Obtain resources to support the plan

Ensure that the resource requirements of customer information management and usage are sufficient to support the enterprise plan. Build into the requirements that this is a specialist area where employee development and sourcing may be constrained. Consider strategic outsourcing as a valid option.

Customer information management and usage, by their nature, include a range of skill sets that in the open market are in short supply. Therefore, organizations must ensure not only that they have sufficient resources in place to meet current business needs, but that succession planning is also in place. Only one of the organizations assessed felt it had this issue fully under control. The majority recognized the issue but had not yet confirmed plans to implement a robust process in this area.

Another reason CRM projects fail, as cited by Scott Nelson from Gartner ^[5], is that no attention is paid to skill sets. 'All the money in the world can't save a CRM project if, at the end of the implementation, it is put in the hands of under skilled and under trained employees.' He further states that it is necessary to 'educate employees on the CRM initiative and train them on CRM tools and technology to enable them to communicate with customers more effectively.' The same applies to handling the ongoing management of customer data, from sourcing and procurement through quality control, definition, security, integration, maintenance, accessibility and value measurement, just to name a few management areas.