Data Migration can be quite a complex and deserves to be treated as its own project.
However, it’s generally an ‘afterthought’ of a CRM implementation.
“Oh yes – we’d like to consolidate everyone’s contact details from their Outlook and their gmail account, as well as our old GoldMine system – and the ticketing system that was written in MS Access. Oh yes – also that other thing we use that needs to be decommissioned but we should run it in parallel for 6 months as we’ve got in-flight events that cannot be closed down yet.”
😵
A CRM is only as good as the data it holds.
If the data is inaccurate, inconsistent, and cannot be trusted – nobody will want to use it.
Before the new system goes live, the data needs to be consolidated, cleaned, de-duped, enriched before it gets imported in.
This workstream should also begin WAY before the main CRM project begins, because the above exercise takes quite a long time.
You may have to hire some temps to clean up the data, or get an external agency to do so (which may involve human 👁 or AI – get it? 🤭) and invariably takes a lot longer than expected.
With GDPR and Data Privacy laws in full force, it is now not as common for a Consulting Partner to take on the full data migration work.
Data is really really important.
Good data generates good insight, which is important to help a business make critical operational and strategic decisions.
Pay attention to your data migration workstream.
Otherwise, your adoption rate will be as rubbish as my puns 😁
#loveyourdata
#projectmanagement
#salesforce
#onthepeiroll