Maral Zafar Allahyari - Master of industrial management
Ali Fakhri - Master of industrial management

This study investigates the critical success factors for implementing customer relationship management (CRM) projects. As the business world has shifted from product focus to customer focus, managers have found that the enhancement of existing customer relations brings the benefit of profitable and sustainable revenue growth. CRM is “an enterprise approach to understanding and influencing customer behavior through meaningful communications in order to improve customer acquisition, customer retention, customer loyalty, and customer profitability. Critical successful factors (CSFs) are performance areas of critical importance in achieving consistently high productivity. Each factor is necessary and the set of factors are sufficient. Many researchers have attempts to develop a comprehensive list of CSFs for CRM implementation. However, the list differs because of the multidisciplinary nature of CRM. The main purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the critical factors in CRM system design and implementation in the organizations. Our research methodology is based on studying and reviewing relevant literature from numerous fields of study associated with the essential issues of CRM projects implementation. Furthermore we proposed holistic approach for CRM project implementation based on an extensive review of the factors and essential elements that contribute to success of CRM project implementation. We have categorized factors into nine main groups (top management, chief executive officer, culture, organizational infrastructure, human resource management, continuous improvement, KM processes, technical infrastructure and CRM process) and a number of subgroups representing arious dimensions of change to relate to CRM implementation. The result of this study not just validates theory with reality; it also provides a reference for the academic as well as the business field.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM); Critical success factor (CSFs);Holistic approach