Did you know?
According to Gartner, a renowned US consulting and research company, the global GRC market has grown by 15.9% to reach $56.6 billion in 2019.
This article is dedicated to GRC solutions and answers the main questions you may have about them.
What is a GRC? The GRC definition
GRC stands for Customer Relationship Management.
When we talk about CRM, we’re generally referring to a CRM solution. This solution can take the form of a mobile or web application, software, tool or system. The aim of this solution is to collect and store all business-critical data in one place, so that it can be easily processed and shared throughout the company.
The aim of a CRM is to optimize all interactions and relationships with customers, prospects and suspects, in order to improve business relationships and their profitability.
GRC can also be extended to all the company’s key stakeholders, such as suppliers and employees, to facilitate operations and information sharing.
Every CRM solution is different, and has a different purpose. Ideally, a CRM solution should be adapted to the type of organization, size and market of the company using it. The same CRM can be used differently by different employees within the same company. Some companies use several CRM solutions simultaneously, to better suit the needs of each individual employee.
When choosing a CRM solution, it’s important to understand how it will be used and its limitations. If you want to choose the right CRM for your business, please refer to How to choose the right CRM.
As you can see, CRM is a very broad concept, taking many different forms. Let’s take a look at why GRC is so important for companies and freelancers alike.
The same GRC can be used differently by different employees in the same company.
Why is a GRC important?
CRM enables a company to optimize interactions and relationships with its customers, prospects, suspects, users, partners, employees and suppliers. Tracking and building these relationships enables the company to better understand its partners’ expectations. This will help the company win new customers, build loyalty and improve its organization.
By using a GRC, the company has access to a global view of its entire business from a single location. The aim is always to improve and facilitate company management.
GRC brings flexibility to your business, with all your data accessible at all times, and your entire team working on a single tool. This makes for simple, efficient exchanges. For example, many organizations still work with Excel spreadsheets. In such cases, data can easily be lost, incorrectly recorded and not standardized. Each employee uses Excel differently, making it difficult for them to share data. The use of a GRC, tailored to their needs, would save the company and its employees time and data, and facilitate exchanges between colleagues.
GRC solutions are mostly cloud-based (online storage from a provider), which means that data cannot be lost and can be easily accessed from a new device or location.
GRC adapts to your use and your situation. Every company operates with a different purpose, and even within that company, employees have different jobs and functions. A CRM may be focused on your business area, and concentrate more on your company’s sales, marketing, customer service or human resources functions.
It’s important to make the right choice when it comes to CRM. It’s important to understand your intended use and the limits of this solution.
Over time, GRC functionalities have expanded to better meet the specific needs and expectations of certain companies. A CRM solution can be just as suitable for a CAC40 company as for a freelancer.
By choosing a GRC solution, you will generally have access to the 5 main functionalities covered, which are :
Contact management
(Data such as First Name, Last Name, Address, etc.)
Lead management
(Data on the prospect and process for converting him into a customer)
Monitoring interactions
(History and notes of conversations with selected contacts)
Document management
(Uploading and storing documents on the centralized platform)
Data reports
(Summary of sales revenue, performance for the week, etc.).
In conclusion, it is vital for companies to rely on a CRM solution. It will enable a company to improve exchanges within the organization, better understand customer expectations and enable the company to evolve. All this while keeping the interface simple and easy to access for all employees.
Why use a GRC?
A CRM solution can be used for many different purposes. Ideally, a GRC solution should be adapted to the type of organization, size and market of the company using it.
The aim of a CRM is to bring together, in a centralized location, all the information and data relevant to the company, in order to facilitate the management of relations with the various stakeholders.
The use of a GRC system brings a number of advantages to the company. It provides a standardized environment for all users, enabling information to be shared more quickly and efficiently. What’s more, GRC provides a global view of the company, helping employees to make better decisions.
Here are a few examples of how GRC can be used:
- Let’s take a company with over 1000 employees. Each employee has a different mission and operates differently. The company’s GRC solution will make it easier for employees to communicate with each other and share documents quickly and easily. Everything is standardized. Employees have access to the same graphics and data, and can easily understand each other. In this case, GRC will give employees the tools they need to collaborate more easily, and enable the company to optimize exchanges between different departments.
- In the case of a home delivery company, employees do not occupy the same functions and are in different places all the time. A possible GRC solution for this company would enable it to know in real time the progress of the day’s deliveries and the routes taken by these employees, in order to optimize them. Delivery drivers could easily accept customer signatures on a smartphone, which would send all important information directly to the customer database. This CRM solution would facilitate data collection and enable the company to better understand the evolution of its market.
- In this example, you’re an independent salesperson. You’re on your own in this business, and a CRM solution that’s right for you would be portable and cloud-based, so you could access it anywhere. You could easily find new prospects and know which customers you haven’t seen for a long time, so you could build a trusting business relationship with them. This CRM solution would save you time on making contacts and make your work easier, so you could concentrate on your core business – selling.
In these three examples, we have different CRM solutions that adapt to the user’s needs. It’s really important to understand that a CRM solution must be in tune with the needs of the business.
In short, the use of a GRC is intended to facilitate all business actions. The GRC must be adapted to your use, otherwise it will complicate your task instead of making it easier.
A CRM solution needs to be adapted to the type of organization, size and market of the company using it.
How to choose the right GRC? What's the best CRM? What types of CRM are best suited to my needs?
This guide is designed to help you choose the right GRC for your business:
You’re looking for a GRC solution, and you’re not alone: according to a Capterra survey, in 2019 in France “more than half of SMEs say they are ready to invest in GRC software”, and this figure is only rising.
If you’re wondering which CRM solution is best, you’re asking the wrong question. Every CRM solution has a different purpose and is not suitable for every type of business, so the best CRM for you will be different from that of your competitor.
This guide is designed to help you choose the right GRC for your business:
No GRC solution is universal.
CRM solutions are all different, and all serve different purposes. The features that are important to you may not be important to a different market and a different size of business.
You need to carry out an analysis of your needs and objectives to determine which features and options best match your management vision for your business. Once you’ve understood your requirements and objectives, you need to make sure that the CRM solution actually matches your vision.
Take the time to understand your needs
Every situation and every company’s needs are different, which is why it’s important to fully understand them in order to make the best possible GRC choice.
To help you better identify the needs that are important to you, here is a non-exhaustive list of possible needs:
- Ease of exchange, sharing and collaboration within the company.
- Save time.
- Gather important data in a centralized location.
- History of interactions with customers and prospects.
- Charts and graphs on sales revenue or expenses.
- Real-time data analysis.
- Route planner.
- Task automation.
- Automatic message and e-mail forwarding.
- Overview of the situation with a map.
To find the right GRC, you’ll need to identify your exact requirements. You may have different needs than those listed here.
What are your employees looking for?
Although the solution you’ve found aligns perfectly with your vision, you need to think about the people who will be using the CRM every day. There’s no point in paying for a CRM if nobody wants to use it.
We advise you to choose a GRC that is easy to use, so that it can be used by your whole team, as adoption and user experience are paramount. If your employees avoid using GRC, you won’t be able to make solid decisions, since they’ll be based on only part of the data.
Having users try out GRC before adopting it is the best way to understand their expectations and problems. What’s more, the companies offering GRC can usually modify it to suit your teams’ requirements, so don’t hesitate to let them know if you have any questions.
Free trial periods allow you and your teams to find out if the proposed solution is right for them. You can always refuse to adopt the service if the trial is not conclusive, and try another GRC.
Do you use a telephone?
Not all CRM solutions are phone-friendly. If you or your teams use your phone as a working tool, you need to choose a CRM that contains a mobile version or an IOS or Android application.
Using a GRC on your phone means you can access it anywhere, at any time, to view information crucial to your needs.
Anywhere, anytime?
GRCs can offer the option of cloud Saas (online storage from a server), which means that the GRC is stored online, so you can access it over the Internet with your login credentials.
This method makes the GRC easily accessible from a new device or location. No need to go to the office to update your data!
Using a GRC on your phone means you can access it anywhere, at any time, to view information crucial to your needs.
Want to keep your old data?
Most CRM services will offer you the option of transferring the data you have accumulated into their CRM solution. Please note, however, that not all CRM services offer this service.
You need to be sure before adopting a GRC that you can easily integrate the data you had before, and that you can also easily export this data, should you want to change solution.
Some companies offering CRM solutions block the possibility of exporting data in order to force you to stay with them. Avoid using these solutions, which will hinder you in the long term.
Is the GRC up to date?
There are many CRMs, and when you subscribe to this service you need to be sure that the solution is always followed up by the creators. This allows for efficient bug fixing, as well as the addition of new features that you may find useful over time.
For example, at Moovago we update our CRM every month with our customers’ requests, allowing us to optimize their experience and correct any imperfections. The world of work is constantly evolving, with changing demands, so your CRM needs to evolve too.
If you can't find the right GRC, invent it!
At Moovago, we’ve created our own GRC. Franck, the creator of Moovago, was a sales manager for 15 years in SMEs and large French groups. He was frustrated by the CRMs available to him. He decided to change the way sales CRM worked by creating Moovago. Like Franck, our customers were also dissatisfied with the other solutions, which were considered too complicated. They took the time to identify their needs before choosing our solution.
After you’ve tried many different CRMs and haven’t found the one that’s right for you, you may want to think about creating your own CRM to fit your situation perfectly. It’s an expensive and time-consuming process, but some companies are willing to take the time to get the perfect tool.
“More than half of SMEs say they are ready to invest in GRC software”.
How do you set up a CRM tool?
The integration of a CRM solution sometimes results in failure. There are many reasons for this. Let’s take a look at some of the problems companies can encounter, so that you can avoid the most common mistakes when integrating a CRM solution.
Failure to integrate a CRM solution is rarely due to technical problems. Generally speaking, failures are linked to the non-use of the CRM solution by employees and the company. A CRM that is not used is useless, since the data collected is not representative of the company’s activity and cannot be exploited.
This refusal to use GRC can be linked to several factors:
- The GRC is too complicated to use.
- GRC is not suitable for employee use.
- GRC deemed unnecessary
- The GRC is seen as a nuisance (spying on employees, for example).
- New working methods are not mastered
- GRC management is entrusted to employees who do not wish to integrate the tool.
This non-exhaustive list shows that failure to integrate a GRC system is mainly due to a lack of understanding of the solution on the part of employees.
For a successful integration of GRC, we advise you to follow the recommendations in the section How to choose the right GRC.
It’s essential to choose the right CRM for your business. The most important thing is to get feedback from employees who will be using the GRC on a daily basis. If they don’t like it, they’ll have no reason to want to use it.
Setting up a CRM should be easy, which is why we advise you to choose a CRM that allows you to integrate your old data directly, to make things easier for your employees. They won’t lose any data, and will be able to get to grips with the tool more quickly and easily.
When integrating the GRC, appoint a competent person who understands the importance of using it, so as to be able to promote it to your employees. He or she will need to provide feedback on the positive points of GRC use to the whole company, in order to encourage its use.
Follow-up is essential in the first weeks and months following GRC installation. You need to understand why your employees like or dislike using GRC. It’s not a fixed tool; the GRC must be able to evolve and change to enable the company to optimize it. Gather your employees’ questions and requests and pass them on to the GRC creators, so that they can modify and improve their solution.
Ideally, sharing sessions between employees should be organized so that they can discuss their use of GRC and share their experiences with others.
In conclusion, GRC must be implemented in a collaborative manner, otherwise its integration will be seen as a constraint rather than a solution. Listen to the employees who use GRC every day, to better understand their difficulties and how to solve them. Last but not least, follow up on a regular basis, so that you can get feedback from your staff and make the integration process easier for yourself.
Failure to integrate a GRC system is mainly due to a lack of understanding of the solution on the part of employees.
Let's sum up the essentials!
A CRM system is essential for any company, making it easier for employees to do their jobs and keeping track of all important data.
The choice of a GRC must be specific to the company: all structures operate differently, and it is essential to identify these needs clearly in order to choose the right GRC.
Choosing a GRC is a collective process involving all future users. It’s the employees who will be using the GRC every day who are essential to its successful implementation and operation.
Finally, patience is essential when choosing a CRM, given that you could be using it for up to ten years. Many CRM companies offer you the opportunity to try out their solution during a trial period, so that you can take the time to understand whether the tool is right for you.
External sources and links
Works cited :
Poulter, Y. D. (2020, May 08). Market Share: Customer Experience and Relationship Management, Worldwide, 2019. Retrieved from gartner.com: https://www.gartner.com
Sonia Mokrani, Capterra. (2019, January 31). Source : https://www.capterra.fr.