Depending on your company’s size and installed number of users, you may or may not need a dedicated CRM admin. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a product that lends itself to a power user for day to day maintenance and administration. However, if you have a larger number of users, say greater than 200, and especially if these users are spread out across geographic regions or branches, have independent needs, or a large amount of data to manage, then a full time admin may be your best bet.
But what should you look for in a CRM admin? It can be a challenging position to define. On the one hand, you need someone who can handle the business requirements, managing scope, timelines, and user expectations, but also someone who can deliver much of the work or coordinate the various technical departments in order to maintain and modify the system along with the growing needs of the business.
In essence, you need someone with a 50/50 mix of business and technical skills.
In particular, the ideal CRM admin should be able to:
· Meet with user groups (departments) to understand and define requirements
· Coordinate solutions and resolve differences among the departments
· Schedule resources and maintain timeline and budget
· Be able to perform system configuration work
· Understand what each area of the system offers and a basic understanding of how it works: sales, customer service, and marketing functionality, workflows, duplicate detection, and the Outlook client, to name a few
· Understand the core architecture of CRM and server topology: web servers, SQL server
· Keep up with the latest CRM industry news, Microsoft Dynamics CRM news, and community newsgroups for the latest information and patches
· Be an advocate for CRM within the company
Big bonus points for any candidate that can also:
· Program Microsoft Dynamics CRM using the SDK
· Write SQL Reporting Services Reports
· Write complex and other data mining queries against the system
· Write client-side JavaScript code
So, the next question is – how to find such a person? While this can be a difficult task, it is not impossible. Here are a few suggestions to get you going:
· Hire from Within – Hiring from within means you don’t have to train that person on the core business and begin to use them more immediately. Often times the challenge and visibility that comes from being the CRM “go to” person benefits the employee by increasing their value and security within the organization
· Consult to Hire – If you don’t have the skills on the ground to get going, consider hiring a consultant with the option to hire after a fixed period. This is a great way for both parties to “try each other out” before making a final decision.
· Place Ads on All the Major Boards – Be sure to be honest about the skills that are needed. Conduct technical screens on all candidates and find out their mix of business / technical skills.
· Check with Your Implementation Partner - Often times consulting companies and candidates are not a good match due to the high travel commitments required at consulting companies, even though the candidates skill set is ideal for CRM. Check with your implementation partner to see if they can pass along some resumes of candidates who may still be looking for a position. And lastly…
· Don’t Give Up! The right person is out there. It’s just a matter of searching in the right places, being careful about the skill set balance, and integrating that person into your organization.
