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information and satisfied CRM users (Roh et al., 2005). However, implementing a CRM
system that is highly effective may carry a high initial cost (Sohn and Lee, 2005) due to
system equipment and a commitment of dedicated resources and services (Roh et al.,
2005). For this reason it may be necessary for organizations to perform a cost of
ownership (COO) analysis on such systems, evaluating the purchase cost of the system,
the operating costs and utilization over its lifetime (Sohn and Lee, 2005).
Roh et al. (2005) propose that an important starting point for effective CRM
implementations and deployments is an enterprise-wide understanding of the factors that
lead to CRM success: process fit, information quality and system support.
Process fit. Roh et al. (2005) suggest that to leverage marketing and sales efforts
it is imperative for the CRM system to be designed around an extensive understanding of
the CRM process, thereby impeding the CRM system initiatives and can be imperative in
the success of the system.
Customer information quality. A key to the success of a CRM system is to know
your customers; however, merely gathering customer information is not enough. A
successful CRM system should be able to make use of the customer data through
customer information analytics (Roh et al., 2005). Customer information analytics is
more than just mining the data about a customer from the CRM system, rather, it allows
users of the system to build insight into customer and market behaviors (Roh et al., 2005)
while allowing organizations to make better decisions in retail marketing and
appropriately adapting to changing customer needs (Chen, Chiu & Chang, 2005).
System support. A review of the literature suggests that in terms of system
support there are multiple factors that can determine if the CRM system will be