Jumping on board with CRM

As the preceding example shows, a CRM strategy should be extended to the overall business strategy. A while back, I had a workshop with the business leaders of a company about CRM investment and CRM strategy, and the CEO of the company decided to be there for the first day as well.

The company's strategy was straightforward enough. It wanted to grow the business by 5% each year, increasing its market share by 5% year on year, and improving operational costs by 5% every year. If it should succeed with all these objectives, then the company would become the number one company in its market in five years based on actual data. This was the business strategy at the highest level and it needed to be broken down into business tactics.

I asked the CEO if it would be possible for him to share the business tactics plan with us. I wanted to know what specific steps and actions the company was taking to support the business strategy. Obviously, implementing CRM was not...