do is start slapping different labels of items and add some custom modules. (Yes, I’m over simplifying this, but not by much).
I was less than impressed with the system I was employed to deal with. It was seriously expensive and the tech stack was horridly bad. Just imagine that someone started with excel and Access, with a UI and then built up from there.
So why did I have a job there. Well close your eyes and see an advert of a couple in an office, chatting about using a CRM and showing off that they can do all sorts of thing with the CRM without any help. Got it? Feel the idea? See the Dream? Well it doesn’t take long to see this as a fairy tale. The schools did, so I ended up with a job to sort this all out for them. To do all those things that were promised would be easy.
If you think I’m exaggerating here, I walked in on an IT teacher stressed and crying because they couldn’t get important reports working. They were far from the first or last.
Just making sure you understand here, this wasn’t one bad apple of an application. No there were far more of them out there. As a system designer, NONE of them met my expectations.
The Reporting Problem
This is one of the biggest issues I’ve come across with all of these systems. First off, they are never as easy to use as you think they are. You need to have in-depth knowledge of how the data is organized and stored. In a lot of cases, this is moving more into the data scientist realm.
The Second issue is the server/s your running your reports on. The system your using is designed to deal with writing and updating lots of records. This in many cases reduces the speed at which it reads. When you create reports, the data your using comes from all over the database and this has a massive impact on the performance of the server. I’ve already come across multiple instances where data is duplicated from the Primary system to a duplicate at night time, just so they can run reports.
Medical Information Systems
My last project was in the Medical industry, and guess what. Same story. overly complex, terrible technical stack, and most of the time causes almost as many issues as it fixed. There are also other similarities that I will discuss soon.
CRM’s
So lets talk about the one we nearly all know of. CRM’s . As I said, they are not much different. The underlying structures and design is fairly universal. Take a look at the offerings from the most expensive to the cheapest or free like Odoo and you will see the similarities. All of them saying,
Our system is easy. Come to us and all your information management dreams will be answered
Behind the facade
Lets take a look at these systems and the reasons a lot of you end up on the floor crying in frustration with them.
Its Big BUSINESS
Yep. First rule of anything is to follow the money. All of these systems are big money earners. We are talking about selling to Enterprises, schools, hospitals, universities, and clinics. They will all pay big money to help them out of their data issues. For the majority of them, the ones choosing the information system are not part of the IT team. The system is seen as a tool for management and the workers, so they are the ones who choose.
Blood in the water. The sharks are circling
So what we end up with is a bunch of people who are not used to seeing through the IT fetal matter thrown at them. Again, I don’t blame them. They are targeted.
Looking at the companies selling these systems and you will see that their marketing budget, is,, eerrr… BIG. Its also aimed at the workers and managers, with the idea they can get their foot in the door before someone sees the truth.
Medical and Educational
If you think the CRM’s for businesses are bad, then you will be shocked at what gets pushed onto your Doctors and Teachers. Its horrid. A lot of the time the companies come with Government backing as well.
No, I’m not wearing a tin foil hat. The market for the Medical and Educational industries are more or less controlled by a small handful of companies. Its a bit like an Election I won’t go into, where you get to vote for Old White Guy A or Old White Guy B.
The similarities don’t stop there because the software being offered is about as old and outdated the the example above.
The Helpful business Model
So, you’ve been sold a CRM that’s not doing what you thought it should. We no problem. The Company will send their consultants to help out. … For a Premium Price.
The really big boys, keep documentation, and details of their system close to their chests and in a lot cases, its nearly impossible to find the answers yourself.
I have to say that newer CRM’s on the market are better about this, actually supplying documentation and access to their API. There are hidden charges somewhere though. For the older ones, access to API’s come at a HUGE cost and only after you sign away your life.
So What’s the Answer?
Well there’s a saying “if its too good to be true, then its not”. There is not CRM, MIS, EHR, etc., you can get that will not require you to get at least one specialist to help you maintain and use it. The idea that anyone can sit at their desk and make wonderful reports, amazing dashboards, and workflows to control everything, is just not true.
Information Management is a specialist job. So are things like report creations, dashboards, and workflow. You need to go forward with the assumption that you will need one or more people to help you take advantage of your CRM.
Also ensure that if you are walking into a room with a marketing person from the CRM company, then you need to be amoured and expect brown stuff being flung all over the place. I am not saying this to be nasty. CRM/MIS/EHR’s are needed, but we must all demand more from these companies and not fall into the same traps.