Steve Downton, Downton Service Management Consultants Ltd, Noventum Group
The current focus of analyst reports on Customer Relationship Management (CRM), would seem to be on implementations. The criteria used to assess success or otherwise are based around business adoption and performance. The latest research has produced some quite alarming statistics about the success to date: 12% fail to go live, and of the projects that do go live, the technology aspects of the project are considered a success in around 47%, though no real business adoption has taken place. Of the 25% of those considering their adoption of CRM a success, they cannot quantify a specific numeric business benefit. Ultimately, the conclusion is that only 16% of projects can claim to measurably improve business performance. The results of a similar research exercise last year produced very similar numbers, with less than 15% of all CRM implementations considered successful in delivering their goals.
The same analysts recommend that buying Best-of-Breed from any of the top-tier vendors is pretty much as safe as you can get, and state that, "If users sit and wait they will never do anything". The cynics amongst us could, in fairness, point to the results of implementing CRM solutions as no different to the history of implementing Enterprise systems (ERP) solutions.
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