What Gets Lost in a CRM Migration (And How to Avoid Rebuilding the Same Problems)
A 30-minute session for commercial operations and digital strategy leaders preparing for or currently navigating a CRM migration in life sciences.
Key Takeaways
Whether you're preparing for a CRM migration or already in the thick of it, you'll leave this session with a clear understanding of how to avoid the most painful pitfalls of migration.
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Migrations Replicate What Already Exists
Most CRM migrations are scoped as technical projects and deliver exactly what was specified. Broken workflows, adoption gaps, and unowned governance come across too.
The Costliest Decisions Happen Too Early or Not at All
Process design mirrors legacy. Data quality gets deferred. Change management becomes a training event. Governance lands with no clear owner once the implementation partner exits.
Migration Is Your Best Window to Fix the Foundation
The decisions made during a migration are harder to revisit once you're live. Know what to challenge, what to defer, and what to own before it's too late.
Most CRM migrations in life sciences get scoped as technical projects. Platform architecture, data transfer, integration remapping, UAT. The business side gets consulted, sign-off is gathered, and the implementation partner delivers what was specified.
The problem is that what gets specified is usually a replica of what already exists. The broken approval workflows come across. The unowned governance model comes across. The field adoption gaps that existed on the old platform, now live on the new one, and harder to revisit because the migration is officially done.
This session is about the decisions that get made too early, too late, or not at all during a migration. We'll walk through the four patterns Epista sees most consistently when coming into a commercial organization mid-migration or shortly after go-live:
1. Process design that mirrors legacy workflows instead of questioning them
2. Data quality decisions deferred until they become migration blockers
3. Change management treated as a training event rather than a business readiness programme
4. Governance models handed over with no clear owner once the implementation partner exits
