Unit 8 Presentation: CRM Plan Design for Books NOW LLC

[Audio] Hello! My name is Nicole Bethel and this is a presentation on the Unit 7 topic involving creating a new CRM Plan Design for the Books Now LLC!.

[Audio] The agenda for this brief presentation involves the following: First, I will present a background on Books Now LLC. Next, I will state the purpose.. This will be followed by explanation of a new proposition which will be delivered in a five stage process. Following this, I will cover a major stage of the proposition which in the new marketing strategy. Next, I will provide an explanation on another major stage which is Implementation of a new CRM strategy. I will also discuss the new CRM process design. Finally, I will end with an explanation of the expected outcomes of my firms proposal to Books Now LLC..

[Audio] The case at hand has to do with a bookkeeping firm in my community called Books Now LLC. Over the past five years, this firm has been in the business of providing bookkeeping services to small and medium-sized local businesses. They currently have one hundred clients, charge an average service fee of $15K annually and report annual average revenues at around $1.5M. The company currently employs only twelve workers, whom are all are required to report into a centralized building location. However, they are considering transitioning to a remote working environment for employees..

[Audio] The firms current state strategy is to grow revenues by 20% as well as improve the efficiency of providing services to their clients. To help achieve this, the Books Now form has partnered with my consulting firm to help them design and implement a new CRM design plan. However, as we will see in the next slide, there are a number of problems and challenges that the company faces which will require the company to consider a major overhaul of their overall strategic mission and vision!.

[Audio] While the company has set some loft goals, they currently suffer from a number of internal disadvantages which will not only hinder their current state strategic objectives but may also lead to insolvency! There are at least five major problems that we have identified and used as a basis for our proposition. The First Problem major problem is that the company is in the habit of taking on all kinds of business without much vetting. Therefore, they fail to focus on a set of core competencies because they have not been able to identify and develop them! We know that when a company is in tune with a set of core competencies, they will naturally progress in sharpening them and become better and more efficient at what they do. Studies show that companies who lack the development of core competencies are bound to fail. The second problem is that most of their current business clients personally know the owner. Therefore, it is highly likely that Clients will receive more service than the firm is compensated because the owner may feel obligated to treat customers like family. The third problem is that the current customer base is not clearly defined. In other words, the only thing in common among their clients at this time is that, besides knowing the owner, they are all located within fifty miles from the firm's physical office location. The fourth problem is also related to their current client's base. The fact is that the firm only has one hundred clients in total, and all of these were acquired by the owner over the first 3 years of its operations. Importantly, the firm has not experienced any growth since that time. That signals that the owner is too comfortable with this small client book and does not see a need for real growth through the acquisition of new Clients. This is very problematic because their current clients are being poached by other bookkeeping companies through offering of cheaper rates and providing online services. The fifth problem is that although Books Now does have a website and some social media presence, it is all maintained internally. With only twelve employees it is hard to see how they are staying on top of any marketing efforts..

[Audio] The proposition that my firm is putting forward to Books Now involves a strategy that will not only help them meet their business strategies but exceed their growth expectations. Therefore, the proposition is advocating a wider change to their current business model through five stages. The stages are as follows: 1. Converting all employee to virtual remote environments. 2. Allocating Savings towards hiring new Marketing Team and IT Specialist. 3. Identify New Target Market Segment of Clients (new Strategic Mission) 4. Implement a New CRM System in Three Parts. 5. Continual Monitoring of CRM for New Opportunities This strategy is a five-stage process which would be implemented over the next six months..

[Audio] The first stage will begin with a plan to have all twelve employees transition to a home based remote working environment in the next 30 days. This plan will involve providing the necessary equipment that employees will need, as well as necessary accesses to customer data bases. We are recommending that the company hire at least one IT Specialist to assist in this project and stay on for future need. Subsequently, the owner is to move all operations away from a centralized building location and to a remote environment. For example, client meetings should take place via video conference software such as MS Teams. This stage is estimated to save the company a great deal of cost as well as improve the efficiency of the team in providing even more services to clients..

[Audio] With the newfound cost savings, stage two will allocate a budget to hire more employees (beyond the IT Specialist), specifically being a professional marketing team of three to assist the company in identifying new market share for their business and engage in promotional activities to acquire them. This will be a major change to the firm's business model, but one which is very necessary, it is imperative that that Books Now begin to effectively promote their business and win new clients. If not, their current client base will continue to dwindle away to the competition, and this will lead to the firm closing..

[Audio] In stage three, the marketing team will begin the market research and analysis process. This process will have multiple steps beginning with a market segmentation based on a new set of demographic characteristics. This will also be a major change to the firm's current state business model as we are advocating a new client type! A set of new, unique demographics will steer the marketing team to identify and target small to mid-sized business firms with a net worth of over $650,000. In addition, these clients would be located in a broad, regional area. This is a major change from the current state targeting of small community business clients. Furthermore, we believe that a good segmentation of these new clients should be tech startup firms who have a need for business related bookkeeping services. The reality is that Books Now needs to move away from the "affordable book-keeping for small community businesses" value proposition and target a new, higher end demographic of business owners who are willing to pay three times the amount and willing to form long term partnerships. If Books Now can penetrate this demographic, they will need to double and triple their employee count!.

[Audio] In the fourth stage of the proposal, the marketing team will focus on bringing the tools and resources in-house through the implementation of a new CRM system that is designed to not only assist current clients, but also outfitted to accommodate the new targeted client type discussed previously. The marketing team will be implementing a customized Salesforce system. We recommend Salesforce because they are one of the top companies in the CRM solutions field today Their system is very dynamic and very customizable with an almost unlimited number of features and functions..

[Audio] Therefore, our proposal involves a three-part implementation plan design which will achieve the successful installation of a new CRM system for the firm. The first part of the plan involves the new marketing team meeting with sales and program representatives at the Salesforce company in order to help design a customized CRM shell that will be unique to the needs of current and new Books Now Clients. The second part of the implementation plan will be training all current and new employees on how to use the system to achieve their service goals with customers. This employee training will be critical. Therefore, we are also recommending that two new trainers be hired to assist in the process. Not only this, but the new trainers should also have experience with change management as they will be an integral part of this implementation. It will be their responsibility to get all employees trained, confident and up and running! The third and last part of the CRM implementation process will involve a continual monitoring of the CRM by the Marketing Team for changes. In addition, the CRM would also record certain demographical features of new customers that will help the Marketing team continuously monitor data for innovative ideas on service offerings and who, what and why of continuous new client acquisition..

[Audio] We expect that this proposal will accomplish two primary objectives. The first objective is that it will help the company meet their current state baseline business strategy of achieving yearly revenue increases of 20% and improving the efficiency of the team in providing services to Clients in the immediate. In fact, part of this objective will involve a future state in which the company moves beyond their immediate goals and adopt new goals which will see them grow three times their current size. We want to see the company in a future state position where it will grow bigger, faster and in a position to set higher revenue goals. The second objective we hope our proposal will achieve is that it will help Books Now develop a new, sustainable competitive advantage. It is critical that the company pay attention to the competition and take these bold moves to grow in order to help increase its chances of survival. We estimate that in their current state, the company would be looking at insolvency in a year's time. Therefore, our proposal is critical to the survival of Books Now LLC!.

Works Cited. Yilmaz, D. (2023). Salesforce (CRM -0.64%), a leader in cloud software, LinkedIn news, taken from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/salesforce-crm-064-leader-cloud-software-davut-yilmaz?trk=pulse-article Silvermann, B. (2024). Does Working From Home Save Companies Money?, BDC, taken from: https://www.business.com/articles/working-from-home-save-money/ Nemeth, G., (2024). Why do startups fail? A core competency deficit model, Organizational Psychology, Volume 15, taken from: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1299135.