Putting the Implementation of Customer Relationship into Context

Levels of dissatisfaction with the outcomes of customer relationship management (CRM) projects still exceed 52%.(Zablah et al., 2004, McNulty et al., 2003, Iriana and Buttle, 2006, Plakoyiannaki and Tzokas, 2002) yet the number of business investing in CRM is still growing at 8% (Beasty, 2006). There are indications within the CRM literature that context may be important yet it is an area of implementation research that has received only limited interest. Context encompasses the industry type and the type of organisation. Jackson (1985) suggested that relationship building activities were not suitable for all industries. Nijssen at al (2003) also showed that industry type influences customer perceptions and therefore the likelihood of loyalty. There is also evidence that the expected profitability of loyal customers is mediated by the nature of the industry (Reinartz and Kumar, 2000). There are two areas of research that indicate that organisational context has an effect on the development of CRM. The first is how CRM is interpreted at different decision points in an organisation, namely strategic, operational and analytical CRM, and different types of organisations will have different requirements from their CRM projects (Buttle, 2004). While the second approach discusses the need for a customised implementation of software based on size of organisation (Zikmund et al., 2003).