# CRM renewal requirements brief

**Portfolio status:** Synthetic business-analysis case study  
**Purpose:** Establish a testable requirements baseline before CRM vendor demonstrations  
**Scope:** UK sales, marketing and customer operations

## Problem statement

Customer information is split between individual spreadsheets, an ageing CRM and email. Sales leaders cannot rely on pipeline reports; marketing cannot connect campaign activity to opportunities; and operations rekeys customer data after a deal closes. The renewal must fix the process and data model, not merely replace the interface.

## Outcomes

The target solution should:

- create one accountable customer and opportunity record;
- reduce manual rekeying between sales and operations;
- provide a consistent pipeline definition and audit trail;
- connect campaign source to revenue without exposing unnecessary personal data;
- support adoption through role-based views and simple workflows.

## Stakeholders

| Group | Primary need | Decision or contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Sales | Fast opportunity updates and accurate forecast | Own stage definitions and adoption |
| Marketing | Campaign-to-revenue attribution | Define source taxonomy and consent rules |
| Operations | Complete handover data | Define order-readiness controls |
| Leadership | Trusted KPI view | Approve governance and investment |

## Prioritised requirements

### Must have

1. A unique customer identifier with duplicate detection.
2. A standard opportunity process with owner, value, stage, probability and expected close date.
3. Mandatory validation before an opportunity can move to “Closed Won”.
4. Role-based access for sales, marketing, operations and administrators.
5. A timestamped audit history for material field changes.
6. Marketing-source capture with consent status and retention rules.
7. An operations handover record created automatically from a won opportunity.
8. Exportable pipeline and conversion data using agreed KPI definitions.

### Should have

9. Email and calendar activity capture with user control.
10. Automated reminders for stale opportunities.
11. Mobile-friendly opportunity updates.

### Could have

12. Structured call-summary templates, subject to privacy and accuracy review.

## Process rules

- “Qualified” requires an identified need, decision-maker and indicative value.
- “Proposal” requires a dated proposal document and next action.
- “Closed Won” requires final value, product, billing entity, delivery owner and target start date.
- Opportunities with no activity for 30 days are flagged as stale, not automatically removed.

## Acceptance criteria

1. Given a new customer with a matching domain and postcode, the system warns the user before creating a duplicate.
2. An opportunity cannot progress to “Proposal” without value, expected close date and next action.
3. Changing value, stage or close date records the user, old value, new value and timestamp.
4. Marking an opportunity “Closed Won” creates a complete operations handover within one minute.
5. The pipeline dashboard reconciles to exported opportunity records with zero unexplained variance.
6. A marketing user can report source-to-revenue conversion without viewing restricted operational notes.

## Non-functional requirements

- 99.9% monthly availability during business hours.
- Core customer search returns in under two seconds at the expected data volume.
- UK GDPR-aligned access, retention, export and deletion controls.
- Supplier provides documented backup, recovery and incident-notification arrangements.

## Data migration controls

Profile source fields, owners and permitted values before migration. Deduplicate organisations before contacts, quarantine records that fail mandatory rules, and reconcile row counts plus financial totals after every rehearsal. The business owner signs off the final exception list.

## Measures of success

- at least 90% weekly active use among licensed sales users after eight weeks;
- 95% of open opportunities contain a next action and expected close date;
- fewer than 1% confirmed duplicate organisations;
- 50% reduction in manual operations handover time;
- leadership forecast report produced without offline spreadsheet correction.

## Open decisions

The steering group must confirm data-retention periods, integration scope, migration history depth, reporting granularity and whether email activity capture is opt-in or mandatory before issuing the request for proposal.