An Unexpected Journey: an Action Research Approach to the Development of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solution in a Clinical Research Organization

Abstract

It is important for an organization to develop deep, mutual relationships with their customers – doing so will often ensure superior customer loyalty, and long-term profitability. To help achieve this, customer relationship management (CRM) is often practised and used. However, there is a lack of consensus on how CRM should be defined in literature, and the concept is not often applied well to organizations in a real life setting. Many organizations fail to navigate the pitfalls and traps that one may encounter during the implementation of CRM, and consequently fail to see satisfactory returns from their investment. This project focused on such an organization who wished to use CRM to develop better customer relationships and improve profitability. However, the organization had limited knowledge of CRM or CRM processes, and required external support to ensure that implementation went smoothly. To do this, I used an action research approach, which consisted of gathering primary data from interviews to identify areas where the organization needed to change to better suit CRM processes. Those areas were identified and tackled as a series of action research cycles. Through primary data gathering, I identified several challenges in the organization that needed to be overcome. Those challenges mainly stemmed from the organization’s lack of CRM knowledge and experience which led to a lack of established and formal processes that would benefit CRM as a result. To overcome this, a new business development specialist role with considerable CRM experience and knowledge was introduced into the organization. This was accompanied by changes in internal processes to re-align the organization into one that is more customer-centric and proactive. Relevant software was then selected and utilised to support those new functions to enable management of customer data and relations. Through the project findings, an interesting gap between literature (theory) and a real environment (application) became apparent. The projected demonstrated how IT projects are often developed under constant organizational flux, and further research will be needed to understand how it is best managed.