
CRM eh?
You can thrive without it quite easily if your managers have a clue and can work together but start using it (for whatever reason) and you can never go back.
EVER.
Deploying a software application can be a balancing act between making the system work for the business and changing the business to fit the system. This was certainly the experience of Cutting Edge Services when it implemented a customer relationship management (CRM) package. With 100 staff, Cutting Edge is a supplier of …
IMHO, the major problem sounds like it was the initial solution design, not the software itself. The company supplying the CRM system clearly rushed it in place without making sure that the customer had really understood what they were buying into. I've seen too many cases where the top level decision makers don't involve the rest of the business (who will be the ones who actually have to use the system) in the planning/design process. The users get presented with a system they don't understand and doesn't fit their needs. While proper planning, consultation and preparation for a major CRM (or ERP) system implementation can seem like a long-winded and expensive process, it avoids this sort of thing from happening.