Chapter 10. Creating Your CRM Business Case

A successful CRM initiative is based on a solid CRM Business Case. The Business Case is a critical document that describes the company's current customer relationship management processes, the desired state, how the company intends to integrate people, process, and technology to get to the desired state, the costs and expected return of the CRM initiative, the risks and mitigating factors associated with the initiative, the organizational/operational impact of the initiative, and CRM program metrics against which success/failure can be measured. The CRM Business Case is as relevant to one-off CRM projects as it is to multiple CRM projects within a CRM program.

A company that embarks upon a CRM initiative but fails to create a comprehensive CRM Business Case risks being doomed from the start. The CRM Business Case should not be an option. Not only should it be done, but also it should include precise metrics that get measured throughout the life of the CRM initiative. Despite some analysts' unreasonable claims of CRM implementation failure rates, I can confidently state that those companies that have taken the time to create a comprehensive CRM Business Case containing metrics as described below greatly improve their likelihood of CRM program success. Remember the works of management guru, Peter Drucker, who reminded us some years ago “if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.”

The following sections and their details comprise a successful, comprehensive CRM Business Case.