Risk Management in Global CRM IT Projects

Abstract

Global information technology projects are risky with failure rates for customer relationship management information technology (CRM IT) projects estimated to 70 percent. These failures are often due to multiplicity of factors including poor risk management. The project management literature points out four broad types of risks: technical, external, organizational, and other risk factors. Project manager’s basic job, therefore, becomes to manage the risks and ensure that an IT project is steered to completion while meeting the objectives. Unmanaged risks run into chances of failure and ultimately impacting the CRM project and the reputation of the consultant. Payne and Frow’s (2005) advocates the need for a structured study on the information technology implementations of these projects. The objectives of the study are to investigate: how project risks in CRM- IT implementations impact the final outcome and how the risk management process adopted by the IT project manager impacts the final outcome of the project. The research was conducted administering questionnaire to 135 project managers. It was found that project risk impact cost, time, and technical performance and risk management process impacts planning, support of customers as well as top management.