Implementing Knowledge-Enabled CRM Strategy in a Large Company: A Case Study from a Developing Country

Abstract

This case study is aimed at developing an understanding of the various aspects and issues concerning the implementation of a knowledge-enabled customer relationship management (KCRM) strategy at a telecommunications company in a developing country. The KCRM program was composed of three major parts: enterprise data warehouse (EDW), operational customer relationship management (CRM), and analytical CRM. The KCRM initiative was designed to automate and streamline business processes across sales, service, and fulfillment channels. The KCRM program is targeted at achieving an integrated view of customers, maintaining long-term customer relationship, and enabling a more customer-centric and efficient go-to-market strategy. The company faced deregulation after many years of monopoly. The company initiated a customer-centric knowledge management program, and pursued understanding customers’ needs and forming relationships with customers, instead of only pushing products and services to the market. The major result of the case study was that the KCRM program ended as an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) project. The company did not succeed in implementing KCRM as a business strategy, but did succeed in implementing it as a transactional processing system. Several challenges and problems were faced during and after the implementation phase. Notable among these was that the CRM project complexity and responsibilities were underestimated, and as a result, the operational CRM solution was not mature enough to effectively and efficiently automate CRM processes. Changing organizational culture also required a tremendous effort and pain in terms of moving toward customer-centric strategy, policy and procedures, as well as sharing of knowledge in a big organization with many business silos. Employees’ resistance to change posed a great challenge to the project. As a conclusion, the KCRM case study qualified as a good case of bad implementation.