Fox IT Symposium
Has Customer Relationship Management lived up to its expectations?
March 31, 2004
7:30 to 10:00 AM
Fox/Gittis Foyer
Liacouras Center
Temple University Main Campus
Panelists
Jennifer Streitwieser, Founding Partner, The Diagonal Group
Jim Spicer, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Wachovia Corporation
Frank Reynolds, Director, Global Business Development Siemens Enterprise Networks
Michael Palmer, CIO & EVP Supply Chain Management, Allied Office Supplies, Inc.
Frank Mouthaan, Vice President of Global CRM Sales Support, PeopleSoft
Moderator
Bruce Fadem, Vice President and CIO, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals
Event Summary
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become an umbrella term for the
practice of formally planning for and technology enabling the relationship with
our customer. CRM is a technology and a concept to change the marketing,
distribution, pricing, and features that are offered to customers. Early
proponents of CRM assumed it would replace and subsume all aspects of customer
facing activities. This vision has not been realized in most organizations and
questions still linger about whether CRM is simply a re-packaged version of
sales force automation.
Our panelists offered a range of perspectives and experiences on what CRM
means to different companies. There seems to be no standard approach to how
companies organize around CRM or who sponsors or manages the activities. CRM can
be an individual business unit initiative with no dedicated resources to a
company-wide activity with senior management leadership and dedicated resources.
The cost benefit mode for CRM is also challenging. Many companies have
adopted CRM practices based on their commitment that is the only way to remain
competitive and be successful. Many technologies are available to facilitate and
support CRM programs, but the business processes and strategies are far more
important than the technology.
Lessons learned shared by the panelists revolved around having clear
understanding of the scope and objective, the always popular "criticality of
project management", need for clarity on the measurement and/or metrics, and the
value of senior management sponsorship.
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