درک موفقیت و شکست در مدیریت ارتباط با مشتری

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems can help organizations manage customer interactions more effectively. Like many new technologies, CRM has been accompanied by vendor hype and stories of implementation failure. Work on critical success factors (CSFs) should encourage more appropriate implementation practice; however many CSF studies conclude with a list of factors but provide little further guidance. In particular, there is a need for stronger theoretical models of the entire CRM innovation process which can be used by managers to understand better the underlying causes of success and failure. This paper adopts a novel approach to this problem by firstly developing a conceptual model of CRM innovation and then converting this model into a dynamic simulation model. Some early simulation results illustrating changes in CRM benefits and organizational support over time are presented together with a discussion of the underlying causes and suggestions for how managers can counteract potential innovation failure.

The work presented here arose from concerns that the large and growing literature on critical success factors was not providing practitioners with the tools to enable more effective interventions in major systems implementations such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Large-scale integrated systems are by definition complex and difficult to implement. The systems have the potential to “join-up” organizations both internally (spanning functions) and externally (linking to suppliers, partners and customers) with the promise of more efficient communications and transactions and, in the case of CRM, greater customer insight and targeting, improved service and increased sales. But many instances of ERP and CRM have been criticized regarding the excessive time, cost and disruption of implementation and the sometimes limited benefits once the systems become operational. In response to this, a number of studies have proposed critical success factors, largely for the longer-established ERP technology, but latterly for the newer CRM too. Whilst such studies are welcome, providing a list of CSFs is only a partial aid to the manager tasked with implementing CRM successfully. The work described in this paper addresses the next stage in improving understanding of large-scale information systems implementation in general, and CRM implementations in particular. Drawing on the long-established field of simulation, a new model for CRM innovation is developed and some early simulation results presented. The value of the model as a practical tool to aid managers faced with maximizing the benefits of CRM for their organizations is discussed.

Organizations face considerable challenges in implementing large-scale integrated systems such as ERP and CRM. The promise of internal and external integration is understandably attractive in a world where service excellence, innovation and efficiency are relentlessly pursued. There exists a large body of work identifying and describing critical success factors for information systems in general and ERP in particular, and a small emerging literature on CRM CSFs. The vast majority of this literature focuses on “static” CSFs which are generally not explicitly linked to outcomes, nor are they treated as interrelated (see Table 1 for example). The work presented here moves this line of thinking forward by creating a conceptual CSF model (Fig. 1). Outcomes are explicitly included in the model, as are causal relationships. To simplify the model and ease understanding, Sauer's model of information systems innovation is used to group the factors together and to add a higher level set of relationships emphasising the role of organizational context, support management and evaluation of outcomes in particular. The conceptual model provides the foundation for a simulation model (Fig. 2). The model has been calibrated and an initial validation undertaken by comparing outputs with those reported in the literature. The model draws on thinking in marketing, information systems and simulation and addresses the call of Zablah et al. (2004) to “… develop measures and conceptual models that help unravel the, thus far, enigmatic phenomenon known as customer relationship management.” (p. 487). The model is intended as a framework which managers can use to consider the dynamics of CRM innovation. A number of virtuous and vicious cycles have been presented in the paper. These can be used to prompt thinking and debate amongst those tasked with implementing CRM and, crucially, amongst those whose work will be affected by CRM too. The model is currently under development and will be validated more precisely via interviews with key stakeholders in CRM-using organizations. The simulation model will be used for further research into CRM implementation and benefits, and for management education, where different scenarios will be posed for groups of managers to explore the consequences of their actions. A questionnaire is under development to enable all the stakeholders involved in CRM in a particular organization to contribute to validating the CSFs. The results of the questionnaire will provide data such as initial values for the CSF variables in the simulation model. Using these initial values and other established parameters, the simulation can be rolled forward in time in order to explore different scenarios and the consequences of different decisions. This will provide managers with a new and powerful tool with which to exploit the potential of CRM for organizational success.