The Real Reason for CRM implementation Failure

You can search the Internet and look at technology trade magazines and find list after list of why CRM (Customer Retention Management) implementations fail. To me, most of these “articles” are laundry lists from many “post mortem meetings”. We can talk for days about “How the executives did not buy in to the solution”, or “the employees, especially users, did not believe in the selected system” even “poor project management” are great excuses for spending thousands and even millions of dollars. Please don’t misunderstand me; these are all valid reasons to project failure while the blame is placed on users, executives, project managers and even the solution itself. No one discusses the beginning of the failure point.

A simple scenario:

. A large company’s Sales Department decides that a CRM solution is needed to help increase sales, customer retention and track support calls. Different CRM vendors meet with the Company’s executive staff. CRM sales representatives explain why the business should choose their product. From my experience as a consultant for Amdocs ClarifyCRM, which is extremely customizable. The sales person informs the business that the software can be customized to accommodate any business requirements, such as billing, invoice generation, provisioning and even Human Resource utilities. Expectations have now been set. I, being a good ole southern boy, have said that “Windshield wipers can be put on a goat’s rear, but it just doesn’t make sense. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. One system is not the “do all, be all” solution even though you can customize it to the nth degree.

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/computers_and_internet/article_4846.shtml

Scope creep is a huge culprit causing project timelines and budgets to increase creating a more complex system to develop and implement. By using an agile process with short design to production time frames scope creep and budgets can be more controlled.