How do CIOs tame the CRM beast?
Posted by Ajay Kelkar on Sat, Apr 18, 2009
MOST chief information officers (CIOs) may believe that these are not the right times for new projects with expensive funding requirements. But this might prove myopic, especially where customer relationship management (CRM) is concerned.
The last thing an organization would want now is to lose customers. This is the time to deepen relationships with customers. It is on the strength of these relationships that companies will survive the downturn. In fact, most market analysts are telling companies to invest in the most suitable CRM technology before the competition beats them to it.
I also feel that the key point here is that it takes time for key benefits to accrue out of a CRM strategy. For a large organization,it may take 2 to 4 years to extract enough value to make Business impact happen. This is largely because the Change management required in process,people,structure & incentives takes time to play out!
Most companies have invested huge quantities of capital in their back-office environments. To move forward in today's economic reality, these companies need to free investments in one area of the business to fund more important business strategies such as CRM.
See what Nitin Pradhan,has to say about the Customer being King.
http://www.blonnet.com/ew/2002/02/27/stories/2002022700100200.htm