“Once again, it’s the time of the season, when love runs high. And this time, give it to me easy and let me try with pleasured hands, to take you in the sun to promised lands to show you every one.”
OK, how many of you recognized the lyrics to the Zombies’ “Time of the Season”? But is that time again: to announce the CRM Watchlist 2019 winners, to explain some of my findings, and to explain why I did what I did.
So, let’s begin with some observations about this year’s award – and some of my gleanings from the submissions that might be of interest to you all reading this. Here’s the order of things:
- The context for the CRM Watchlist in 2019Differences with the CRM Watchlist 2017Observations on the awards”Trends” of interest from the submissionsWhat all the winners and all others can get from me And the winners…The 2020 awards & registrationOther notables
The Context for the CRM Watchlist in 2019
One thing must always be front and center when it comes to the CRM Watchlist, now in year 13: the Impact award. This is not an award for a great technology, nor for a great social program, nor for the size of a company’s submission, nor for excellence in a particular category of things. To emphasize the point, one company in the course of their submission indicated correctly that they had won the Watchlist one year – but said they qualified for “winner with distinction for customer engagement”. There is no “winner with distinction for customer engagement” – it was simply winner with distinction. You win for your impact on markets, society and people. Your win can be a result of your impact on a specific market – say a geographical area, or a domination of a market in a specific domain. But while you might win because of that highly specific market domination, you aren’t winning in a category. Ever. You are winning because you were a powerful force of influence and effect in either a global domain or a significant local domain that has global implications.
For example, one year, Solvis Consulting, the remarkable tech consultancy, won for their impact in the Latin American market. However, they didn’t win in the “Latin American” category. They just simply won. Your impact in a market is the basis for this award. If your company wins, it’s because they not only had an impact in the prior year, but that impact will be sustained for at least two or three more years.
For that impact to be sustainable, the company must be a complete company that has been doing this long enough to have established a rhythm. The company has to be well-rounded: it has financial stability, solid management, excellent products and services, superb culture, and a strong partner ecosystem to help sustain its efforts. It has to have a clear vision and mission and also clear-cut strategies for outreach to get external forces – customers, analysts, journalists, prospects, influencers, etc. – engaged. That takes a complete (and complex) set of tools and activities, which could include marketing, analyst relations and public relations programs, the subject matter expertise via the content produced and distributed for consumption, and the “theatrical” activities that establish the corporate identity necessary to stay top of mind, as well as capture share of wallet.
That has to be coupled with the impact that you have proven to me you did have as a company the prior year to the award (meaning the CRM Watchlist 2019 is based on the calendar year of 2018 – and forward).
The other factor that weighs heavily – and not positively – even though it might have been a good thing that happened – is uncertainty. If you were acquired and there was management turnover going on or if you were addressing a new market that you didn’t have much history in – you had a significant penalty to work against. Sometimes, all other things being equal, the company would have won the Watchlist but the uncertainty was the deciding factor. I have no way to see an impact two or three years out when I don’t even know who is going to be your management team or you gave me no discernible proof of the results of your bold move into a new market and thus I had no way of knowing if you were going to be successful there over time – even if you were successful in your existing markets. Again, this is an impact award, not a “smart strategy” award. I might think that you made the right move but you rarely are going to have impact in the new market in the first few quarters you are in it.
For example, several years ago, one of the winners of the Watchlist went into a new market that I had suggested to them to go to. The following year they didn’t win because they listened to me. They went into the new market, but neither their submission nor my independent research showed me that they impacted that new market year one. The following year, their submission and my research showed they did and they won again – in the new market.