Does CRM Technology Help in Achieving Sustainable Competitive Advantage?

Purpose: To validate the impact of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technologies on stable competitive advantage of companies. Confronting the existing ambiguous research. Design/methodology/approach: In step one, 757 publications were verified in a systematic literature review to establish precise CRM technology implementation success indicators. In step two, phone surveys were conducted with 608 corporate respondents to link CRM technology implementation success indicators with stable competitive advantage. Step three involved statistical inference applying machine-learning powered association rules/basket analysis. Findings: The best and the worst-performing companies simultaneously reported only low to moderate levels of CRM technology implementation success indicators. Both groups of companies do not differ significantly as far as CRM technology applications are concerned. Hence, direct impact of CRM technology on achieving stable competitive advantage was negatively validated. Research limitations/implications: Spatial positioning of this research in the Polish market demands studies in other markets to ensure the generality of findings. Research on CRM technology does not embrace other industry 4.0 technologies. Studies dealing with other technologies would shed more light on the overall role of the industry 4.0 revolution and the constraints in implementing new technologies. Originality/value: The research supposed that the ambiguity in existing research is caused by the methodical mistake: mixing the best and the worst-performing companies in one research survey. A hypothesis was established stating that the CRM technologies will only significantly impact stable competitive advantage of the best performing firms that have the competence to exploit their potential. This hypothesis was negatively verified