University CRM Acquisition & Implementation: Analysis and Process

This report provides a detailed analysis of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) acquisition and implementation. It begins by examining the underlying factors contributing to poor acquisition and implementation processes, followed by an analysis of challenges related to customer data and records, including issues like data privacy, unwanted advertising, and data integrity. The report then outlines strategies to address these data-related challenges, such as maintaining complete data, avoiding duplicate entries, and defining user roles for security. Finally, it develops a process leading to the successful acquisition and implementation of packaged CRM applications, identifying potential bottlenecks and offering solutions to ensure effective CRM system adoption and utilization within an organization. The report emphasizes the importance of addressing employee resistance, data migration, and the need for a clear framework for CRM initiatives.

Running head: CRM ACQUISITION & IMPLEMENTATION
CRM Acquisition & Implementation
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note

1CRM ACQUISITION & IMPLEMENTATION
Executive summary
The different underlying factors regarding the Customer Relationship Management are demonstrated
in the report. Next the problems related to customer data and records are studied here. Then a
process is analyzed here that leads to the successful acquisition and imposition of the packaged
applications regarding the future usage in the given organization.

2CRM ACQUISITION & IMPLEMENTATION
Table of Contents
Introduction:..........................................................................................................................................3
1. Analyzing of the underpinning factors contributing to the poor acquisition and process of
implementation:.....................................................................................................................................3
1.1. Problem analysis:........................................................................................................................3
1.2. The outlining of the symptoms and the underlying causes:.......................................................5
2. Analysis of the challenges related to the customer data and records and the reason for the
existence:...............................................................................................................................................7
2.1. Discussion on the data specific challenges rising during the implementation and acquisition:. 7
2.2. The strategies to address the issues related to the data and records and the related challenges: 8
3. Developing of the process leading to the successful acquisition and implementation for the future
packaged applications:.........................................................................................................................10
3.1. Outlining the current existing issues and the proposed implementation process:....................10
3.2. Identification of the bottlenecks in the suggested implementation process:............................12
Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................................13
References:..........................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction:
In the current era, the CRM or customer relationship management has turned out to be a
crucial topic for the managers and researchers. This denotes to the technologies, strategies, practices
used by the companies to analyze the customer interactions and data.
From the given, CRM project the benefits are realized. An acquisition strategy is adopted.
Then a straightforward governance strategy is proposed.
The underlying factors are being analyzed in the report. Then it includes the problems related
to customer data and records. Lastly, a process is developed leading to the successful acquisition and
imposition of the packaged applications for further use.
1. Analyzing of the underpinning factors contributing to the poor acquisition and
process of implementation:
1.1. Problem analysis:
The organizing sales leads are needed to be known and the following up over the sales leads.
Any system devoid of the end-to-end sales leads has been falling through the cracks inevitably. At
various cases, the important commitments are seen not to be following up, and the opportunity on
which the agency has been working disappears. The adoption of CRM by the small business has
been lagging behind the larger companies (Rahimi et al. 2016). However, the problem is that it has
not been less helpful for the small businesses. Hence, the problems are highlighted below.
Problems Discussion
Acquisition problem It has been only applicable to the customers and

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having two characteristics. The first one is when
the customers are anonymous where the
customers have registered with the agency and
already delivered some of the profiling
information as the psychographic and
demographic data about them (Kale 2014).
Implementation process It has been challenging to figure out the
activities of various CRM systems. Some of the
CRM systems are efficient in managing the sales
leads while the others are concentrated more on
controlling relations with the current customers.
Again, some of them are expert in marketing
automation while others are simple and helpful
in keeping track of the contacts.
The concept that the CRM is expensive and
complicated to use
Various owners of the small business have seen
the CRM systems to be costly and
overcomplicated. These are better suited for the
large companies (Ali, Melewar and Dennis
2013).
Less budgeting of resources for appropriate
implementation
There has been an instance where many
agencies get annoyed and give up earlier in the
implementation process. It has been taking too
much effort to implement any latest software.
The cause is not for choosing the appropriate

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CRM system but also the advantages
outweighing the cost of implementation.
1.2. The outlining of the symptoms and the underlying causes:
Any software develops new features through incorporating new updates. The world of CRM
is also not any different. However as any CRM system is not upgraded for sometimes and any cloud
technology is not used that updates automatically, then the CRM lies under the risk to decline.
There have been five kinds of various symptoms identified in the companies failing the
CRMs. The signs are as follows.
Symptoms The potential underpinning reasons
Decreasing adoption As the CRM begins to fail, it would be seen that
the users might start to migrate away from that.
As the employees favor the Excel documents
over the CRM that is not the sure indication that
something is not right.
The lack of flexibility The failing system is limited terms of flexibility
and customization. Here the CRM is unable to
facilitate the process and not able to integrate the
external systems such as marketing automation
software (Trainor et al. 2014).
Lowering the customer retention While the CRM works improperly, it could be
assured that there are particular indications of the
retention problems. The CRM comprises of the

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base of online knowledge and assisting in the
resolving issues. Further, the unhealthy CRM
damages the customer support poorly.
Incompatibility with mobility This symptom shows that the technology is
unable to stay compatible with the current
developments. The mobile is an ongoing trend in
developing of CRM permitting the complete
access while someone is away from the office
(Steel, Dubelaar and Ewing 2013). As the CRM
turns out to be some years old, the users might
be unable to take advantages of the features of
the mobiles.
The lack of actionable data It has been crucial that the CRM comprises of
every necessary data for providing the
information leading to action and not more
questions (Wynn et al. 2016). The data integrity
is an essential part of the healthy CRM. This is
because it permits the single reality to be
accessed by every member of the given
company.

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2. Analysis of the challenges related to the customer data and records and the
reason for the existence:
2.1. Discussion on the data specific challenges rising during the implementation and
acquisition:
The challenges Sources of the problems
Lack of assurance that the company compiles
with the current privacy regulations
The current situation is the age where the
privacy laws are getting stricter, and the changes
in the law are difficult to follow (Reid and
Catterall 2015). Here the errors could result in
unnecessary lawsuits and decrease of credibility
to the image of the organization.
Receiving of unwanted and wrong advertising The sending or unwanted or incorrect
information to the customer results in the
decrease of interest. Thus the customers go on
mailing and are harder to reach (Eid and El-
Gohary 2014). This also drains the extra effort,
money on advertising and marketing budget.
Low response rate and high bounce rate This occurs as the customer database is
not upgraded, and the current data is not
checked.
Lack of knowledge about the recently added
data
This takes place as the database if the
upgrade from various departments and this is
without any useful information. Further, there is

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a devoid of creating the overlook of who updated
when and what.
Difficulty in recognizing the up-selling and
cross-selling potential
This takes place while the database is
restricted to supply the information from the
department and is unable to assimilate the crucial
and other information regarding the customers it
is possible that much up-selling and cross-selling
information gets missed out.
The missing of essential customer data or
getting distributed over various systems
A total set of the customer data is
precious. The entire project would be based on
assumptions in the place of confidence, without
that. This results in the unnecessary cost making
with unsuccessful campaigns (Garrido-Moreno,
Lockett and García-Morales 2014).
2.2. The strategies to address the issues related to the data and records and the related
challenges:
The challenges Discussion Challenges
Maintaining the complete
data
The most effective way to deal
is to set the primary fields like
the names, email address,
phone number, and address
mandatory. Hence determining
The incomplete information
indicates poor data quality. The
CRM account needs to fill
various fields that are
necessary, and this is time-

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the areas are most significant
for the complete information
and encouraging the users for
fulfilling those vital details
consuming. This leads to
neglect the proper entry of data
(Padilla-Meléndez and Garrido-
Moreno 2014).
Avoiding the entry of the
duplicate contacts and leads
As the emails addresses are
unique for every individual, the
strategy to prevent the duplicate
records is done through
comparing the various emails of
the contacts
The duplicates leads and
contacts insert efforts to go
through the duplicate records.
The lack of emergence of the
current duplicate records
It is frustrating that many times
the important are scattered in
the records. In that case, the
blind deletion of a record and
potentially losing the
significant data helps in
merging the information to one
single contact
The primary challenge lies in
the elimination of the duplicates
in the current data. For
example, two contacts have the
similar last names, the company
came or emails, but one of the
records comprises of the
address or phone number that is
not seen in the other one.
The use role for the security The roles are needed to be
defined that controls the access
rights of the users through
working with the CRM data
(Rahimi and Kozak 2017).
As multiple users access with
data coming from multiple
sources, the maintaining of the
clean database of CRM is not

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Thus the users could modify the
records required by them
an easy approach.
3. Developing of the process leading to the successful acquisition and
implementation for the future packaged applications:
There has no simple answer to the CRM issues. However, some of the basic pointers leading
to successful acquisition and helping to implement the new CRM systems for the future packaged
applications are described here.
3.1. Outlining the current existing issues and the proposed implementation process:
Current Issues Discussion Proposed
Implementation process
Employees never go for CRM
system
As the users reject the CRM
systems, then the business
requires knowing what the
problems are and the reason
behind that. In maximum cases
this is traced to the devoid of
management buy-in for the
system
However, currently, instances
of the managers rejecting the
system, requesting reports in
traditional formats and
implementation of successful
CRM are extinct (Mishra, Sinha
and Singh 2014). Hence the
leaders are needed to lead and
see that everybody from the top
to down should use the CRM
system.