CIO Insight's CRM Survey

CIO Insight Magazine's August issue featured an interesting research study with regard to CRM projects. The survey headline, Will Old Problems Sink New Users? says it all.

From my perspective, the focus continues to be technology, when the customer's needs, values and expectations must be placed at the forefront. So yes, as long as IT departments lead these projects, "old problems will sink news users".

Before I get a lot of mail on this, let me say I'm not against IT departments or technical project managers. It's been my experience that the IT departments will get the system built (or installed) according to plan, and it will be functionally correct. Yet, it will be largely unusable for the intended purposes of improving customer relationships. More often than not, it won't support the business objectives.

Among the key findings: 55% said business units should be more involved at the early stages, and; 63% say CRM systems require a major cultural change.

Agreed. Let's start by defining the business objectives, redefining corporate processes from the customer's perspective,and educate employees to the fact that the customer signs the paychecks. One this is done, I guarantee you'll see a greater success rate and ROI on CRM systems.

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