CIO Jury: Are CRM returns real or just "an issue of faith"?

Many CIOs are still struggling to demonstrate any valuable return on investment (ROI) for customer relationship management (CRM) systems, according to the latest silicon.com CIO Jury.

CRM has promised much in the way of more effective promotions and higher sales during the past few years but analysts argue that vendors have grossly over-hyped the benefits of installing and using CRM software - so we asked our silicon.com CIO Jury panel whether they had seen any demonstrable ROI on their CRM outlay.

The issue, it seems, is still contentious and it split our jury almost down the middle, with seven saying 'no' and five saying 'yes'.

One jury member said he had managed to "avoid this bandwagon" to date, and others said they have not been able to demonstrate the business case for embarking on CRM projects.

Frank Coyle, IT director at John Menzies Distribution, described the task of measuring returns on CRM as "an issue of faith".

"Our initial investigations into what CRM could offer us indicated that it would not be able to give us any sort of measurable return," he said. "We did not therefore proceed because within our organisation careful attention is paid to return on investment for IT systems."

Others were reluctant to comment on their experience but Paul Coby, CIO at British Airways, said the airline had achieved demonstrable returns on CRM systems.

"Yes - especially by linking our CRM systems to BA.com email highlighting BA promotions on value-for-money flights and holidays," he said.

CRM, it seems, is finally beginning to realise measurable returns in the form of increased sales for some large businesses but, as the results of our CIO Jury show, there are still many who have yet to be convinced that its benefits are real.

Today's CIO Jury was:

Jeremy Acklam, IT Director, Virgin Trains
Nick Clark, Director of IT Services, Tower Hamlets College
Paul Coby, CIO, British Airways
Frank Coyle, IT Director, John Menzies Distribution
Ric Francis, CIO, Safeway
Derek Gannon, IT Director, The Guardian
Kevin Lloyd, CTO, Barclays
Nick Masterson-Jones, IT Programmes Director, BACS
Dharmesh Mistry, CTO, edge IPK
Pete Smith, Director of IT and Telecoms, Inmarsat
Sinclair Stockman, CIO, BT
David Yu, CTO, Betfair

If you are a CIO, IT director or equivalent at a large or small company in the private or public sector and want to be part of silicon.com's exclusive CIO Jury pool, or you know an IT chief who should be, then drop us a line at editorial@silicon.com