‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a legal IT manager in possession of a CRM implementation, must be in search of trouble,’ says Jane Austen (or something similar at least). CRM systems, for so long a mainstay of the legal IT market, have developed something of a troublesome reputation. They are perceived as being expensive and their implementation can be prone to embarrassing failures, with much-vaunted software packages gently mouldering on the network, ignored by users and falling quickly into disuse.

Does this mean that CRM is dead, as all acronyms must die when the next, new thing is introduced by IT vendors? At Tikit we don’t think that is the case. CRM has a hugely valuable role to play in a relationship business like the legal sector. The answer is not to throw the baby out with the bath water, but instead to work out what is wrong and to make it right.

The core reason that CRM implementations have failed in the past has not been a failure of the technology – CRM packages themselves are in many ways quite simple. Instead, what has gone wrong has been an overly strong focus on that technology. A fully featured CRM strategy isn’t just about sticking in a piece of technology out of the box, it’s about looking at the ways in which people work with data about their clients and partners and trying to use all the available methods of enhancing those working practices.

Tikit has seen more than its fair share of CRM implementations. We’ve completed over 70 CRM-system implementations and our CRM group works with over 40 of the top 100 UK law firms. All of those successful implementations have taught us a thing or two about CRM strategies and we have been able to capture and codify what it is we think makes CRM work.

What we’ve come up with is the 3Cs approach to successful implementations. We believe that a CRM implementation strategy needs to be built upon a clear understanding of the culture of a firm, the content that it holds and therefore the capabilities of the system that it requires. Ignoring any of these aspects means that the resulting CRM implementation will, at some level, fail. It might work as an effective contact management tool, but it won’t live up to the full potential of a properly constructed system.

• Culture
  The culture of a firm is hugely important in any IT implementation, but even more so in CRM. People work with relationships every day and so the management of these assets is vital to any business. Before you even lift a screwdriver, you need to think about how to make a system fit into the culture. How do you manage change for users? What are the business processes that a CRM system is trying to fit into? How do you market a new system internally to ensure usage?

• Content
  The content that a CRM system will encompass is also vital – before you put your firm’s CRM data into a system, you need to make sure that your data is clean and also that it is compliant with data protection regulations. You also need to think about how content will be managed on an ongoing basis – how do you keep it fresh, how do you ensure users are entering information onto the system?

• Capability
  The consideration of the first two Cs lead you directly to the last, the capabilities of the technology that is needed to fit into the culture of the firm and manage its CRM content. Only once you’ve considered these ‘softer’ issues should the hard facts of technology come into play. The base software must be capable of supporting the level of functionality required by the firm and be configured to do so by qualified and experienced implementation consultants. Additionally, the software must be capable of delivering ‘content in context’ by allowing users to interact with the system from their most commonly used interface – for example Word or Outlook.

The 3Cs approach is about bringing a broader view to CRM implementations. It’s about considering the real-life impact of a system before even thinking about the technology that will power it. It’s only in this way that legal IT managers can protect themselves from implementation risk and ensure that they maximise the return on their CRM investment.

Simon Elven is the managing consultant at Tikit.
Christopher Young is the senior consultant at Tikit.
Michael Warren is the client services director at Shamrock Marketing.