How To Be a Valuable Consultant

Mukund CRM mukund_ks34@hotmail.com
Member

Posted 11-Mar-2004 08:54 AM
Hi Graham,

Greetings, I read your profile. I believe that your experience in this sector might answer my question. When one says Independent CRM Consultant does it mean him as an individual or a group of people designated by him. What are the pros and cons of being an independent consultant. How does one market himself or his services. What are the skills sets in terms of functional and technical that he has to be equipped with.

Regards

KS Mukund
CRM System Specialist
mukund_ks34@hotmail.com

Graham Hill
Guru
Member

Posted 15-Mar-2004 12:24 AM
Hi Mukund CRM

This is a tough question to answer. Not because the answer is complex, but because it depends upon where you have come from and what you want to do.

Let me illustrate what I mean with my own case.

I started my CRM career with British Airways in the mid-80s. I was actually employed as an Operations Researcher to develop mathematical models for aircraft scheduling. But during my stay at BA I developed an interest in Marketing after reading Ted Levitt's book 'The Marketing Imagination' and in organisational change through taking part in the change programme underway at BA at the time.

I then joined KPMG Management Consulting as a systems developer. This gave me a thorough grounding in IT systems analysis and structured systems development. It also gave me the chance to work on major CRM reengineering projects for companies like Ford.

After KPMG I worked for OASiS Group—a CRM reengineering specialist—reengineering CRM in more big companies.

After a spell as an independent consultant at Ford, I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (Price Waterhouse as it was at the time) as a CRM specialist. This gave me the chance to extend my knowledge, skills and experiences into other industries, other countries and in a big company like PwC, to work on some interesting leading-edge CRM assignments.

All the jobs allowed me to develop an extensive network of contacts in different companies around the world. This is perhaps the most important advantage working with these world-class companies gave me.

I now work as an independent consultant. This means working through my contacts developed over the years to find interesting work in the CRM and management consulting space. It also means working with other independent consultants and specialist to deliver work. I work closely with Sophron Partners in London—the definitive customer value management consultancy in my opinion—and a range of other leading-edge CRM consultancies, such as CMI in Amsterdam on an adhoc basis.

The best way to promote yourself is through your network of contacts or through others' contacts. I have started to investigate Linked In—an online networking tool—as a way to leverage my contacts too. The alternative is expensive and less successfull PR-based marketing.

As far as skills are concerned, many work as technical specialists with deep-skills in particular tools, such as Siebel (general), Unica or MarketSwitch (very specific). I don't. I use my broad knowledge, skills and experience of management consulting in general and CRM in particular to drive through successful, value-based CRM projects for clients.

So there you have it. There are any number of ways to become an independent. The most important things to have are the required knowledge, experience and skills for the work you want to do, a Palm Pilot bulging with contacts that you can use to get work and a long credit-line to tide you over until you get paid.

Good luck. This journey is not for the faint hearted.

Graham Hill

Mukund CRM mukund_ks34@hotmail.com
Member

Posted 16-Mar-2004 04:43 AM
Hi Graham,

It was really a magnificent to read your write up and was very informative.Thanks for sharing your personal professional background.Please could you suggest some good books to go over on CRM.I have read Paul Greenberg's Speed OF Light.
Have a nice day.

Regards

KS Mukund
CRM System Specialist
mukund_ks34@hotmail.com

Posted 17-Mar-2004 01:13 AM
Mukund CRM

I think your second question is tougher than the first one. There are so many books out there on CRM, although sadly, so many of them are sadly not worth reading.

These days, I don't get so much from reading CRM books, preferring to read on-line articles, vendor white papers, academic working papers and academic journal articles instead. They are more up to date, often provide a solution to pressing CRM problems and the broad range of reading provides a good mix of CRM theory which provides a sound foundation for thinking and CRM practice which shows what has worked in the past.

If I was to recommend a few good CRM books for the thinking CRM practitioner—ones that I use in my daily business—they would be:

'Driving Customer Equity: How Lifetime Customer Value Is Reshaping Corporate Strategy' by Roland Rust et al (2000)—one of two good books on customer value management.

'Customer Equity: Building and Managing Relationships as Valuable Assets ' by Robert Blattberg et al (2000)—the other of two good books on customer value management.

'Service Management and Marketing: A Customer Relationship Management Approach' by Christian Gronroos (2000)—an all round guide to thinking about how to work with customers in today's services dominated world.

'Managing the Customer Experience: Turning Customers into Advocates' by Joe Wheeler et al (2002)—the best of the few books on customer experience management, even though it mistakenly takes a brand-first approach to designing customer experiences

'How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market' by Jerry Zaltman (2003)—by far the best book on how customers think

'One to One Fieldbook' by Don Peppers et al (1999)—still the best beginners book on CRM. Designed to make you think.

'The Customer Marketing Method' by Jay Curry (2000)—the best book on SME CRM that I have seen and cost-effective tools that go with the method too.

Other books that I use a lot, although not strictly CRM books are:

'Expectations Investing: Reading Stock Prices for Better Returns' by Michael Mauboussin et al (2001)—despite the title, the next generation of thinking in valuation approaches

'Real Options: A Practitioner's Guide' by Tom Copeland (1999)—still the most practical book on using real-options (for longer term customer and CRM project valuation)

As you can see from the list above, I take a very value-based approach to CRM. This doesn't however mean that numbers are everything. We know so little about how customers perceive their experiences with a company at the moment. The next steps in value-based CRM are away from the value of the customer to the company and towards the value of the copany (and its partners) to the customer. This is going to be an exciting journey

Graham Hill

Mukund CRM mukund_ks34@hotmail.com
Member

Posted 18-Mar-2004 05:01 AM
Hi Graham

Thanks a ton, for your swift response. The suggestions are really good spread over different mechanisms. I surely agree with you Value Based CRM is taking a huge metamorphosis and is sure to be more interesting. Have a great day.

Regards

KS Mukund
CRM System Specialist
mukund_ks34@hotmail.com