Let me ask you a question – have you ever failed…at anything?  Anyone?  Come on, be honest.  The fact is, we’ve all failed at something. And if we’re being honest, some of us more than others! Well,you’re not alone, and unfortunately when it comes to both relationship management (CRM) and collaboration/enterprise content management (SharePoint) initiatives, failure is more prevalent than ever.

So I’ve got some good news and some bad news…

The bad news: 60% of all CRM or SharePoint projects struggle to meet expectations (yes - that’s 3 out of every 5 organizations!)

The good news: We now know the reasons why

Next week, both myself and C5 Insight’s other Managing Partner will be at CRMUG Summit in Reno, NV discussing both CRM and Collaboration failure. The truth is, over the last 5 years or so, we have become somewhat obsessed with failure, not necessarily by choice, but because nearly 60% of all new client work for us is what we call CPR work - in other words, project rescue.  When we started to see this trend, our natural drive to learn and be better drove us to begin spending a lot of time listening, understanding, researching, analyzing, and understanding what the heck was going on and why so many organizations were struggling. In addition to learning a ton, we’ve now developed hundreds of processes, checklists, templates, and methodologies that we apply to our client projects, which put simply, helps companies avoid getting into the situation of a struggling, stalled or failed project.  Two specific presentations that we’ve developed from this “failure expertise” - and share frequently at conferences and via online webinars - are the Deadly Sins of CRM - Why 30%-60% of Projects Fail, and How To Recover and Failure to Connect: Why Organizations Aren't Getting More from Collaboration. 

 I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. - Michael Jordan

 

If you are in a situation where you’re struggling with a CRM or SharePoint project, we’d love to hear from you in the comments, on social media, of via our website. If you will be at CRMUG Summit, let us know! We’d love to catch-up while we’re out there.

Below is a trailer for the event, and I encourage you to check it out.

 

If you are in fact struggling, or even if you’re getting ready to start and worried about failing (thanks to our doom and gloom message above) do not despair. In addition to these sessions, we’ve got tons of great CRM and SharePoint resources to help (including our very popular SharePoint Site Feedback solution), and would love to help walk you through this journey.