A CRM for investment banking fails in four predictable ways, and the most common has nothing to do with which product was chosen. Firms that know the four in advance avoid most of them cheaply, because each has a specific and unglamorous countermeasure. This page sets them out in order of how often they actually happen, which is not the order any vendor would present them in.
Failure one: nobody was made responsible for the record
The most common by a wide margin. Everyone is expected to keep it current, which means nobody is, and within two months it describes a firm that no longer exists. The countermeasure is a named person per mandate whose job includes the record, and a weekly meeting run off the screen rather than off a prepared deck.
Failure two: it was configured for the reports rather than the work
Fields get added because a partner wants a breakdown, and every one is a tax on the analyst. Past a threshold, entry stops and the reports the fields existed for become unreliable, which usually prompts more fields. The countermeasure is to compute the partner view from what the banker records anyway.
Failure three: everything was imported
Ten years of half-complete history lands in a new system and nobody trusts anything in it. Distrust spreads faster than data quality improves. Import the live book and the active relationships, archive the rest somewhere readable, and let the record earn trust while it is small.
Failure four: it was priced per seat
This one is structural rather than behavioural. Per-seat pricing charges most for the junior people who do most of the recording, so firms buy fewer seats, so the people with the information cannot enter it. The countermeasure is to price for the desk: $69 a month here, whoever is on it.
Questions people ask about crm for investment banking
What is the most common failure?
No named owner. Everyone responsible means nobody is, and the record describes a firm that stopped existing two months ago.
How many fields is too many?
Any field added for a report rather than for the work. Compute the partner view from what the banker records anyway.
Why does per-seat pricing matter so much?
It charges most for the juniors who do most of the recording, so firms buy fewer seats and the information never gets entered.