Customer relationship management (CRM) system implementations: an assessment of organisational culture

Many commentators have identified organisational culture as an important factor that enables or disables the achievement of desirable CRM outcomes, along with other key people-related issues, such as senior management commitment and people’s willingness to support the initiative. Our review of the CRM literature shows that an organisational environment that puts more importance on customer-focused behaviours, information sharing, cross-functional teams, performance-based rewards, supportive relationships, adaptive and responsive attitudes to change, and a higher degree of risk-taking and innovation, is more likely to be associated with successful CRM system implementations. We have used the Competing Values Framework to study the culture of organisations implementing CRM in Australia. The ultimate objective of this study is to provide insights into the relationships between organisational culture and CRM implementation outcomes. We have collected organisational culture data from 101 organisations that are implementing CRM. The results show that only half of the organisations implementing CRM in Australia have organisational culture characteristics that match those that the literature suggests are associated with successful CRM outcomes.