Barriers to success

Constituent Relationship Management initiatives can be difficult. At their best, they involve changing external relationships and internal processes and tools. Externally, the experiences that the constituents have of your organization need to change, so that they provide more value and fewer barriers to involvement. Internally, business processes and supporting technological systems need to change in order to break down departmental operations' silos, increase efficiencies, and enable more effective targeting, improved responsiveness, and new initiatives. The success of the CRM projects often depends on changing the behavior and attitudes of individuals across the organization, and replacing, changing, and/or integrating many IT systems used across the organization.

Succeeding with the management of organizational culture change may involve getting staff members to take on tasks and responsibilities that may not directly benefit them or the department managed by their...