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CRM Success through Enhancing the Project Management Approach A Factor-Based Approach Thomas Raaijen CRM Success through Enhancing the Project Management Approach A Factor-Based Approach Thomas Raaijen 29-08-2018 MASTER’S THESIS CRM S uccess through E nhancing the Project M anagement A pproach Page | 2 CRM Success through Enhancing the Project Management Approach A Factor-Based Approach MASTER’S THESIS Author Name: Thomas Raaijen Program: MSc Business InFormation Technology Institute: University oF Twente School oF Industrial Engineering and Business InFormation Systems Enschede, The Netherlands Student number: s1462431 E-mail: [email protected] Graduation committee University of Twente First supervisor: dr. Fons Wijnhoven Second supervisor: dr. Maya Daneva BrixCRM Formal supervisor: Kees ter Beek, COO Date: 29-08-2018 CRM S uccess through E nhancing the Project M anagement A pproach Page | 3 Acknowledgements Words cannot describe how exciting the journey was that I went through For the last halF year. The journey started ofF without a single clue where it all would end. During the six-month journey, I stumbled upon brain cracking challenges and remarkable people that and who taught me much about CRM and why it is much more than just IT. I am writing this acknowledgement that preFaces my research to express my sincere and deepest gratitude For those whom supported me during this journey. The First in a long list oF people is Kees ter Beek, who has been my supervisor even in the busiest oF times. Kees was one oF who has been constantly enthusiastic about my work. I still remember the look on his Face when he spoke the words; “I would have liked to be the one doing this study!”. Even when I had the Feeling that I was progressing with the most minuscule pace (maybe that is just my perFectionism), he was the one to acknowledge the contribution. The open- mindedness, straightForward Feedback and guidance you provided during our weekly meetups have helped me to stay on course. Honestly, it has been an experience unlike any other to be part oF BrixCRM and to have the inspiring discussions as we did about this research as well as those not even closely related to this research. I would like to also thank my supervisors From the University oF Twente, Fons Wijnhoven and Maya Daneva, For their guidance throughout my journey. Their invaluable Feedback, which did not always beat around the bushes, was either enthusiastic or critical. Either way their Feedback provided me the necessary tools have kept me up to speed and lead me to this point. illustrative For their support is the Following quote; “Seeing the Forest For the trees”, For which I think multiple interpretations seem Fit! Likewise, I want to express my deepest gratitude to Klaas Sikkel. Klaas has been around way beFore this journey and has been one oF the most important people to get me where I am now - graduating. And then there were these remarkable people, who made my internship as lovely as it was. Each of them are contributed in their own way. This is For all oF you who have supported me to gain new insights through numerous and endless discussions, and those who have invited me to join in the most wonderFul and memorable activities aFter the working day was over. Last but certainly not the least, I would like to thank the people closest and dearest to me. Especially, I would like to thank my girlFriend Verona, who has been the most supportive oF all even without having any clue about what I was doing all day. Thank you For being part oF this journey into the unknown, this is For you! I have worked as hard as I could to present you this thesis. ThereFore, I hope you will enjoy reading it and get as enthusiastic about it as I am. And iF you do, I am happy to be hearing it From you. Thomas Raaijen CRM S uccess through E nhancing the Project M anagement A pproach Page | 4 Abstract Currently, the success rates of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) implementation are considered below any threshold. Approximately 70 percent of the businesses chose to invest in CRM have experienced a shortfall in improvement. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that these discouraging findings have questioned the CRM performance nexus. The emergence of CRM has shown to be an elusive phenomena to study in research. The main issue that contributed to the stumbling of CRM is the inability of the field to formulate a consistent conceptualization of CRM. Furthermore, the field has seen some confusion about what is constituted in CRM. The significance is that CRM is much more than IT. Moreover, there is an abundance of important considerations to make due to the multi-disciplinary nature of CRM as a research topic. To that extent, the current experience-based approach to the research of CRM implementation is inadequate to account for the variety of considerations. The focus of this research is to design a proJect management approach that provides needed guidance for CRM system implementation to be regarded as successful. Such an approach is motivated by the need of organizations to plan and monitor the CRM implementation in a way that integrates the high-level overview of the proJect and the detailed reporting of proJect progress. This research is important in two ways. First, it has a high practical relevance. The number of companies that will focus on the customer needs as an opportunity to enhance business value is predicted to rise significantly in the years to come. This trend emerges due to the large-scale collection of customer data that incurs the opportunity for businesses to improve the service proposition. However, CRM implementation failures show that the field is pressured to pinpoint how to appropriately approach CRM implementations. The availability of a methodology that is able to address the multi- disciplinary nature of CRM will be useful to take away the pains that CRM implementation is confronted with. Second, this research is beneficial to the theory building in a troubled research field of CRM and especially in connecting the theoretical background to the field with the area of managing the implementation initiatives, an area in which a plethora of ideas exists. The research approach applied includes the Design Science Research Methodology as the guiding research method. In addition, the Grounded Theory Literature Review Method and the Information System Design Theory are applied to respectively review the heretofore literature and thus gather requirements for successful CRM implementation as well as empirically validating the findings in a case study at BrixCRM. To that end, the case study further improves the theoretical relevance of this thesis since there is a towering need of case studies in the field of CRM. An approach to CRM implementation is proposed based on the findings of the literature review about CRM, CRM implementation and the associated factors as well as on the findings of the case study in which five companies were implementing CRM in partnership with BrixCRM. The proposed factor-based approach to CRM implementation, the “consultancy guide”, concentrates on the measurement of factor importance. In addition to the theoretical findings, a toolbox of proJect management controls are proposed which includes instruments such as the ProJect Initiation Document, the Business Model Canvas and a dashboard for monitoring the performance of implementation initiatives. The main conclusions are that the consultancy guide accompanied with the toolbox can, in fact, be useful to companies that seek to implement CRM. The case studies showed that the consultancy guide can, in fact, predict the importance of 80% of implementation success factors which is found to provide relevant and understandable lightweight guidelines which can be used on voluntary basis. Therefore, it is recommended for practitioners to cherry-pick the guidelines that suit their needs. If the consultancy guide is followed, the proof-of-concept can be used to create awareness about the topics that do add value to the CRM implementation. The validation was done by interviewing proJect managers and consultants at BrixCRM. This might have inJected some subJectivity bias into the results. Future research is suggested to include experts employed at other companies and other disciplines. The inclusion of more perspectives strengthens the validity of the results. In turn, the theoretical and practical relevance of this research will also improve. CRM S uccess through E nhancing the Project M anagement A pproach Page | 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 3 Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Table oF Contents ........................................................................................................................ 5 List oF Figures .............................................................................................................................. 7 List oF Tables ............................................................................................................................... 8 List oF Acronyms .......................................................................................................................... 9 1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................................

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