By M. Isi Eromosele

Customer relationship management (CRM) represents a key business strategy that will

help determine successful enterprises within multiple industries. Enterprises engaged in CRM, or planning to be must understand the critical components of successful CRM strategy development and implementation.

Among business initiatives, CRM holds both great promise and major challenges:

Promise

The promise lies in the business benefits and competitive advantages that enterprises can gain from superior knowledge of and engagement with their customers.

Enterprises that are succeeding in their CRM initiatives are achieving improved profitability, revenue and customer satisfaction by organizing around customer segments, fostering behavior that satisfies their customers, even as they implement customer-centric processes.

Challenges

The challenges lie in the complex and comprehensive nature of undertaking CRM implementation. CRM is not easy. It requires high-level vision and leadership to drive a relentless focus on the customer. It involves difficult changes to processes, culture and organization.

It requires a strategy to capture accurate customer data, analyze it, distribute it to the right people and act on it effectively. It poses technical challenges such as multi-channel alignment, system integration and data excellence.

Implementation Of CRM Strategy

Implementing a CRM strategy involves a complex interplay of factors across the enterprise, as part of a broad initiative to understand customer preferences and to use that information to drive improved service levels, revenue and profits. The goal is to provide the enterprise with a competitive advantage by creating a unified, enterprise-wide view of the customer and by presenting a single face of the customer.

2012 will be the year that companies will begin to see significant benefits and measurable returns on their CRM investments. More than ever, however, IT practitioners and their business counterparts are being challenged to build a CRM technology infrastructure and business culture that will deliver quantifiable business benefits.

Types A, B and C Enterprises

Oseme Consulting have classified enterprises into three different categories, based on how aggressive they adopt a CRM strategy and how successfully they implement the underpinning technology that drives Customer Relationship Management.

Briefly defined:

Type A enterprises are technology-driven and are often willing to risk using immature, cutting-edge technologies to gain a competitive edge.

Type B enterprises are moderate technology adopters, using new technologies once they have been proven and have entered the mainstream.

Type C enterprises are technologically risk-averse and cost-conscious and are usually among the last to adopt new technologies.

The classifications above are then grouped into four categories - Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries and Niche

Leaders are companies that are doing well today and have great prospects for tomorrow.

Visionaries are those that have great ideas for tomorrow, but may not be executing consistently or well in all areas.

Challengers are those that execute well today and may dominate a large segment, but do not fully understand market trends and directions and thus may not have all the elements necessary for future success.

Niche Players are either companies that focus on a small segment of the market (and do so well), or those that have modest horizons and possibilities owing to their inability to innovate or outperform other vendors.

Enterprises must prepare rational, tactical and attainable CRM objectives. They must take the measure of their initiatives by establishing solid metrics and realistic return on investment (ROI) models.

They need to acknowledge that instituting CRM is more challenging than simply installing a new software system. It takes executive commitment, employee buy-in and flexibility to constantly fine-tune efforts to meet changing marketplace realities.