European Management Journal (2010) 28, 153 167

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emj

A multi-layered approach to CRM implementation:

An integration perspective
David J. Finnegan *, Wendy L. Currie

Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

KEYWORDS Summary Evidence suggests that many organizations are finding it hard to implement a
Systems integration; CRM strategy. This article reports on the research conducted over the last five years that
CRM strategy; explores how organizations can successfully develop a CRM strategy. We propose a multi-
CRM implementation; layered framework for mapping and understanding the inter-relationships between com-
Interoperability; plex variables relating to CRM strategy implementation. The concept of affordance is
Interdisciplinary; delineated and applied to culture, people, processes and technology. Evidence from three
Cultural integration; case studies suggests that a multi-layered, interdisciplinary framework can assist compa-
User integration; nies in developing their CRM strategy through a greater understanding of how different
Business process variables interact in a constantly changing environment.
mapping; 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Process integration;
Change management

Introduction
Customer relationship management (CRM) has emerged as
yet another name in the integration family with a view to
integrate customers details to promote a one-stop-service.
A more useful way to think about CRM is as a process that
aims to bring together diverse pieces of information about
customers, sales, marketing effectiveness, and responsive-
ness and market trends.
The success rate of CRM Implementation is low and evi-
dence suggests that many organizations are finding it hard
to realise business benefits from this strategy. While there
are well-known and impressive success stories ( Sprint,
2002), failure rates of CRM projects are high (Tafti, 2002;
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 2476572855.
E-mail address: David.Finnegan@wbs.ac.uk (D.J. Finnegan).
Mendoza et al., 2006). These failures reflect that CRM is too
often implemented with a focus on a software package
without an in-depth understanding of the issues of integrat-
ing culture, process, people, and technology within and
across organizational context. Comparing the large expecta-
tions regarding CRM with the actual results in companies, a
mixed picture emerges. Why is it so difficult?
It is argued that most problems in CRM implementation
are not technical (Goldenberg, 2002; Finnegan and
Willcocks, 2007). Instead, common problems include organi-
zational change and disruption, different views on customer
information and changes in the business, for example
mergers (Schwartz, 2002). There are also cases where
technology misfit has created further hurdles (Finnegan
and Willcocks, 2006). The autonomy of decision making

0263-2373/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.emj.2009.04.010
154
has allowed organization departments to procure technol-
ogy solution without much regard to the overall integration.
Attempting to centralise technology in a decentralised envi-
ronment becomes highly complicated. Integration with
existing legacy systems is complex.
Individual resistance combined with organizational resis-
tance can create barriers for an overall integration. Vari-
ables such as senior management support/sponsorship,
selling change internally, putting a change infrastructure
in place, providing effective end-user training, business pro-
cess re-configuration and establishing rewarding systems
play an important role (Pettigrew, 1985). Change is however
difficult and is likely to be resisted by its stakeholders.
Scholars argue that people do not resist change; they resist
being changed and taken out of their comfort zones. How-
ever, introduction of significant new IT capabilities requires
changes elsewhere in the organization if the technology is to
be integrated and used effectively. This means rethinking:
the processes used; work practices; relationships between
different professional work groups; and roles, skills and
other capacities of the systems users (Clegg and Shepherd,
2007). This indicates that successful CRM implementation
requires all the actors from their sub-cultural silos coalesce
to promote a processual and technical integration in order
to provide the previously mentioned one-stop-service.
Although enabling everyone to come onboard can be prob-
lematic and very time and resource consuming.
The current business environment on the other hand is
continuing to push the organizations in adopting a holistic
approach towards their customers. According to Peppard
(2000), from a customer perspective the channel they
choose at any point in time should be the most convenient.
Integration of these channels or touch points therefore
becomes highly important. To date, channel integration
remains complex and goes beyond integration of technol-
ogy. This article draws upon the research conducted over
the last five years exploring how large organizations can suc-
cessfully develop a CRM implementation strategy. It sug-
gests that organizations should introduce CRM as part of a
systems integration strategy to provide a common view of
data across the business channels to give CRM systems
timely and relevant information to serve customers better.
This study is an attempt to further the existing research
through drawing together additional insights regarding the
CRM implementation in a SME environment.
Moreover, CRM implementations often ignore the under-
lying interdependencies of contextual socio-technical ele-
ments that can enable or inhibit the culture, process,
people, and technology integration. The central underlying
message is that CRM initiatives should not be narrowly fo-
cused on technical imperatives, e.g. software packages or
business drivers, e.g. marketing campaigns. Rather, they
should be considered as a comprehensive approach to man-
aging relationships with customers as part of a continuous
adaptation process in conjunction with the changing needs
of customers (Peppard, 2000). While this may be too broad
to provide guidelines for managers, we suggest that an
understanding of the more complex, multi-variate issues is
needed, particularly as CRM strategy implementation is
not a quick fix, one-size-fits-all.
We propose a multi-layered framework as a way of
mapping and understanding the complex inter-relationships
D.J. Finnegan, W.L. Currie
between culture, process, people and technical variables.
We suggest that as opposed to considering these variables
in isolation, it is important to understand that different
organizations may give priority to specific issues relating
to one or more variables. We illustrate these differences
in our case study research. The main contribution is to pro-
mote further research and debates in the CRM field from an
integration related perspective. Moreover we seek to draw
attention to the call for a debate around collaborative inte-
gration approach taking into account of cultural, processual
and people variables rather than a technology driven ERP or
application integration one.
To further assist our exploration, we adopt the theoret-
ical lens of affordance and apply it to our conceptual
framework (Gibson, 1979). Variables presented in our cases
are likely to change depending on the contemporary con-
text. The interoperability and dual quality of these variables
in relation to their capabilities and in-capabilities can play
an important role in the success of CRM implementation.
However, as aforementioned, we do not intend to provide
a quick fix for the CRM strategy implementation, but to en-
hance our understanding of how systems integration will
generate new challenges for organizations. The evidence
from the three case studies reported in this article suggests
a multi-layered interdisciplinary framework can assist com-
panies in their thinking about CRM strategy implementation
on a broader level. We discuss some key theoretical issues
first followed by our conceptual framework. We elaborate
and explain our theoretical approach highlighting its
strengths and weaknesses. Thereafter the three cases are
discussed in the light of our theoretical lens and conclusions
drawn. A summary of findings and managerial recommenda-
tions are provided in the end section. Towards the end we
also discuss the limitations of our employed approach and
propose areas for further investigation.
Integration dilemma and CRM
Many of the worlds leading firms are developing a new
model of industrial organization based on systems integra-
tion (Hobday et al., 2005). Organizations face the challeng-
ing task of integrating their distributed organization units,
information systems, and business processes for improved
operation and attainment of organizational goals (Giachetti,
2004). According to Giachetti, integration across the enter-
prise is one of the most significant issues facing todays
organizations. Chari and Seshadri (2004) also contend that
organizations implementing an enterprise-wide applications
infrastructure to meet immediate business needs often pur-
sue unplanned and adhoc application systems integration. It
is however argued that systems integration improves the
coordination of work undertaken by different parts of a
company (Mendoza et al., 2006).
In the era of global business competition, businesses are
constantly finding ways of staying competitive hence busi-
nesses are deploying new technologies such as CRM systems
to get close to the customer (Yu, 2001). According to Yu,
interest in such systems as CRM continues to grow. CRM sys-
tems attempt to integrate business processes of managing
customers on to a single enterprise-wide information sys-
tem. The opportunities for connectivity and integration
A multi-layered approach to CRM implementation: An integration perspective
from the Internet have enabled companies to think imagina-
tively about ways to improve their relationships with cus-
tomers. Marketing professionals have extended their focus
from simply completing a transaction with the customer,
to building long-term customer relationships. The enuncia-
tion on relationship marketing presupposes that retaining
existing customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones. So
a need to better understand existing customers requires
up-to-date, rich information on all aspects of the customer.
Although the organizations face many challenges in the
overall related ERP integration such as the challenge of
integration with legacy systems the emergence of CRM con-
tinues to produce a flurry of interest from practitioners and
academics (Finnegan and Willcocks, 2007). While CRM offers
an integrated approach to managing relationships with cus-
tomers, the success rates of CRM implementation continue
to be low. The number of CRM projects failing to produce
business benefits (or failing completely) is estimated to be
high (Tafti, 2002; Finnegan and Willcocks, 2007).
Reasons for poor success rates are complex and current
research provides contradictory explanations. Technology
misfit has been one of the key hurdles for a CRM implemen-
tation according to (Finnegan and Willcocks, 2007). Others
suggest that companies overlook the wider dimensions of
CRM, such as the link with relationship marketing, and focus
specifically on the narrow, technical imperatives (Pan and
Lee, 2006). Such a narrow view of CRM is reflected in the
widespread definition of CRM as a technical solution, which
comprises methodologies, software and usually internet
capabilities that help an organization manage customer
relationships in an organised manner (Finnegan and Will-
cocks, 2007).
There are others who argue that companies consider CRM
narrowly as a marketing initiative. For example, CRM is de-
fined as an integrated sales, marketing and service strat-
egy (Kalakota and Robinson, 2001). The above views
however do not consider the need to introduce CRM as part
of a business systems integration strategy taking into ac-
count the underlying factors that can enable or inhibit
(affordance) the integration of culture, process, people
and technology. This highlights the need for a better frame-
work encompassing not only the integration of socio-eco-
nomic variables but also gives insights into the capabilities
and in-capabilities of these variables.
There are also many prescriptions for avoiding failure;
see for example, Rigby et al. (2002). The recent CRM studies
indicate that CRM needs to take into account of the chang-
ing business environment (Finnegan and Willcocks, 2007).
Finnegan and Willcocks have attempted to highlight the
importance of an integrated approach to promote a success-
ful implementation of ERP systems. However, they like oth-
ers do not take into consideration the evolutionary aspect of
the socio-economic phenomenon. Furthermore the afore-
mentioned study is related to Enterprise wide implementa-
tions. We propose an integrated approach including the
evolutionary aspect in a SME setting.
Business and technology environment is constantly evolv-
ing. The findings from previous studies in the ERP subject
area indicate that the difficulty of implementing CRM con-
cerns the changing nature of the rules of competition. In to-
days new competitive environment, companies have to
cope with problems such as paradoxical customer demands,
155
uncertainty, diverse global players, and rapid technological
change. As a consequence companies attempt to restruc-
ture themselves around the customer, moving from a trans-
actional to a value-based marketing approach a closer
step in the direction of personalisation.
The challenge for an organization as also highlighted by
Peppard (2000) is to move to a situation where the customer
starts buying from you rather than being sold to. This new
mantra focuses entirely on the customer, and how to pro-
vide customer value in the form of tailoring services or
products to meet their requirements. Following on Peppard
(2000) this paper promotes CRM as an ongoing evolutionary
process understanding customer needs better, in order to
promote retention and reduce churn. Furthermore, we ar-
gue for a need to understand the implementation of CRM
from an overall strategic rather than a technical or market-
ing perspective. Below we make a case for CRM implemen-
tation from a collaborative and integrative standpoint
including the evolutionary perspective.
CRM in this context is not just a software package but a
comprehensive strategic approach to manage our evolving
relationships with customers which require continuous
adaptation in response to changing needs. In order to man-
age these customer relationships and promote a unified cus-
tomer service approach all aspects of a business would need
to work like a well rehearsed orchestra. The integration of
the existing cultures, processes, technology with an owner-
ship of people from all parts of the business becomes para-
mount. Building on from Finnegan and Willcocks (2007) and
Bijker et al. (1987) we promote a collaborative thinking of
how the sociology of science and the sociology of technol-
ogy can benefit each other in an integrated approach to un-
ravel some of the underlying issues in a SME context. We do
this by integrating social and technical elements in our con-
ceptual framework below.
A socio-technical conceptual framework
Drawing on two related research projects on systems inte-
gration strategy (see Appendix) from a business perspective,
we develop a conceptual framework that presents a multi-
layered approach to CRM implementation. The first is a lon-
gitudinal comparative study that has explored CRM imple-
mentation from a knowledge integration perspective to a
contemporary situation within a local government organiza-
tion and a large enterprise over a period of three years
(Finnegan and Willcocks, 2007). In this study the interoper-
ability of a range of elements relating to culture, process,
people and information technology that shaped the CRM
strategy were identified. These form the basis for our mul-
ti-layered model of CRM strategy implementation. The sec-
ond is an in-depth, longitudinal study that investigated
enterprise systems in a large telecommunications company,
from its conception to strategy implementation over a per-
iod of 15 months (Nandhakumar et al., 2005). The research-
ers worked with the top management team to identify the
link between the enterprise systems implementation pro-
cess and the underlying and often subtle influences within
the context in a SME setting.
The findings illustrate the dual quality of contextual
influences where situations that appear to limit certain
156
types of action, may simultaneously enable others. For
example, contextual elements such as subculture may pro-
vide conditions necessary for interaction to occur while con-
straining certain relationships. The concept of affordance
was used to illustrate this dual quality of contextual ele-
ments. Building on this research, the multi-layered ap-
proach to CRM strategy implementation described below
considers dual quality of contextual elements across each
layer, to demonstrate the capabilities, short comings and
inter-relationships of each of the four layers. Below we dis-
cuss our multi-layered approach in detail.
Affordance
The concept of affordance, originally introduced by Gibson
(1977), refers to the adaptive property of objects and struc-
tures for humans (and for other organisms). Gibsons theory
of affordances emphasises peoples perception of whether
an action is possible or not within a given setting. For exam-
ple, an object with a rigid, flat surface is raised approxi-
mately at the height of the knees of the human ... then it
affords sitting-on but knee-high for a child is not the
same as knee-high for an adult (Gibson, 1977). The affor-
dance must therefore be taken with reference to human ac-
tors. In a given setting affordances represent perceived
aspects of the setting that enable and/or constrain human
actions and interactions. Gibson (1977, p. 68) claims that
. . . a way of life is a set of affordances that are utilised.
This notion of affordance allows one to examine human
interactions afforded by the dual quality of technology,
structures and capabilities of other people that may provide
Figure 1 Multi-layered model of CRM strategy implementation.
D.J. Finnegan, W.L. Currie
conditions necessary for some interactions to occur while
constraining others. Affordance is seen as constitutive of
the phenomenal environment rather than as wholly
depending on the observers perspective or on the absolute
physical properties of an object (Gibson, 1977, p. 90).
Our paper draws on Gibsons concept of affordance as a
practice lens (Orlikowski, 2000) to explore the CRM prac-
tices and to develop a multi-layered approach to CRM imple-
mentation. From the study of CRM implementation
(Finnegan and Willcocks, 2006, 2007), we build on the as-
pects of culture, process, people, and technology, relating
them with affordance (Figure 1).
There are other studies, such as Normans (1988) work in
the context of HumanComputer Interaction, that draw on
affordance to examine the action possibilities in such con-
texts. Nandhakumar et al. (2005) attribute affordance to
the material characteristics of the ERP systems which may
accommodate certain actions while resisting others for
example we may have to change our behaviour to accommo-
date the ways of working of an email systems or try to find
ways to alter or work around the technological properties of
the system. Rather than limiting affordances to material
properties of technology/objects perceivable by human ac-
tor (cf. Norman, 1988; Nandhakumar et al., 2005), we have
developed this concept more in line with Gibsons (1977)
work, to include aspects of both social and material proper-
ties. Hence the affordance is not only limited to objects/
technology, but may also include social structures such as
resources of authority, norms governing organizational con-
duct and hierarchical status and peoples knowledge about
the methods and procedures.
A multi-layered approach to CRM implementation: An integration perspective 157

Table 1 Concepts relevant to CRM.

Affordance concepts
Affordances of objects, structures and people and their
action possibilities/limitations
Adaptive nature and combined effect of affordances
Affordances as constitutive of the environment
Relating to multi-layer framework
Dual quality of contextual elements/layers. Different weighting
Interaction between and within the contextual elements/layers.
A range of opportunities and restrictions for actions and interactions
Weighting and quality (in terms of action possibilities) of these
elements/layers vary over time, and in different situations

There are three interrelated issues relevant to this CRM
study. First, affordances emphasise various action possibili-
ties (and limitations) by taking account of the dual qualities
of cultural, processual, people and technological layers and
elements within them (Figure 1). Second, affordances high-
light the interrelation between layers/elements by taking
account of the adaptive nature and combined effect of
affordances of these elements in a single environment. A
combined effect of affordances of these elements can pro-
vide an organizational member with a range of opportunities
and restrictions for actions and interactions. Gibsons (1977)
claims that There is only one environment, although it
contains many observers with limitless opportunities for
them to live in it. Third, affordances draw attention to
the fluid nature of these elements by considering affor-
dances as constitutive of the environment (and constantly
changing). Affordances of these layers/elements are not
fixed in time but dynamic and the weighting and quality
(in terms of action possibilities) vary over time, and in dif-
ferent situations. Below we give an overview of the affor-
dance concepts and their relation to our multi-layered
framework. Below, we provide a summary of the concepts
relevant to CRM in Table 1.
Cultural layer
Our conceptual framework builds on work that suggests that
nurturing the right culture is an important element in CRM
strategy implementation, particularly where CRM strategy
falls within the domains of IT and marketing, each of which
contain their own organizational subcultures. A critical suc-
cess factor in bringing these two departments together in-
volves the buy-in of senior management, where a senior-
level person is responsible for the CRM strategy. Rigby and
Ledingham (2004) suggest that business needs should take
precedence over technological capabilities, especially since
the technology itself does not bring any major obstacles.
They argue that managers should not be distracted by the
capabilities of the CRM software but concentrate instead
on what it should do both for their companies and for their
customers.
Implementing the CRM is clearly a balancing act and is
highly dependent on the needs of a particular project. As
a result of cross sectoral and cross industry investigation,
we found that it varied, depending on the availability of re-
sources, existing power structures, existing hierarchies,
existing process and technical architectures and interest-
ingly, the size of invisible colleges. The term Invisible Col-
leges relates to the psychological contractual relations and
interoperability of social structural partnerships (Finnegan
and Willcocks, 2007). In other words the success of a CRM
implementation project is highly related to the weighting
of different layers and the micro-elements on each layer.
The weighting is related to leaderfollower and balancing
mechanisms in our case examples.
A customer-centric model in implementing a CRM strat-
egy requires a shift in the culture to sharing information
and knowledge more freely. This cultural change can be
aided by effective communication throughout the entire
project and reaching all levels of employees. Management
must show its commitment to a sufficient company-wide
educational and training program. On one hand, it can en-
hance employees skills and knowledge, on the other hand,
it can also boosts motivation of employees and reduce their
resistance. Further, organizations should build compensa-
tion and reward mechanisms in order to monitor behaviour.
CRM strategy is customer oriented, hence customer require-
ments should be considered during the whole implementa-
tion process. Overall, implementing a CRM is a complex
undertaking, requiring buy-in and effort across the
organization.
People layer
Implementing a CRM strategy means involving a wide variety
of people frontline sales, marketing and service provid-
ers, business analysts, IT professionals, and a broad array
of managers, all of whom must collaborate to ensure that
a CRM strategy is well defined, delivered and deployed.
Obviously, this diversity creates accountability issues and
complicates the challenge of persuading employees to em-
brace this strategy. To overcome these challenges, many ar-
gue that companies should first identify the key characters,
i.e. gaining senior executives support at the beginning of
the project. Forceful messages from the top are critical to
enforcing accountability and motivating change. Moreover,
a change champion can act as a facilitator to ensure the
whole implementation process runs smoothly and also per-
suade top management of the need to engage in further
organizational change. However, in this paper we argue
the importance of weighting in relation to all other contex-
tual elements. Albeit the weighting of the people layer
cannot be easily measured, its relation with other layers
in leaderfollower and balancing mechanisms cannot be de-
nied. Our previous study from a city council indicated that a
CRM strategy too heavy with people but light with technical
understanding created hurdles slowing down the process of
adoption (Finnegan and Willcocks, 2007).
158
Process layer
The second layer is process related variables. According to
the basic tenet of CRM strategy that it is cheaper to retain
an existing customer than to acquire a new one, the essence
of a customer centric strategy is to identify profitable cus-
tomers and make them more profitable. Accordingly, the
business process has to be transferred from product focused
to customer centric. It is a continuous effort that requires
redesigning core business processes starting from the cus-
tomer perspective and involving customer feedback. There
are several ways to design a customer-centric process. Re-
design front office and examine information flows between
the front and back office; foster customer loyalty by becom-
ing proactive with customers and build in measurable
checks and balances to continuously improve. Process can
play an important role but in our study it is the weighting
of the process layer which is even more crucial. By getting
the process weighting right in relation to other contextual
elements we may be able to maximize the potential of an
organizations efforts in implementing their CRM strategy.
Technology layer
The fourth category is technology related factors. CRM
strategies take full advantage of technology innovations
with their ability to collect and analyze data on customer
patterns, interpret customer behaviour, develop predictive
models, respond with timely and effective customized com-
munications, and deliver product and service value to indi-
vidual customers. However, many companies tend to
overspend on software tools, paying insufficient attention
to data accuracy and integrity. In reality, before the CRM
strategy implementation, it is vital to bring the data into
a unified database, cleanse it to remove multiple entries
for the same customer, and ensure that the data is accu-
rately distributed to all customer touch points, and stan-
dardize your databases so customer information is
presented accurately throughout the organization
(Beasty, 2005). This is at the heart of CRM Strategy
implementation.
CRM strategy is an enterprise wide undertaking, so it is
necessary for companies to adopt an integrative view at
the start. Like other IS projects, CRM also requires a full
time project manager, balanced development team which
means mixing business experts, technical experts, end users
and consultants, clear definition of project scope and goals,
sufficient financial and other relevant resources, realistic
deliverable dates, and phased project development. Fur-
thermore, importantly CRM Strategy implementation is a
balancing act between the weightings (leaderfollower
and balancing mechanisms) of the four layers presented in
this paper. The micro variables of each layer may vary
depending on the contemporary environment a CRM strat-
egy is being implemented.
Integrating culture, people, process,
technology and affordance
Prior research that highlights people, process, technology
and culture tends to treat these factors as separate entities.
D.J. Finnegan, W.L. Currie
Our approach is to perceive them as integrated entities
linked with affordance. While many companies are engaged
in CRM implementation, the challenge is formidable. Con-
cerns to understand and manage the negative aspects of
integration to minimize the adverse effects continue to
grow. Our study shows that CRM implementation is much
more than an integration of hardware. Our multi-layered
approach demonstrates the vital linkages between these
layers and also their capabilities and in-capabilities in a
CRM setting.
Our approach however is by far a panacea and seeks to
only highlight some of the key CRM implementation issues
using an integrated framework combing the socio-technical
elements. Preceding studies have highlighted the need for
integration in a CRM setting. These studies however have
not tested the affordance variable employed in the current
CRM study. The term affordance although utilised in social
structures in line with Gibson in previous studies remains to
be developed further, reconnoitred, leveraged and capita-
lised upon in a socio-technical CRM setting. This study
may have only been able to introduce the term in this study
without appreciating its applied usability in depth. How-
ever, introducing affordance in relation to the variables
on our four layers as depicted in Figure 1 gives us an oppor-
tunity to understand their dual nature. This allows us to
understand to some extent their capabilities and
limitations.
Research method
In order to test and elaborate our multi-layered framework
of CRM strategy implementation, we researched three med-
ium sized companies over a period of two-year, from 2005
using a multiple case study approach (Eisenhardt, 1989;
Yin, 1994). The existing research on CRM has been predom-
inantly been focussed on large organizations. Our sample of
medium sized companies with their varied backgrounds pro-
vides an opportunity to build further on the efforts in under-
standing CRM implementations issues.
Data collection and analysis
We utilised the help of senior managers who were engaged
in CRM strategy implementation and formed three research
teams. Each research team interviewed the key stakehold-
ers relating to their CRM projects. Each interview lasted
at least one hour and was followed by an informal discussion
that provided further useful data. Often we broke up into
pairs to do the interviews. The research teams spent one
week at a time in each company over a period of two years
as participant observers using the multi-layered framework
as a tool to map and analyze the existing information and
communications technology environment.
This was followed by integration and synthesis of data
that involved intensive discussion between the researchers
and top managers from each company, who came from dif-
ferent academic and company backgrounds. This process
helped to validate and elaborate our conceptual multi-lay-
ered framework.
Our analysis of the three cases provides important infor-
mation for informed decision-making for setting up a CRM
A multi-layered approach to CRM implementation: An integration perspective
Table 2 Summary of the background and rational for a CRM strategy.
Company 1
Background The company was first set up
in 1989 and is an integrated
environmental consultancy
and landscaping practice
providing ecological solu-
tions to clients throughout
the UK
Specializes in the full bio
diversity lifecycle offering
survey and assessment, plan-
ning and design, implemen-
tation, management,
monitoring and research
activities
The company operates in the
competitive environmental
consultancy business
The company is owned by a
charity and this has pro-
moted a cautious approach
towards the company devel-
opment policies
The main players in the envi-
ronmental consultancy field
range from independent
consultants and SMEs (small
and medium enterprises) to
large multinational environ-
mental consultants
Rationale for a One of its major challenges
CRM Strategy is to cope with the growth
and tap opportunities in a
dynamic market. The com-
pany needed a CRM strategy
that can help it meet these
challenges
A process driven environ-
ment where people relied
on the processes but worked
in silos
Organization wants to
remove the silo working hab-
its and promote team
culture
strategy. Our first two cases show the importance of under-
standing the balance, interoperability and affordance of
Company 2
Was founded in 1997 as the
Image Workshop by its CEO.
The company provides managed
service digital solutions to both
public and private sectors
Initially the organization devel-
oped web sites, and is now mov-
ing to a position where it
provides end-to-end solutions in
the web arena, from design
through development, imple-
mentation, and hosting
As the organization has moved
from an embryonic state into a
fully fledged business that is a
going concern, processes, peo-
ple and technology have evolved
over time and now there is a
need for greater consistency
and maturity in their approach
The business now has a high
number of processes, systems
and technology products/sys-
tems all used to create a number
of diverse bespoke solutions for
clients
As the business transitions to a
model based upon a deeper rela-
tionship with a smaller number
of larger value clients, the
importance of having a consis-
tent view of the customer was
of paramount importance
To cope with this challenge, the
company recognized that they
needed to move their organiza-
tion from a more traditional
based structure sub-divided into
functional departments, to an
organization working together
across functional barriers in
cross-functional teams
The driver for the restructuring
was cross-functional teams with
a closer focus on the customer
to facilitate the ability to estab-
lish a strong relationship with
key accounts
Another driver behind moving
towards cross-functional teams
was that the company was
forced to deal with sub-cultural
barriers between the sales and
development departments,
which in the past have resulted
in costly miss-communication
each of the four layers. Evidence from the case studies
shows that our layers and the micro-elements on each
159
Company 3
Is a 16 year old niche player
in the Credit Referencing
Market primarily serving sup-
pliers to the construction
sector
Organizationally relatively
flat, the structure is split
between telesales and a
helpdesk/service area. They
are also physically split on
two levels due to sub-cul-
tural issues of co-locating
the two teams
From a Knowledge Manage-
ment perspective Company
3 obtains raw customer
credit data from Aggrega-
tors. The company collates
and organizes the data in a
manner meaningful to their
sector and target customers
The information is then
invested with proprietary
industry knowledge and
understanding acquired from
customers in the market that
differentiates the Company
from offering and adding
value to their customers
Technology changes had ren-
dered the company subject
to new competitors and
increased competitive
pressure
Customer numbers had
fallen from a high of 2500
to a low of 1600, a 35% fall,
though they had recently
recovered to circa 1900
The company deployed a
CRM system in 2005. How-
ever, it had not been prob-
lem free
The company was very keen
to develop its knowledge
management capabilities,
with strong aspirations to
deliver growth driven by its
proprietary technology,
knowledge of the industry
and customer relations
160 D.J. Finnegan, W.L. Currie

(see Figure 1) were enabled and equally disabled due to the
affordance for each layer. We also found that micro vari-
ables from each layer were dependent on the dual quality
of these variables and their interpretabilities on and across
the layers. The focus on perceived affordances is much
more pertinent to practical design problems from a hu-
man-factors approach, which may explain its widespread
adoption.
Furthermore the analysis of our third case example
shows the perception of affordance changed over time. This
indicates an evolutionary shift of the micro-elements and
affordance of our behavioural layered approach. We discuss
this in more detail below.
in the same regional location. This, however, can be seen as
a limitation towards the generalizability of our findings.
We chose three SMEs also for their willingness/readiness
to engage with the Business School environment in applying
academic learning directly to their real life issues. A com-
mon underlying theme for our researched organizations
was that they all suffered from a silo syndrome. People
although working very hard operated in their silos. Our
CRM investigation was an attempt to highlight theses silos
and provide recommendations to promote integration of
culture, processes, people and technology. Below we pro-
vide a brief summary of their backgrounds and their ratio-
nale to employ a CRM strategy in Table 2.

Case studies and analysis Part 2: Discussion and analysis

We discuss our three cases in two phases employing our con-
ceptual framework as a heuristic lens for analysis. Part 1
highlights the company backgrounds and their rationale
for a CRM strategy whereas part 2 discusses the three cases
using our theoretical conceptual framework. We provide
some recommendations at the end of each case in the shape
of lessons learned as a part of our research project.
Part 1: Background and rationale for a CRM strategy
We chose three small medium sized companies for our
empirical work. The three companies were at different
stages of their CRM strategy implementation. The three
firms chosen have a good mix of products and services with
client base in public and private sectors. Company 1 is a reg-
istered charity but operates as a consultancy with a mix of
products and services on offer. Companies 2 and 3 are pri-
vate sector registered and offer products and services.
The age of the companies varies between 12 and 20 years.
The size of the firms was fairly similar and they all operated
Below we use our multi-layered conceptual framework to
analyze each case in turn. People process technology and
cultural issues are discussed in light of their affordances in
order to elucidate the dual qualities of each issue. We also
provide a summary in Table 3 at the end.
Case 1: culture, people, processes, technology
and affordance
Our initial investigation revealed that the organization was
process led, relying profoundly on the process and technol-
ogy layers. We found Company 1s people to be passionate
ecologists who are fully committed to their jobs. They are
highly qualified in their fields, with many holding a PhD,
and are required to adhere to stringent professional stan-
dards. Much of their work is carried out on site, in all weath-
ers, outside of normal office hours. Their passion and
dedication to their jobs is a very important motivator, par-
ticularly during the spring, when the number of site surveys
reaches a maximum. In our assessment, it is Company 1s

Table 3 Summary of the analysis.

Company 1 Company 2 Company 3
Culture Centralized project portfolio man- Centralised culture with CEO in lead Sub-cultural divides resulted from
agement system Sub-cultural silos with a divide lack of process integration
Silo mentality rather than working in between senior management and resulting in knowledge silos
teams operational staff
People The companys people were its criti- CEO in the driving seat of the busi- Peoples perceptions had
cal resource, but heavily relied on nesses with process and technology changed about CRM over time
their processes and technology lagging behind
Lack of general ownership
Process Process and technology led Process layer as a follower Processual silos promoted
organization Lack of process ownership by people knowledge and data silos
Process and effort duplication Processual silos
Processes facilitating workload dur-
ing peak times
Technology Process and technology led Centralised technology architecture Software reliant
Decision making was carried out Lack of overall integration Islands of technology
without integrated technologies/
processes, resulting in piece meals
Affordance Affordance of process and technol- Strong leadership and entrepreneur- Perceptions of affordance at
ogy layers in this case acted as a con- ial style isolated some people and all layers had changed with
straint for the overall output promoted knowledge and sub-cul- time post CRM implementation
tural silos
A multi-layered approach to CRM implementation: An integration perspective 161

Figure 2 People driven CRM strategy.

people which are its critical resource. They allow the com- los. Weighting of the four layers needed to be balanced.
pany to deliver a high quality service and to maintain its We suggested giving people more ownership and political
strong brand. authority. As a part of our ongoing research project we rec-
The affordance of process and technology layers in this ommended the organization design a Customer focused
case acted as a constraint for the overall output. The com- strategy owned by its vital source namely, its people.
panys people although very passionate and fully committed
to their jobs tended to work in isolation relying on process Case 2: culture, people, process, technology
and technology rather than as part of a team (Figure 2). This
and affordance
resulted in process duplication and silo mentality. Although
individuals were competent, their decisions and activities
Company 2 was analyzed through the lens of people, process
often followed in a piecemeal rather seamless way.
and technology focusing on the high level business strategy,
Our assessment suggested that albeit the companys
business processes and IS systems. This enabled our re-
people were its critical resource, they were heavily reliant
search team to identify which areas had the potential to de-
on their processes and technology. They enabled the com-
liver the improvement needed to deliver a successful CRM
pany to deliver a high quality service to customers to
strategy. We found that people were in the driving seat of
maintain its strong brand. In order to maximize the output
the businesses and the CEO was very influential in technol-
of the organizations CRM strategy we advised that rather
ogy decision-making. Two areas for improvement were
than relying predominantly on a centralized project port-
folio management system, the company should set in place
a decentralized organization structure. Each person would
work as part of a team, and it would be the team leader
(or project manager) who would plan the project and work
closely with team members. The front line people would
plan their own time in line with other team members. In
essence, Company 1 would revert to a more traditional
structure, abandoning the complex matrix approach. The
core of the new approach was an emphasis on the com-
panys people as a key component of the organization, with
the information systems reflecting this priority. Under this
scheme, Company 1 would delegate the responsibility for
organizing projects, allocating resources, and scheduling
time.

Lessons learned

In this case the organization was overweighed by its pro-

cesses and technology creating process duplications and si- Figure 3 Process driven CRM strategy.
162 D.J. Finnegan, W.L. Currie

examined: (1) current IS systems, (2) the production pro- the organization to design an IS strategy which could act as
cess and management information systems, a high level a catalyst in delivering their CRM strategy.
overview explored the key business processes as shown in
Figure 3. Case 3: culture, people, process, technology
The research team decided to focus on a process driven
and affordance
approach owned by the people layer with a sponsorship
from the senior management, providing recommendations
As depicted in Figure 4, we mapped the core CRM processes
on three areas relating to the systems required to support
using our multi-layered approach, investigating the dual
key account management, a modular technology proposi-
quality of the contextual elements of people, process tech-
tion and improved management information systems. The
nology and culture, deploying the affordance concept. In
importance our research team attached to system require-
this case slightly different from other cases the processes
ments was how critical it was to understand clients, their
were weighted with high, medium and low affordance
business and activities. This message was highlighted to
depending on their capabilities and shortcomings, which
the company management team recently when revenue de-
we then compared with historical data. Our investigation re-
clined from certain key accounts that had not been antici-
vealed that although the company after implementing their
pated. Without this knowledge, the company would be
CRM strategy had been effectively using the CRM system
unable to understand what was driving client requirements
over the past year and a half, it was currently managing
both now and in the future. Our recommendation around
the technical aspects of CRM applications rather than man-
constructing a modular (integrated) technology proposal
aging customer relationships.
could save time and increase efficiency in both the produc-
The emphasis of our recommendations among others was
tion and sales areas.
to develop business intelligence integration utilising the
Lastly the emphasis put on the importance of providing
analytical side of their CRM strategy. A declared core com-
the correct management information could not be stressed
petency of the organization was the ability to fully extract
enough. The reinforcement of mechanisms to promote
information value from customers. This however was not
knowledge sharing across the four layers would facilitate
carried through to leveraging the full value of their
ownership of the elements relating to each layer. This was
customer data as a mature business process. This was
vital in understanding what was working well and what
important for improved segmentation and marketing effec-
needed attention. Moreover, it would also provide a com-
tiveness, better understanding of customers, tailored ser-
munication plan to bring employee thinking in line with
vice provision, and improved revenue generation.
the management team and encourage them to be part of
Integrating this data and information in order to provide
that successful team.
coordination was therefore a key objective, rather than
retaining islands of technology applications (Mendoza et
Lessons learned al., 2006).

While the weighting of the four layers needed to be bal- Lessons learned
anced, the impact of affordance on the outcome of interop-
erability between contextual elements was evident. Our In this case the focus was to develop an evolutionary
suggestion of giving the process layer a better focus enabled approach to CRM strategy. While Company 3 had some

Figure 4 Evolution driven CRM strategy.

A multi-layered approach to CRM implementation: An integration perspective
experience of CRM applications, it did not have a fully
developed CRM strategy. Furthermore, the perceptions of
affordance at all the four layers had changed following
the introduction of CRM. The key lesson from this case
was to develop CRM strategy as part of a wider system inte-
gration effort, so that valuable data and information could
become part of a knowledge management strategy. This
case offers insights into the linkage of affordance and our
four layers, particularly, from an evolutionary standpoint.
It would be useful to follow this case over a longer period
of time in order to understand and gain further insights in
how the affordance of technology using a longitudinal/pro-
cessual approach. We may only have been able to obtain a
snapshot of their contemporary situation.
Summary and conclusion
The three case studies provide examples of the priorities
and practices associated with CRM strategy implementa-
tion. Each case demonstrates a specific emphasis upon
either, people, processes, culture or technology. In Com-
pany 1, the original focus upon process and technology de-
tracted from developing the capabilities and skills of
people as a key component in the CRM strategy. In the case
of Company 2, additional attention was needed to integrate
the processes within the company, particularly by altering
the organization structure to a more traditional and simpler
one by replacing the complex matrix structure. Company 3
offered insights into the need to develop an effective sys-
tem integration strategy to exploit the potential of applica-
tions to translate data and information into knowledge
management capabilities. Company 3 provided with a typi-
Figure 5 Interrelations between affordance, weighting, interoperability and evolution in our multi-layered approach.
163
cal example of how CRM is often implemented with a soft-
ware focus and ignores the contextual elements and their
interrelations. The three case studies in our case have high-
lighted some of the key implementation issues. This is not to
say that we have captured the full reality but that we have
captured a snapshot in flight. We provide a summary of our
analysis in Table 3.
Our multi-layered framework enabled us to map the
capabilities and shortcomings of the four layers within each
company and offered insights on how to develop a CRM
strategy from a multi-dimensional perspective, as opposed
to a narrow technical approach. Below, we provide a sum-
mary of our key findings in the shape of lessons learned
(see Figure 5. For overview).
Lesson 1: Affordance
We introduced the term affordance in the CRM strategy
implementation context in order to enhance our under-
standing regarding the dual quality of the interrelated con-
textual elements that play an important role in the success
of a CRM strategy instead of merely treating CRM as a tech-
nical panacea. Affordance in our research was instrumental
in gaining further insights into the capabilities but also the
limitations of actions possible of an object in motion. The
term affordance can be used as an analytic tool to under-
stand the dual quality of contextual elements.
Lesson 2. Weighting
Each of the four layers needs to be weighted in relation to
their perceived impact and importance to the CRM strategy.
164
The weighting in our case was related to leaderfollower
and balancing mechanisms of the contextual elements. This
mechanism, although, is very basic and can be developed
further by giving ratings to each layer. CRM strategy imple-
mentation is a balancing act between these elements across
our multi-layered approach. This balancing approach can be
instrumental in a strategic decision making process for a
successful CRM implementation.
Lesson 3: Interoperability
The ability of senior management to identify interpretabili-
ties between and within the four layers during difference
stages of the CRM strategy implementation in accordance
with their affordances. Integrating culture, process, people
and technology becomes important in order to provide a
one-stop-service. Different parts of business need to work
together towards a mutual and shared understanding of
their customer. Interrelation between our four layers during
the implementation of a CRM strategy can provide us with
an opportunity to understand overlaps and eliminate effort,
process and time duplications.
Lesson 4: Evolution
This study was able to highlight the evolution of affordance
with time. In one of our cases the affordance of variables
changed over time. This was particularly evident in case 3
where CRM software was already in place and people over
time had found there ways around it. The software had be-
come one of the structural burdens instead of facilitating
knowledge integration. This shows that a CRM Strategy per-
ception may change over time if the overall strategy is not
fully developed, understood and owned by is stakeholders.
Commitment and ownership cannot be achieved without
thinking through the integration of contextual variables
in our case, culture, process, people and technology. Our
conceptual framework can be instrumental in capturing
changing preferences, frames of understanding and sense
making of the evolving needs and adaptability of CRM in
an organization.
Managerial recommendations and concluding
remarks
Our study confirmed that CRM is no panacea and cannot be
limited to hardware and software applications. A well
planned CRM strategy can act as a strategic tool in acquir-
ing, but most importantly retaining and developing existing
and future relationships with customers. Our multi-layered
approach integrates current academic and practitioner
understanding of CRM implementation and offers further in-
sights through its application to the communities of practice
featured in the three case studies. The multi-layered ap-
proached proved a useful conceptual framework to assist
companies in developing their CRM strategy. By integrating
the people, processes and technology, and analyzing them
using the concepts of affordance and weighting, companies
can map the interoperabilities both across and within the
four layers. This enables them to target resources and build
D.J. Finnegan, W.L. Currie
capabilities in specific areas. The affordance helps to under-
stand the dual quality for the nature of contextual elements
and weighting helps to maintain the balance between the
contextual elements. Below we utilise the lessons learned
from our findings and provide some practical managerial
recommendations:
The dual quality of affordance
The dual quality of the interrelated contextual elements
such as culture, process, people and technology needs to
be taken into consideration. An enabling and supportive cul-
ture may be useful for the successful implementation of
CRM but at the same time can promote group think homoge-
neity. As argued by the scholars homogeneous teams pro-
mote productivity and innovation. Process integration
although necessary can give rise to enhanced security vul-
nerabilities. In other words managers need to take account
the affordance of their processual designs. Bringing people
onboard the CRM strategy implementation can be very time
consuming for the implementation project and can cause
gratuitous delays. However, having people onboard can en-
dorse ownership and commitment. Technology can be an
enabler but may also work as an inhibitor preventing face
to face interactions. The term affordance highlights the
dual action possible of an object in motion. It can be instru-
mental in enhancing managerial understanding of the CRM
implementation issues instead of merely treating CRM as a
technical panacea.
Weighting
Managers can use weighting of each layer as a tool to weigh
in their CRM implementation objectives prior to its launch.
The existing business environment would need to be
mapped in order to understand the existing weighting of
each layer in the contemporary environment. Once weigh-
tings are identified mangers can balance the weightings
according to their CRM needs and targets. We used a simple
weighting method highlighting leaderfollower in our cases.
The weighting principle could be developed further by giv-
ing each layer a score of 110. Organizational CRM objec-
tives can be used to set the scores for each layers. These
scores could be adjusted to balance the layers.
Managers can also identify interpretabilities between
and within the four layers during difference stages of the
CRM strategy implementation in accordance with their
affordances. This can add to the qualitative complexity of
the weightings.
Evolution
In one of our study the affordance of variables changed over
time. The sense making of technology and its usability has
been evolving from the word go. CRM implementation need
to take into consideration the evolving targets of the busi-
ness, but also the perceptions of the stakeholders regarding
the tools used to achieve these targets. CRM strategy there-
fore becomes an ongoing process of putting a learning orga-
nization infrastructure in place and thereby creating
flexible environment that allows business people to deploy
A multi-layered approach to CRM implementation: An integration perspective
new changes and promotes harmony and balance within and
across the layers of culture, process, people and technol-
ogy. The evolutionary aspect remains to be similar irrespec-
tive of sectors.
In order to follow up our evolutionary variable in our
framework, we revisited the three organizations after the
completion of the research project to understand whether
our participatory investigation had an impact on their busi-
ness as usual life style. This is what they had to say:
Before, we only engaged with the client at proposal and
reporting stages. After the lessons learned from WBS
research we changed the culture of our CRM people to
realise that they needed to hold the clients hand
throughout the process. Our people were empowered
through the research process to view CRM as an integral
part of the ecological consultancy. We were able to
develop a targeted CRM team within our business. The
other bit there is that this has given me some space as
an individual to pursue new strategic client products.
Managing Director Company 1
This is what the CEO of Company 2 had to say about our
research initiative:
The key thing has been that we have identified the
highest value quick wins in terms of process redesign and
systems integration. We discontinued the more aspirational
work that we were doing around big systems integration as a
result of WBS research and focused on the softer aspects of
improving process and culture. For example, in getting a
better systems of communication and knowledge sharing
between the sales and production arms of the business using
the tools and technology already in place and instead look-
ing for cultural and process change. We realised that the
problem lay in the people and the processes and not the
technology as a leader. The technology has to be a follower
not a leader, if we had simply integrated the technology we
would clearly have failed to realise the benefits we were
looking for. We are now able to ensure that changes to tech-
nology such as integration work are done to support and en-
able culture and process change rather than being used to
try and drive it. Managing Director Company 2
Our third CEO commented:
My company, Company 3 Ltd, is a credit reference
agency of 16 years standing which specializes in the con-
struction sector. The researchers that carried out the
investigation in 2007 had a tremendous impact on the
business. Their findings were both illuminating at a stra-
tegic level and useful at an operational level. They
brought several fresh pairs of eyes to some fundamental
CRM issues in a very professional and sensitive manner.
The research generated some rich insights which have
enabled us to review our strategy in order to exploit
our true strengths. Managing Director Company 3
We contend that future success of CRM strategy imple-
mentation depends on removing interoperability problems
caused by tangible (structural, processual, technical) and
intangible (data, information and knowledge) silos and bar-
riers across organizations. Our multi-layer integration ap-
proach can be instrumental to highlight some of these
problems. Clearly, cultural, people, process and technical
capabilities vary in sectors such as finance, health and man-
165
ufacturing, so our four key points in Table 1 need to be con-
textualized according to the type of organization and its
relationship to its environment and customers. Moreover gi-
ven that we chose our sample from the same region and sim-
ilar sizes, a further investigation in the SMECRM context
from different regions and sizes can lead to further insights
in the subject area.
Our study confirmed that whether you are trying to inte-
grate in large organizations or SMEs, having a collaborative
approach which promotes integration of culture, people,
processes and technology is paramount. This integrated ap-
proach can help stakeholders of CRM to collectively pin
point and act upon areas of concern in order to provide a
common view of data across the business channels.
Our multi-layered approach provides a heuristic frame-
work in helping to identify the micro variables related to
three distinct industry sectors. It also highlights the in-
ter-connectedness of these variables which with their
respective dimensions may depend, enable and constrain
one another. The term affordance however remains to
be developed further. A more adept utilisation of this
variable can potentially add a new dimension to the future
investigations of CRM implementation and aid in under-
standing the dual nature of the various unravelled issues.
There were other weaknesses with this exploratory inves-
tigation. We were not able to study the organizations over
a longer period of time in order to fully comprehend and
appreciate the evolutionary aspects of their CRM maturity.
We were only able to observe limited evolutionary changes
of perception towards CRM in one of the organizations.
Our multi-layered framework can be adopted as a deci-
sion making tool in setting out a wider Systems Integration
strategy for an organization and is not limited to CRM specif-
ically. SMEs can employ the multi-layer approach as a stra-
tegic tool and as a result may increase involvement and
ownership of stakeholders in their decision making pro-
cesses. The contextual elements may vary depending on
the strategic aims and purpose, but a multi-layered ap-
proach and interconnectivity of the layers can prompt col-
laboration within and across the departments to unearth
some key issues.
Appendix A
Field studies
The research was carried out in two phases. Phase 1 in-
volved two related longitudinal studies of CRM and supply
chain management systems, carried out by the authors in
a local government organization and a large multinational
organization, respectively. These studies form the basis
for our multi-layered framework of CRM strategy implemen-
tation. The second phase involved CRM strategy implemen-
tation studies at three medium sized companies. This study
tested and elaborated our multi-layered framework of CRM
strategy implementation.
Phase 1
The first study is a longitudinal study that investigated CRM
strategy implementation from a knowledge management
perspective to a contemporary situation within a local gov-
166 D.J. Finnegan, W.L. Currie

Table 4 Field studies summary.

Phase 1 Phase 2
Study context Study 1: a comparative longitudinal CRM strategy implementation in
study of CRM strategy three medium sized companies
implementation in a local
government organization and IBM
Study 2: in-depth, longitudinal study
of enterprise systems
implementation strategy in a large
multinational organization

Study approach Study 1: a three year longitudinal
comparative study collected data in
the form of 60 in depth semi
structured interviews, staff
meetings, observations and historical
analysis
Study 2: a 15-month participant
observation and follow-up visits
Tracking the company strategy for 2
years. Interviewing of key
stakeholders (about 1 h each) and 1-
week participant observation in each
company

Concepts development Study 1: identifying a range of Testing and development of multi-

elements relating to culture, process, layered framework of CRM strategy
people and technology that implementation
influenced the CRM strategy
Study 2: affordance was used to
illustrate this dual quality of
contextual elements

ernment organization and IBM (Finnegan and Willcocks,
2006, 2007). The comparative study used Pettigrews
(1985) fivefold model to elucidate on softer issues like peo-
ple process technology from a knowledge sharing perspec-
tive. The interoperability phenomenon of the above issues
was researched in a field study over a period of three years.
The two longitudinal case studies provided a rich data set
using triangulation. Data was collected from all levels of
hierarchies though in-depth semi structured interviews,
staff meetings, observations and historic analysis. The anal-
ysis of the findings in the light of the reviewed literature
was useful in elucidating micro issues such as Psychological
contracts and their interpretabilities with sub-cultural
interaction and knowledge sharing.
The second study is an in-depth, longitudinal study that
investigated enterprise systems implementation strategy
in a large telecommunications company (Nandhakumar
et al., 2005). The study mainly focused on order-fulfillment
process as part of a global enterprise systems implementa-
tion strategy. The research approach adopted in this study
was interpretive case study involving a collection of de-
tailed, qualitative data on the implementation. The main
phase of data collection involved intensive participation in
the project from its initiation for 15 months. This involved
one of the researchers working in this company as a project
manager for enterprise systems implementation. The re-
searcher had access to first-hand empirical data about the
phenomenon: meeting minutes; project status reports;
workshop presentations; documentation on benchmarking,
training manuals, project handbook; business blueprints;
and detailed work documents. After leaving the company
the researcher kept close contact with the team leaders
and members to carry out 20 follow-up visits to interview
project team members. These interviews were semi-struc-
tured and many of them were tape recorded and subse-
quently transcribed and analyzed. These were written up
into a detailed case description that was used to develop
an understanding of the processes observed at the company.
The findings from this study illustrate the dual quality of
contextual influences where situations that appear to limit
certain types of action, may simultaneously enable others.
For example contextual elements such as subculture may
provide conditions necessary for interaction to occur while
constraining certain relationships. The concept of affor-
dance was used to illustrate this dual quality of contextual
elements.
Phase 2
In order to test and elaborate our multi-layered framework
of CRM strategy implementation, we tracked three medium
sized companies over a two-year period, from 2005. We uti-
lised the help of senior managers who were engaged in CRM
strategy implementation and formed three research teams.
Each research team interviewed the key stakeholders relat-
ing to their CRM projects. Each interview lasted at least 1 h
and was followed by an informal discussion that provided
further useful data. Often we broke up into pairs to do
the interviews. The research teams spent one week in each
company as participant observers using the multi-layered
framework as a tool to map and analyze the existing infor-
mation and communications technology environment within
each company.
This was followed by integration and synthesis of data
that involved intensive discussion between the researchers
and top managers from each company, who came from dif-
ferent academic and company backgrounds. This process
A multi-layered approach to CRM implementation: An integration perspective
helped to validate and elaborate our multi-layered frame-
work. Below we provide a summary of our filed work in
Table 4.
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DAVID J. FINNEGAN gained a PhD in Infor-
mation Systems from Warwick Business
School, focusing on business systems inte-
gration and customer relationship manage-
ment. With 20 years of senior management
experience, he specializes in business sys-
tems integration. His PhD in this area was
sponsored by IBM. With an international
background in management and IT consul-
tancy, he combines research and experien-
tial learning where students apply theory to practice. He is co-
founder of Business Technology Leadership and Management Unit
at Warwick Business School (WBS). The unit seeks to reinforce WBSs
partnership with Industry Practitioners with a focus on shared
interests and benefits. Previous roles have included working for the
Swedish Home Office and working in the e-business environment in
strategic leadership, mentoring and auditing roles. David is cur-
rently conducting research into ICT business, management and
leadership. His research areas include Financial Sector, Healthcare,
Intelligence Integration and Church of England. He recently pub-
lished a book on customer relationship management and is currently
working on a research study comparing integrated healthcare in
Sweden and the UK.
WENDY L. CURRIE is Professor in Informa-
tion Systems with WBS and Head of the
Information Systems and Management
Group. Prior to joining WBS, she held Pro-
fessorial posts at Brunel and Sheffield uni-
versities. Wendy gained her PhD in 1988
from Henley Management College, for a
study on the evaluation of information and
communications technology (ICT) in the UK
engineering industry. Her research and
consultancy has continued to focus on the management of large-
scale ICT projects in the private and not-for-profit sectors. She has
gained research funding from the European Union, Economic and
Social Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council and the Nuffield Foundation. She is currently
doing research on ICT compliance in the financial services and
healthcare industries with industrial and public sector collabora-
tors. She on the editorial boards of several leading information
systems and management journals, including, Journal of Informa-
tion Technology, Strategic Journal of Information Systems, Journal
of Change Management, the International Journal of Management
Reviews and formally served as Associate Editor on Management
Information Sciences Quarterly and the European Journal of Infor-
mation Systems.