How to Avoid the Tyranny of Best Practices in Implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The great selling point of software, and computers in general, is that they allow businesses and individuals to perform everyday tasks more efficiently than ever before. Imagine a world without email and Blackberries where communicating with someone on the other side of the world involves waiting for a window of timezones and then calling them on the phone. If you need to send them a document, you send a fax or post it to them on a storage device.

This was the world a little over 20 years ago.

Software has come a long way and now entire business processes are managed through software. One line of software that has become increasingly important in managing business processes is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Traditionally employed for the management of sales, from lead to close, CRM now stretches beyond its original design to encompass multiple aspects of a business. This is what Paul Greenberg coined xRM, back in 2001, where the ‘x' is any important factor governing a business' operations.

I work with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which is designed to allow for flexible business processes. This is as it should be. The last thing we need Dynamics CRM to do is help us achieve "best practices."

I understand this may seem like a curious statement, since we all want to run our companies as well as possible; If someone has analysed an industry, say, engine manufacture, and has determined the best way to do it, why would we not adopt the process?

The answer is in the assumptions behind 'best practice'. If we review a specific process within an industry, the concept of ‘best practice' assumes that all companies are trying to achieve exactly the same result. The thing is, one of the ...