Strategic issues in customer relationship management (CRM) implementation

The number of customer relationship management (CRM) implementations has grown dramatically in recent years. However, few academic studies of the issues associated with the implementation of the concept are available. This paper offers a modest contribution through the analysis of a case study of a CRM implementation at a UK-based manufacturing company. The case study illustrates that CRM is a complex and holistic concept, organised around business processes and the integration of information technologies. The study also highlights that implementing CRM requires effective leadership, sourcing, targeting and evaluation strategies. Introduction In recent years many organisations have identi®ed the need to become more customer facing with increased global competition. As a consequence, customer relationship management (CRM) has risen to the agenda of many organisational strategies. De®nitions of CRM and CRM systems are wide ranging and shall be explored in greater detail in the next section. Fundamentally however, CRM systems can be viewed as information systems aimed at enabling organisations to realise a customer focus. In 1998 global corporate expenditure on CRM was estimated to be in the region of US$1.9 billion (IDC and AMR Research, 2001) and it is predicted that by 2004, it will reach approximately US$23.5 billion (Datamonitor, 2001)[1]. Clearly, an increasing number of diverse organisations are adopting CRM yet surveys are beginning to highlight the potential risks. Even though CRM systems are proving an incredibly popular choice for implementation, success is proving illusive. One study of 202 CRM projects found that only 30.7 per cent of the organisations said that they had achieved improvements in the way they sell to and service customers (Dickie, 2000). Moreover, a recent and broader survey estimates that 70 per cent of companies will ultimately fail (Giga, 2001). The Giga survey revealed that: companies generally underestimate the complexities of CRM, lack clear business objectives and tend to invest inadequately in the provision of CRM software. While the ®ndings by Giga highlight a fairly gloomy scenario, it is clear that not all organisations are facing failure. First Manhattan are just one of the many examples of diverse companies highlighted by Newell (2000) that have applied CRM methods and experienced success. It is The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister http://www.emeraldinsight.com/1463-7154.htm