People, Process and Technology in CRM Implementation
Ranki, Minni (2019)
Ranki, Minni
2019
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019112823300
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019112823300
Tiivistelmä
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been a popular topic in the business world since the 1990’s. The academics have conducted a considerable amount of research related to CRM, software suppliers have various CRM systems in the market and companies are willing to improve their performance to be more customer-centric. However, a common understanding of the term CRM is still lacking clarity. Additionally, a general model of how to implement CRM in an organization is missing from the literature.
When implementing CRM three crucial components in an organization should be taken into account: people, process and technology. The organization should find the right mix of the components, usually divided as 50% to people, 30% to processes and 20% to technology. People of the organization need to be won over for the change as well as trained for the new ways to work, processes need cross-process collaboration and restructuring to be customer-centric, technology should be approachable, and to give in-time and reliable information, the available data sources need cleansing and integrating.
This research was conducted as a qualitative, single-case study in a medium-sized manufacturing company that planned to take the CRM system in use. The aim of this research was to study the CRM phenomenon in general and the aspects that the company should take into consideration in order to successfully implement CRM in an organization. The need to find a technological solution to improve the global sales team’s daily work was the starting point of the project and the needs for the tool were discussed in CRM team meetings in spring 2019. People, process and technology components were studied by interviewing the sales team and three employees related to the components, and the functions of the components were observed before the system implementation project started.
Key findings were that people should be informed, trained and supported during the change process which essentially relates to CRM implementation. The processes need cross-process collaboration to be improved and the existing IT infrastructure requires to be considered carefully as well. CRM implementation should always be seen as a holistic strategic approach, where people component has the biggest impact in terms of success in practice.
When implementing CRM three crucial components in an organization should be taken into account: people, process and technology. The organization should find the right mix of the components, usually divided as 50% to people, 30% to processes and 20% to technology. People of the organization need to be won over for the change as well as trained for the new ways to work, processes need cross-process collaboration and restructuring to be customer-centric, technology should be approachable, and to give in-time and reliable information, the available data sources need cleansing and integrating.
This research was conducted as a qualitative, single-case study in a medium-sized manufacturing company that planned to take the CRM system in use. The aim of this research was to study the CRM phenomenon in general and the aspects that the company should take into consideration in order to successfully implement CRM in an organization. The need to find a technological solution to improve the global sales team’s daily work was the starting point of the project and the needs for the tool were discussed in CRM team meetings in spring 2019. People, process and technology components were studied by interviewing the sales team and three employees related to the components, and the functions of the components were observed before the system implementation project started.
Key findings were that people should be informed, trained and supported during the change process which essentially relates to CRM implementation. The processes need cross-process collaboration to be improved and the existing IT infrastructure requires to be considered carefully as well. CRM implementation should always be seen as a holistic strategic approach, where people component has the biggest impact in terms of success in practice.