Evaluation of the implementation of CRM in developing countries

Managing relations with customers has been a main concern for business organisations fromdifferent sizes and fields. Such a concern has grown rapidly in the last few decades for a number ofreasons such as the development of new technologies especially in the field of informationtechnology (IT). Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a newly emerged concept in thefields of IT and business that aims to strengthen the relationships between an organisation and itscustomers. Despite the promising expectations of implementing such a concept by manyorganisations, a significant number of CRM projects fail or result in disappointing outcomes that fallfar short of expectations. This motivated researchers and practitioners to study the sources of failureand the factors of success in CRM implementation.Although CRM existed first in western organisations, it has spread almost all over the world as anincreasing number of firms are implementing or planning to implement CRM. This researchdesigned an integrated framework for investigating and evaluating the implementation of CRM indeveloping countries. The design of this framework was based on previous studies in the field ofCRM implementation especially in the area of studying CRM success and failure. It is also based onthe common sense and knowledge of the researcher in the field of CRM. To help identify successfulimplementation of CRM and to provide organisations with a guide to implement CRM projects, theresearch reviewed and organised the literature on CRM success and failure as well as the previousstudies in CRM frameworks. Subsequently, the research designed a framework for CRMimplementation that integrates CRM implementation phases/stages, CRM components, and CRMsuccess factors.To assess the feasibility of the framework in developing countries, the research developed in-depthcase study methodology that focused on two large communication companies which operate in SaudiArabia and are implementing CRM projects fully and partially. The questions of the case study weredeveloped to assess the feasibility of the framework based on the comparison between the conceptualframework and the practical implementation of CRM by the case companies, and the case studyprotocol was developed accordingly. Data was collected through multiple sources such as in-depthinterviews, observations, documentations and archival records.The results of the case study support the feasibility of the framework in implementing CRM ingeneral. The assessment stage was highly supported by the results. In addition, the success factors and their importance in implementing CRM were supported by the results with variation ofimportance of the success factors. However, cultural issues were significant to the CRMimplementation and required modification to the framework to be more effective when implementedin developing countries.