BDA's CRM Makeover | A Healthy Serving of Digital Innovation!

Company Overview

The British Dietetic Association (BDA) is a UK-wide membership organisation with 11,200 members representing the whole of the dietetic workforce, including dietitians and the dietetic support workforce.

Based in Birmingham and with members from all four UK nations, it is one of the world's oldest and most experienced dietetic organisations.

As a Trade Union and professional body, it represents its members' professional, educational, public and workplace interests.

The Challenge

Significant functionality gaps and system reliability issues caused the BDA to lose faith in their previous CRM solution, both as a tool to manage their membership effectively and as a core component of their technology strategy. Integration between the CRM and the website, event management tool and finance system was business critical for the BDA. Still, a lack of robustness in the previous CRM implementation had undermined trust in the solution and confidence in the accuracy of the data it held. These shortfalls called overall system integrity into question and led to the team being forced to run important processes manually outside their systems.

The existing CMS was well established and highly thought of, and it served as an important platform for website content and member transactions. A fundamental requirement for the new CRM was the ability of the system to integrate and exchange data with the existing CMS and the supplier's experience in doing so. Equally, the existing event management solution would remain in place and needed to integrate and exchange data with the new CRM.

The Approach

BDA’s approach was underpinned by the three pillars they identified for a successful digital transformation project:

1. Engage a good Project Manager who understands and can properly advocate for the organisation, translating technical requirements. To rise to this challenge, BDA recruited an external PM with a track record of successfully delivering similar projects in the sector.
2. Reduce complexity wherever possible – if in doubt, keep it simple, remembering that just because the solution can do it doesn’t mean it should.
3. Beyond senior-level sponsorship is important, senior-level practical engagement and oversight are essential. Get staff engaged from the start and bring them on the journey fully committed – digital transformation requires going above and beyond, and staff are more willing to do the extra if they believe in the end result.

Having been let down by their supplier in a previous digital change project, BDA was keen to put strict legal controls in place to protect them from being burned a second time. Bluelight was empathetic to BDA’s concerns and worked closely with senior management to help ensure the project did not stall whilst the legalese was worked through.

At the start of the project, Bluelight ran a series of workshops for key business areas to capture and verify BDA requirements. Once documented, these requirements were reviewed and refined collaboratively until all parties were comfortable that they had formed the bedrock on which the new CRM could be built.

As is common in many such projects, achieving sign-off of requirements can be complicated and delayed by trying to pre-empt every eventuality and account for unknown possibilities. Bluelight worked closely with the BDA through this period to provide reassurance that there was scope within the proposed implementation timeline and the budget to accommodate reasonable uncertainty.  By allocating time and money for solution adjustments, BDA could be sure they wouldn't face a change request (and invoice) every time they changed their mind and the solution moved away from a set of strict acceptance criteria made at the beginning of the project.

With this being understood, BDA signed up, and implementation began.

The stand-out element of the implementation phase was the contributors' expertise and attitude and their level of collaboration. Everyone at BDA was capable and competent in their business areas, with key people having invaluable knowledge of their internal processes and the company as a whole. Everyone’s commitment to the project and its deadlines ensured that the project stayed on track. 

BDA staff were equal players in the project team and recognised that success meant transcending the traditional imbalance of a client/supplier relationship. For example, BDA invested many hours in creating robust testing plans, ensuring painstakingly detailed data and solution testing was carried out by people who a) had the expertise and b) cared deeply about getting it right.

Equally, Bluelight’s knowledgeable and approachable consultants ensured they were on hand to answer questions and promptly unblock progress. BDA felt their questions were seriously considered, noted that bespoke support was provided to solve unique problems, and felt they could bring their best game because Bluelight gave them the scaffolding they needed to succeed.

To underpin this progress, the Bluelight Project Management function and BDA’s Project Manager (Equantiis) provided clear communications, helpful documentation and detailed action plans, allowing project members to plan ahead with confidence.

The Outcome

With no in-project chargeable change requests issued, with committed internal resources, and with a realistic (albeit challenging) implementation timeline, BDA was able to go live with the CRM on budget and on the exact date pinpointed nine months before the start of the implementation phase.

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