Along with the consulting, our implementation and execution services represent our core competencies. We provide various Implementation services as well as Customization, Training and Upgrade options. The Green Beacon team will work with you along the process of the solution implementation of your choice and will ensure that your business requirements are completely fulfilled.
Project Management
The key to the successful delivery of any CRM project is successful project management. The Project Manager has the task of driving the project toward completion, ensuring delivery within time and budget restrictions, building consensus across team members, and properly addressing risks and issues as they arise to reduce their impact on the project.
Based upon decades of successful project delivery, Green Beacon has developed a project methodology - a body of repeatable best practices and procedures - that ensures delivery excellence. Some of the key components of our methodology include:
- Crawl, Walk, Run: We firmly believe that an iterative project approach ensures that our clients derive value from each project phase. Working alongside our clients, we prioritize requirements by the business value, ensuring that the most important issues are addressed, and eliminating the cycle of 're-developing' functionality again and again. This approach has enabled Green Beacon to develop mutually-beneficial long term relationships with our customers that maximizes the return on their IT investment.
- Front-Loading Difficult Discussions: No one likes bad news. But bad news at a time of intense work - during project deployment, for example - can spell disaster. We are committed to working with our clients to identify and mitigate risks and issues long before they impact the success of the project
- Weekly Status Reviews: The entire team needs to be on the same page regarding the status of the engagement. We commit to weekly status reports that summarize the team's progress against tasks and milestones, major issues and risks, and budget utilization. Furthermore, we work with our clients to schedule regular weekly project status meetings to ensure we are all working toward the same goals and milestones.
- Change Management: Few projects are delivered without unforeseen changes in priorities or business opportunities. When these arise, we collectively investigate the impact on the project in terms of time and budget. This process eliminates the risks to successful project delivery by ensuring that all parties are aware of the changes before any impact on the project is incurred.
Our focus on successful project delivery is a hallmark of our relationship with our customers - our success is rooted in the rapid and substantial return on investment achieved by our customers as the result of our combined project efforts.
Functional and Technical Design
The Design Phase allows the Green Beacon team to work closely with client resources to understand the requirements for the project. This meeting will require the participation of client functional and technical resources that will be involved in the project. During this session, the team will:
- Review the functional requirements and business processes of the users affected by the project.
- Review the Technical Architecture for the deployment of the solution
- Define any data migration or integration requirements.
- Define the roles and responsibilities for both the Green Beacon and client resources
The deliverables from the design will be a detailed project plan with assigned tasks and due dates, and a design specification outlining all information captured in the design sessions relevant to the implementation.
Implementation
During implementation, the project team uses the strategy and design specifications to integrate our client's business processes with their technical architecture. More specifically, during implementation, software is installed and configured, custom solutions and reports are developed, data is converted, and unit testing is performed.
During implementation, the project team also develops the integration architecture required to exchange data across business systems. Businesses have critical data stored in their legacy systems, custom web portals, and other business applications. Examples include:
- End to End Order Integration between CRM and ERP applications
- Prospect Database integration with CRM
- Legacy Application Integration
Testing
Prior to deployment, the Green Beacon and client team will unit test the application against both the technical and functional / business requirements gathered in the design sessions. This ensures that the solution functions from both a technical and user perspective.
Additionally, we work with our clients to conduct user testing of the application to address users' concerns prior to delivery and to start familiarizing users with the new application functionality.
Training
A key component of getting a return on your investment in an enterprise solution implementation is wide adoption and usage. Green Beacon offers training for various audiences - from end-users to developers to IT administrators. In addition, we facilitate power-user sessions where we œtrain-the-trainers' who, in turn, can train other users.
Deployment
During deployment, the Green Beacon team works with the client's staff to deploy the application in the production environment, and test the new application prior to releasing the application to users. This process is tested numerous times (as needed, based on the complexity of the environment) to minimize the risks typically associated with deployment.
Upgrades
As business needs evolve staying current and up to date is critical for any business enterprise. Green Beacon is intimately familiar with both the architectures and the upgrade paths required to implement the releases of our partners' products. Our expert consultants can help you stay ahead of competition and stay aligned with new application advantages.
Enhancements
Every organization changes its business process over time. Business rules that were once critical may now be hindering productivity, while newly acquired information may not be integrated with the solution. Examples include:
- Bulk Email Marketing
- Enterprise Business Process Workflow
- Territory Assignment for Leads and Opportunities
- Custom Enterprise Reporting