Customer Relationship Management: from Theory to Practice

In today’s highly competitive world, an increasing number of organizations have realized the importance of becoming more customer-centric and invested a large amount of time and resources in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system with the aim of better managing their customers. A large number of CRM projects, however, end up failing or struggling. While many studies have been conducted about methodologies, tools, and theoretical conceptualizations of CRM, there is little, if any, emphasizing the critical steps and key challenges to its successful implementation. This paper picks up on that challenge. The emphasis of the discussion is not on the introduction of previously developed tools or theoretical conceptualizations, but on issues relating to CRM project management. The road map which this paper develops owes its origin to this author’s extensive experience as a marketing and CRM consultant for large and medium enterprises in Thailand and Australia for more than ten years. It aims to compiles the critical steps and provides a conceptual framework for the implementation of CRM that will lead to better preparation for consultants and organizations alike that want to make CRM an operational tool.