Deciding on what software system that best suits your organisation and getting it set up is only half the work. You need to apply as much effort to the planning & implementation of the system.

The requirements will vary depending on the size of your company. A sole operator or a small business will not need the same amount of planning as a company that employs 50 people. Nevertheless every organisation will need to plan for the change.

• Examine how you are currently doing things
• How are processes going to change - record meeting notes in MindaClient on my phone instead of my diary
• Who will be in charge of implementing the system
• Who needs to be trained
• Has time been set aside for the project
• Have management bought into it

There are a number of steps you should follow.

1. Work out your vision or what you want to achieve
2. Planning
3. Implementation
4. Review

Decide on your Vision

Outline the vision of where you want to be in 3, 6 & 12 months time.

All of the following is easily achievable. It is a question of deciding what you want to achieve and then putting in place the processes and procedures. Here are some options. Your vision may differ.

Data

All the people we deal with will be in in one database and kept up to date. This includes clients, staff, suppliers, media contacts. It will also include our own staff.

Staff

We will have all our staff added to MindaClient. We will be able to communicate with our staff via email & text through MindaClient. We will have a record of all such communications.
All our staff will be trained on the new system. Everyone being able to edit clients, search and add appointments or activities. Certain staff will be able to generate reports and some staff trained on administrative duties.

Searching

We can search by any of the following criteria.
Name, Address, Address, Phone number, Email address & Activities
A few examples of the use of search:

• Show me all the people we had meetings with in the last three months that are still prospects.
• Show me all the people that attended the events we ran last year.

Communication

We can send out tailored communications to specific groups. For example

• Notification of key update information to everyone on our mailing list.
• Monthly newsletter to all our current clients.
• One to one communication to clients for specific purposes.

Future Servicing (jobs module)

Every time we install or service a machine we will schedule a future service.
We will set reminders for staff and for clients for two weeks before the next service is due.
We will assign responsibility to one person to follow up on outstanding services in MindaClient.

Events

We have recorded all key events that we have run and we have recorded which clients have attended.

Reporting

We can report on Clients, Staff, Activities, Events, Communication, Meetings and much more.
I can choose the key reports that I want, and I can have those displayed on my dashboard.
I can generate a full report for an individual client of all activities over a specified period.
I can look at a schedule of all activities for the coming week / month.
I can generate a timesheet report for a specific period
I can generate a global report on the status of all our clients.

GDPR

Our system lets us record GDPR permissions, manage SARs requests, anonymise & delete people in accordance with our GDPR policy.

Planning & Implementation

Project Team

Recommend that you form a project team with 2 to 3 people to oversee the implementation.

Project Meetings

Recommend that you have a number of key meetings.

1. Initial meeting of Project team. Appointment or Project Manager. Agreeing high level schedules. Allocation of responsibilities.
2. Meeting on Data. Assessing existing data. Review Data cleansing & Deduplication
3. Meeting on Processes. Existing processes. New processes. Change requirements
4. Liaison meeting with vendor. Final decision on roll out of modules. Specification for fields and any customisation.
5. Meeting on Training. Role allocation. Training requirements & scheduling. Preparation of internal procedures.
6. Implementation meeting. Planning actual roll out. Transition. Scheduling of roll out of different functions.
7. Review meeting. Review implementation. Assess any further training or support requirements. Liaise with vendor

Review and ongoing Management

Project Team meet on a quarterly basis

• Has the original vision been achieved ?
• Planning of roll out of further modules or facilities through the system
• Client / User feedback and incorporation of same
• Reporting requirements being met from the system