By Steve Ranger, 14 November 2005 17:20
NEWS
Councils are as much as two years behind schedule with their customer relationship management projects and few of those that have completed the work are happy with it.
According to research by tech company ndl-metascybe, four out of five local authorities said their CRM systems have fallen short of expectations.
The company said compared with last year's findings it is clear that authorities have a better understanding of the benefits of CRM systems but there are "huge disappointments" with their programmes due to the complexity of many of the implementations.
One in three councils interviewed said they had no idea how they were going to integrate their back office systems with their new CRM programmes.
Declan Grogan, managing director of ndl-metascybe, said in a statement: "Moving from a departmental, vertical silo approach to a horizontal cross functional way of working is causing significant difficulties. Nearly half the authorities we interviewed cited this as their biggest barrier."
English authorities are leading the way with 70 per cent saying they have a CRM system in place - compared to just a quarter in Wales.
Comments
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1. Charles Smith
Does a hammer replace a screwdriver?
I've seen several CRM projects at local authorities. In most cases CRM is being proposed as a bridge between incompatible systems. Lack of investment/poor cost control has led to "Island" systems that cannot talk to each other. CRM is really a tool to keep track of conversations and contact events with clients, but it is not system integration software. Using CRM wrongly will increase the complexity of Local Authority systems and is bound to disappoint expectations.