Introduction to ecommerce customer relationship management (ECCRM) mini-track

Abstract

The Customer Relationship Management Mini-track is now in its fourth year. Our initial call for papers centered on a research agenda which was adapted and enhanced into a recently published paper (Romano and Fjermestad, 2003). We have explored each of the research areas business models, technical issues, the markets, the human side and now the knowledge management issues. In our first paper by Puschmann and Alt, “Successful Practices in Customer Relationship Management”, describes the results of a cross-industry benchmarking project in which 120 companies participated. The results show that there is no ‘unique’ CRM project and that successful implementations are rarely technical projects. From the research six critical success factors for CRM projects emerged: stepwise evolution, straightforward implementation and long-term project, organizational redesign, integrated system architecture of standard components, change management, and top management support. The six successful practice companies show examples of how these critical success factors are applied. Schierholz, Bueren, Kolbe, and Brenner, in their paper “Customer Knowledge Management - Improving Performance of Customer Relationship Management with Knowledge Management,” illustrate the use of modern information technology to provide knowledge support to CRM processes. This knowledge support, in turn, allows for performance enhancement in customer oriented business processes. They identify six CRM sub-processes and four aspects of Knowledge Management. They also explore several action research cases which support their model. In the third paper by Wikstrom entitled “Organizational Change and Customer Relationship Management Success”, the challenge of managing organizational change has been raised as a potentially important factor affecting the successful outcome of CRM efforts. He conducted an exploratory single case study, identified several change events on different observational levels. The research results give support to previous findings that before implementing CRM technologies, a company should first change the organization to become more customer-focused. References Romano, N.C. and Fjermestad, J. Electronic Commerce Customer Relationship Management: A Research Agenda. Information Technology and Management, 4, (2003), 233-258.