Why 75% of CRM and ERP projects fail

My pleasure. Mick, it's good to be here. Thanks for reaching out. absolutely.

Well, you know, it's not that different in some ways. You know, at the end of the day, it's still education. But instead of educating teenagers to help them for their future, I'm educating business leaders to help them get richer. So you know, maybe not as spiritually fulfilling, but it is business, it is something that's fun, it is varied, you never know who you're gonna speak to next. And I love seeing the reaction of people, whether they're teenagers or businessmen or women. Right. And having them light up when they realize what the possibilities are of new knowledge that they've gotten.

Well, every company is different, you know, and I think have you ever heard the statistic that seventy-five percent of CRM and ERP implementations fail?

Sure, sure. And it's it's a little brutal if you think about it, right? Because everybody that's invested like whatever, six figures plus into a big digital transformation initiative, they're all betting on their success. Nobody wants to fail, right? They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So I I see it as a tripod, right? It's like a tripod. So one leg is the the company, right? The client, let's call them, that are looking for new technology. The other You know, leg of that tripod is the technology, right? It could be Salesforce, it could be HubSpot, it could be Odoo, it could be whatever, you know, name it. And the third leg would be the consultant, the implementation partner, you know, such as CloudLine or our competitors out there. All three of those have to be solid, right? That's if we talk about the implementation. in in terms of the pieces, the moving parts. But once you get started, assuming that everything is solid, we could break it into two halves. There's the technology and there's the human factor. I would say most of the challenge is in the human factor. You know, there's have you heard the the expression the road to hell is paved with good intentions? So yeah, that is really the case in in in our world. You know, everybody's coming in with the best intentions. But if communication isn't done the right way, if the tough questions aren't asked, if you you know, some things you only learn like you do in life, you know, you only learn how to make good barbecue by making bad barbecue, they say. You know, like you learn how to cook by burning and cutting your hands, you know. So you need to get into it and with humility, with transparency. And you need to be organized and you need to make sure that expectations are managed well from the beginning.

Hardest stretch. Like a difficult mission, like a like a like a tough client dossier you're asking me about to tell you about? Okay. Okay. Well, there was a tire manufacturer in the American Southwest, Midwest, rather, and we started working together just before the pandemic. You remember that? So just before.

Yes, a long time ago. We started working with them, and that was probably our first, I'd say, pretty sizable contract. That was pretty big. I mean, I started this thing just by myself. You know, I brought I brought in a friend as a business partner earlier on. Mistake, you know, don't do that. You know, for all people watching this, here's my public service announcement. Parenthesis, don't do business with friends. It's very different if you're doing business with somebody and you become friends. Then if you're friends with somebody, you want to bring them into business. Right? Once again, Mick, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So that's a great way for you to have to choose between being a bad friend or a bad boss. But I digress. That's another kind of a tough thing I had to live. So I threw that in there too. But anyway, it was still more or less early days. And I met these people at an event in in Toronto, good people, salt of the earth, decent people. And they hired us for doing a really big mandate to do a complete digital transformation for for their operation. Very successful. they've they've managed to corner the market of what they do, leaders in their field. But their IT was in shambles. I got there and I had like one, my god, moment after the next. I could not imagine it. I could not imagine like there was no IT department. You know, I was where are the servers? Where where the IT, where the computers are, I don't know, it's in there. And then you open a door and there's like all these cables and you know, it was I I couldn't believe it. It was like held together by Bubblegum. It's like, wow, multi-million dollar operation, crazy. Right? So we we roll up the sleeves, we go in there above and beyond, and everything was going well. You know, we were traveling to this place, which was a l mission getting there, small town, and we go there near the Texas border, and Every six weeks we're we're flying there. Boom, boom, boom. Very intense, very what we call high touch. You're there computer by computer, training everybody, making sure they know how to use the mobile app, the computers, everything one day after the next. And then the pandemic happens. Right? And that was something none of us could foresee. And they're like, Fabrice, why are you hiding in Canada? You need to come back down here. Get over here. I'm like, I'm I'm sorry. Like our country is literally shut down. Like we we can't we can't get in planes. You know, it's like, no, no, no. And you know, and in that part of the world, there was no lockdown. Like it was, you know, everything was cool. People were dancing and going to weddings, like business as usual. And and they couldn't comprehend that Canada. I I think I think you guys in Czech Republic are more free than we are. I think we're like really, really good at following the rules over here. We're so we're so polite, no?

Crazy. So pizza, pizza became a controlled substance. Yeah, how about that? Yeah, well, you know, so so then you know, you know how insane this was, right? So, anyway, that was tough because my relationship with these people that I still have a lot of respect for them and I you know I wish them the very best was kind of ruined. You know, I was able to send somebody who was in the US for my team to go there, but he wasn't, you know, the best person necessarily to send. And again, with best intentions, right? So that kind of went sideways. It it was tough. You know, at the same time, to to put it in technical terms, half the organization wanted to go towards Microsoft, the other half wanted to go towards Google. So instead of choosing one or the other, you told me in our earlier conversation that you know about DNS stuff, they went to like a split delivery architecture. Is that fun or not?

No. Right. So sales, yeah. So sales department was running on Mike on sorry on Google and production was running on Microsoft. And there was proof point essentials in there and just good God. Right. So it was like as if the whole company was being stretched apart. So it was like a like a change management, like a human factor thing. And it was an uphill climb. A couple of people were hired there who were on site in place and they were kind of undoing what we had done and Long story short, that has to be, that has to be the toughest mission that we took because it was people that really deeply trusted us that I deeply cared about, and it just didn't really go as well as it should have gone.

Sure. Well, do your homework. Don't just choose something because it looks slick in terms of a technology platform. Do your homework. Take your time. Get many opinions. Right. And but come up to what your own decision is. And when you choose that second leg of the tripod or third or whatever, the consultant, whoever it is. Make sure it's people that you feel are going to challenge you. People that are not just gonna say, yes, yes, yes, of course, yes, I'll do it, because that does not go well. Right. you need to acknowledge the fact that the honeymoon is gonna be sweeter than the marriage. And that, like with any relationship, you're gonna have to both fight to make it work. There's gonna be ups, there's gonna be downs, and it's like being in in a ship rowing through storms sometimes. You know, but you need to make sure that you have a shared ownership and that you don't expect I'm talking to the business owners out there, that you don't expect somebody to come in and build for you. Make sure you have somebody that's gonna build with you because that's what makes a difference. You gotta take ownership of this thing, right? And and and sure, you'll find anything out there. There's no shortage of people willing to take your money. But if you find people that are gonna build for you, A, they'll charge you a lot and B. I'm pretty sure that's going to fall into the seventy-five percent.

Ugh. Well, I think there's a lot of pressure in the market. People have to jump on the AI wave. You sort of have to, right? I'm I'm surprised it took you this long to bring up AI. But in this day and age, it's like almost impossible to to have a business conversation without AI making itself into the first two or three sentences of your exchange. It's crazy, right? Since twenty twenty three. So I am in this world and

I'd be lying to you if I didn't tell you that I have a certain level of AI fatigue, right? Like you say, people just want to add AI. Like if it's some sort of topping on a burger or something. yeah, just just add AI. Yeah. Put some more AI on top. Like, why? Right? Yes. Is it powerful? Absolutely. Does it change everything? It most certainly does. But Companies that are just adding AI as a layer so they can sell the new version. well, you need to migrate to to to version twenty-four. Why is that? 'Cause cause it has AI. I'm like, okay, what does that really do for us? Right? I mean, I think it's important for the consumer. To not be swayed so easily by, you know, they dangle this AI thing in front of you. yeah. Get it. Right. I mean, ask yourself the question of really why are you bringing in it? And what was this tool before that AI? And what if I have my own usage of my own AI that I want to mix my way? Do I need to buy your layer of AI on top of that? What does that do for the data governance? What does that do for the privacy? You know, what does that do for so many things? Right. I mean, I think AI is a force multiplier. A lot of people label it as that. And it can help you get things done so much better or so much worse. But you can't. You can't put AI forward, center, and and everything. You can't just fully fixate on it because AI should augment something good instead of replace something that you didn't even take the time to understand in the hopes that you're just praying to the AI gods to do everything for you. I'll finish by I'll finish this by saying AI should be used as a trampoline and not as a crutch or as a walking stick. Right? it's It saddens me a little bit to see how a lot of the current generation, and I'm gonna sound like an old man here, it saddens me a little bit to see when I was your age. No, it saddens me to see how people are depending so much on AI that they just forget to use their own brain. I was giving a job interview, Mick, a few months ago, and this young man, I was interviewing him remotely, you know, conversation more or less like this one. And I had a couple of people from my technical team who were throwing him some questions. You know, don't let the glasses fool you. I'm not the most technical guy on my team. And you know, they're asking him some questions and he's like and then he looks to his side monitor and he's like And he starts reading the answers off the screen. I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? Like, are you serious? Right? It was a short interview, you know? But but this is real, man. Can you imagine that?

And that's fine.

Sure, you can learn. Exactly. Yeah. We can't all know everything. And we can't all know everything. And and and we should all go through life with a beginner's mindset. And we should be humble enough to laugh at ourselves, you know? But you know, people are worried about AI replacing them. People are replacing themselves with AI. It's crazy.

I think marketing is one of our weak spots, to be honest with you. What we sell, like you say, is very intangible. It's not something that you can drop it on your foot and it hurts. And at the same time, while being intangible, like marketing often is, it's very powerful. It's so powerful, and the implications and the consequences are so strong when you're talking about. Hey, let's install an ERP in our business. Hey, let's do a digital transformation initiative. It's like replacing your backbone, like your spinal cord of your business. Right? I mean, it's it's so important. And a lot of the people that make the decisions to do or not do this are not really comfortable with this topic. Right. So so you get this human side of the dimension where People that are very confident that are very good at what they do, you know, they're founders, they're business people, they take risks, they're confident, they're leaders. All of a sudden you bring this topic to the table, this is out of their comfort zone. They get defensive. You know, it's like, hey, so tell me, how are things in your business? it's fine. It's it's it's it's good. We're we're we're good. Hey, dude, seriously, let's talk, you know? It's like it's like you're the doctor. Like, where does it hurt? Like, what's going on? So, like you said, you have to connect as a human being. In order for business to happen. And how do I market that? It's tricky. You know, I I think that I really believe in my business. I love what I do. And that is transmitted, is what people have told me. You know, so if you're if you're authentic and you're yourself and you go where you go, and and every exchange you have, virtually or in 3D as I call it now, you know, it's going to it's going to leave an impression. And people end up doing business with whoever they feel they had a connection, who is serious and who is competent, of course, right? It's not about a popularity contest, but at the end of the day, my service offering, your service offering, almost anybody's service offering, there's so much offer now, and there's so many choices. So I think our one thing that'll save us in this polyester beige sea of acronym consultants. Is our authentic personality? What makes us human? What makes us unique? Are we professional? Yes, we are. You know, are we going to be able to connect with you and connect at a human level and maybe have a laugh along the way while we do very serious business together? Great, you know, because I'm not trying to become proctor and gamble or take over the world or hyperscale. I want to maintain relationships of long-lasting clients that we can do business with. For many years, there's gonna be a phase one, there's gonna be a phase two. If they're happy, they're gonna refer me to other people in their business circles. So I haven't really had the need to ever like spend on AdWords or or you know, or do this or do that. You know, I mean it's it's about breaking into a highly competitive space, which is ferocious, which is vicious sometimes, right? The software vendor, value-added reseller. digital transformation consultant world is sometimes brutal, but once once you get in and you start meeting people and people start getting to know you, then then you're able to sort of move past the turbulence and get business functioning.

That would be LinkedIn, right? I believe you spotted me on LinkedIn and I define LinkedIn as the Facebook for people that don't have time for Facebook, you know. So absolutely reach out to me on LinkedIn. It's it's a great platform for connecting. if not, there's always our website, cloudlion.org. So reach out to me. we're always there. Just book an appointment, explore synergies, you know, we'll see if if there's potential collaboration to be had, and if not, no harm done. You never know down the line how collaboration can happen.

Thank you, Mick. Merci beaucoup.