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Introduction
There is a problem regarding Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system adoption within organisations. Payne (2006) found that about 60 per cent of CRM system adoption ends in failure, and that 69 per cent of projects fall below the company’s expectations. More recently, Kim et al. (2012) pointed out that of those organisations that invested in projects of CRM system adoption, about 70 per cent, came to the conclusion that there was no visible improvement, or experienced a decline in their business performance. In the literature, the most frequently cited reasons for the lack of benefits realisation from CRM system adoption are: first, a limited strategic planning focus with respect to CRM systems (Coltman et al., 2011), second, a lack of clarity or organisational objectives for CRM adoption (Finnegan and Currie, 2010).
In addressing the reasons for the lack of benefits realisation from CRM systems, two concepts need to be defined: What are CRM systems? What is the strategic planning focus for CRM systems? Payne and Frow (2005, p. 168) define CRM as “a strategic approach concerned with creating improved shareholder value through the development of appropriate relationships with key customers and customer segments”. CRM is not only a technological tool, but also a way of improving the bottom-line of a company by having a more effective and efficient relationship with customers. A strategic planning focus for CRM systems hence allows for enhancing shareholder value of an organisation by systematically identifying objectives and by measuring the results of the CRM system over a period of time. A precursor to any strategic planning process is a clear definition of objectives. In our review of the literature, such objectives have not been very well defined. Hence we argue that failure of CRM system adoption in companies is a consequence of a lack of a strategic planning focus, which can be resolved by identifying and defining CRM system adoption objectives.
Theoretical background
CRM adoption
Companies adopt CRM systems in order to achieve different objectives. These include: enhancing relationship with customers (Coltman et al., 2011); increasing the smooth flow of business processes (Payne 2006); better understanding of customer requirements (Coltman et al., 2011); increasing customer loyalty (Hillebrand et al., 2011); enhancing revenues (Chen and Chen,...