CRM, Success, and Best Practices: A Wake Up Call
Part One: Searching and Establishing the Business Parameters of CRM
Glen S. Petersen - October 21, 2004

In Search of a Charter

Customer relationship management (CRM) represents a powerful and sophisticated set of software applications that are designed to leverage the efforts of customer-facing functions such as sales, marketing, and customer service. The CRM industry continues to flounder due to high costs and perceived high failure rates. Despite thousands of pages of analyst reports and hundreds of books written on the subject, the industry and the end user community appear to miss the point that the technology has outpaced the development of a management strategy to use it. Experience has shown and statistical research verifies that success comes when senior management is directing the effort with the right level of leadership. If the industry wants to reduce the "road kill" of failed projects and help user organizations get on track, it needs to adopt a new set of best practices that will lead to economic success and prosperity for the industry. This article is part of a two part series that will define the framework and rationale for such a set of best practices...