Critical Success Factors in CRM Implementation: Some Research Issues

Abstract

In recent years, many organizations have identified the need to become more customer-facing with increased global competition. Therefore, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has emerged as the agenda of many organizational strategies. CRM is an approach which combines people, process, and technology that allows the organizations to understand their customers and retain the most profitable ones. Many studies have revealed that nearly 70% of CRM projects failed worldwide due to inability of the performing companies to resolve certain key issues, like organizational changes, integrations, and because companies view CRM as a technological project that is bound by time and budget, instead of regarding CRM as a long term commitment to efficiency and improvement. The investigation of factors potentially affecting the success of CRM implementation is of great importance, because the CRM market worldwide spending is expected to reach $76.5 billion in 2005, up from $23.26 billion achieved in 2000 according to Gartner group. A number of authors and practitioners have established many studies regarding CRM implementation. Nevertheless, most of these studies have not covered a holistic approach for the CRM implementation. This paper discusses the factors that affect a CRM implementation, based on a comprehensive analysis of CRM literature, combined with research studies and organizational experiences.