CRM Implementations: Expensive And Most Fail
from the that's-not-good dept
Recently, people have been saying that despite the economic downturn, customer relationship management (CRM) products are still selling at a high rate - since companies believe they help reduce costs (which is important right now). However, things might not look so great for the sector if more reports like the following one keep showing up. Apparently, CRM products are expensive, take ridiculously long implementation times, tough to convince people to use, and fail most of the time. Sounds like a great deal, right? Of course, there are many questions about the study - and what it comes down to, is that lots of people can implement the wrong technology for the wrong reasons and of course it won't work. A carefully thought out plan to meet a well recognized need is much more likely to work. The problem companies are the ones that just assume they need a CRM product because everyone else has one these days.
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as long as CRM is implemented for the wrong reason
CRM is one of the most central packages used in a corporation and changes just about anything inside that corporation. People who over the years have gotton accustomed to using their beloved MS-Access contact database hacks, their own personal MS-Excel list, etc. will now have to "buy in" the CRM package and use this. If one item in the process chain fails to do so, the CRM package will ultimately fail.
CRM is not about information technology. CRM is about processes and people and a technology/software supporting this. If you don't get the processes and people aligend (and few projects do), the project will fail.
It is hardly the vendors to blame. It is the companies to blame first and irresponsible consultants to blame second.
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