In central London, Holland Mountain and Intapp hosted a panel discussion on the future of investment and fundraising technology.
The discussion featured insights from:
- Ruth Eagle, Head of Origination at CBPE Capital
- Peter Tucker, IT Managing Director at IK Partners
- Chris Webb, VP of Financial Services at Intapp
- Billy Dix, Associate Director at Holland Mountain
The panel explored ways to increase CRM adoption, incentivization tips, and how CRM fits into a broader technology and data strategy.
Challenges and Solutions in CRM Adoption
The panel unanimously agreed that people and processes are the most critical factors for successful CRM adoption, with technology being the third component of the equation. Often, the key challenge revolves around having the right people – especially senior leadership – to drive CRM usage within the firm.
To overcome these challenges, panelists shared first-hand insights:
- Given the busy schedules of Private Equity professionals, firms must focus on aligning the organization around the ‘why’ of using the CRM. Without this alignment, adoption and engagement will struggle to gain traction.
- One key step is gathering feedback from different personas within the organization to understand overall sentiment toward the CRM system.
- A notable success story shared during the panel was a Swiss asset manager who created a 90-second video featuring the CEO, Head of IR, and CTO explaining the CRM’s objectives and business value. This video significantly helped align the organization.
- The role of a product owner was highlighted as a crucial element in ensuring proper CRM usage and adoption. The product owner helps to:
- Tailor the CRM to fit the business’s needs and integrate it into daily workflows.
- Encourage users to engage more with the system and input data consistently.
Ultimately, firms should allocate dedicated resources to enhance the people and process aspects and prepare for the mindset shift required to utilize modern CRM systems fully.
Overcoming Adoption Barriers and Incentivization Strategies
While firms should establish a broader CRM adoption strategy, the panel also shared practical incentivization techniques:
- Balancing incentives based on user roles.
- Stick approach: Tying bonus structures directly to CRM usage, meaning that poor CRM engagement negatively impacts compensation, or enforcing top-down accountability from senior management.
- Carrot approach:
- Offering monetary incentives to encourage proper CRM usage.
- Using exclusively CRM data during internal meetings. If data isn’t logged into the system, it doesn’t get discussed. This approach naturally incentivizes people to ensure their work is visible – everyone wants to demonstrate that they are originating deals, being productive, and contributing.
- Streamlining data entry. The faster, the better.
- Reducing required fields to make inputting data as easy as possible.
- Reviewing existing processes to eliminate unnecessary steps.
- Demonstrating the CRM’s value. Showcasing the system’s benefits and how it enhances efficiency can significantly increase engagement and long-term adoption.
Data Entry and Technology Integration
Data entry is often the biggest hurdle in CRM adoption. The panel discussed strategies to make data entry faster and easier:
- Integrating external data providers. One panelist shared that leveraging external data sources to pre-populate key information reduces manual data entry from minutes to seconds – making a significant impact when having to enter multiple companies or investors at once.
- Leveraging automation and AI.
- Smart tagging and AI-driven enhancements help minimize data entry efforts.
- Browser add-ins provided by CRM companies enable users to add company data with a single click.
Data Strategies and Proprietary Data
The role of CRM has evolved significantly over the last decade—from a simple contact repository to a strategic tool for fundraising and investment.
The panel discussed how firms are integrating CRM into broader technology architectures:
- Centralizing data sources. Private equity firms increasingly integrate CRM with market data sources, fund administrators, and portfolio monitoring systems into a single repository, improving efficiency and reporting capabilities.
- Enhancing data accessibility. Structured data presented in dashboards and reports enables teams to access key information without having to manually fetch it or ask other teams.
- Developing proprietary tools. One panelist shared their firm’s development of an in-house deal origination tool, consolidating CRM and market data to streamline analysis and decision-making.
- Better CRM usage means better proprietary data. Only the firms that have been using CRM effectively can leverage their proprietary data. For instance, they can combine their historical data and insights—from years of analyzing companies—with market data to prioritize key targets.
As market data becomes more available to everyone, a competitive edge is found in the ability to combine your own proprietary data with public and private data sources.
Final Thoughts
CRM adoption is not just about implementing technology—it requires strong leadership, user alignment, process optimization, and the right incentives.
Firms that invest in these areas will maximize the value of their CRM and be able to capture and surface proprietary data and gain an edge on their competitors.
