Business impacts of CRM implementations
Author(s)
Pinto de Mendonça, José Rogério, 1963-
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Alternative title
Business impacts of customer relationship management implementations
Other Contributors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Management of Technology Program.
Advisor
Glen L. Urban.
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This thesis aims at examining CRM implementations and at obtaining theoretical and practical evidence to three questions: ** What patterns emerge in successful CRM implementations, and general factors that prevent organizations from achieving expected results in such projects; ** What business benefits and impacts (e.g., return on investment, customer value, and redesign of business processes), are typically observed in CRM initiatives; ** How companies rearrange their organizational structures to, maximize the benefits of CRM. To accomplish these goals the author conducted a review of available literature, arid then interviewed members of 3 companies that implemented CRM and 2 system integrators with comprehensive experience in implementation of CRM. This practical experience intended to confirm the findings obtained through the literature review. The 3 companies researched are market leaders in the Financial Service Industry in Latin America. Consistently, the System Integrators interviewed actively serve the same industry. The major findings of this work are the following: ** Technology components as well as vendor selection is secondary as a key success factor; ** Companies usually do not reorganize themselves due to CRM implementations. Structure models; seems to be much more dependent on intrinsic cultural aspects; ** Observed business benefits have a high degree of variation, depending much on the situation before the implementation - all researched cases were considered to be successful. Although the sample analyzed is not sufficient to establish generalizations, due to its size and to the impossibility of obtaining reliable numeric or quantitative data, we report our results and interpret as a contribution to the growing body of evidence. Most of the conclusions are consistent with the literature review findings, with the exception of the observed absence of 'business cases' in the analyzed companies. The literature claims that elaboration of detailed business cases is critical, whereas in the analyzed companies a less rigorous, but nevertheless detailed, planning was sufficient to ensure success. Apart from the limitation of the size of the researched sample, due to the relative newness of the theme, part of the literature reviewed was composed by white papers published by CRM vendors, management consulting firms, and independent research and advisory companies. The research suggests that such implementations have important and lasting effects on the business. It also indicates that the magnitude of the business impacts are intrinsically dependent of the realities of particular companies, and cannot be generalized even within the specific financial services sector. Most of conclusions are based on qualitative analysis. since the number of cases, complexity and variability of the implementations, prevent from generating statically sound analysis. It would be valuable if this research could be extended through other industry sectors, in Latin America, or alternatively to encompass financial service companies from other regions.
Description
Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2002. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-76).
Date issued
2002Department
Management of Technology Program.; Sloan School of ManagementPublisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Management of Technology Program.