Managing change during systems implementation in an engineering environment

The management of organizational change and the implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems go hand in hand when it comes to managing the pressures of changing customer needs, rapidly increasing competition, technological developments, evolving work forces and emerging government regulations. Despite historic records indicating high failure rates in CRM implementation projects, organizations continue to be forced to move from product orientated business strategies to customer focused business strategies. Using descriptive case studies, an engineering company with a large market share and geographical monopoly was researched to identify key success factors in the people management required to successfully manage organizational change, including an evaluation of the influence of management support and customer focused cultures on such efforts. The current research provided insight into existing change management practices as well as the ability to identify key success and failure factors in the management of change in environments where mandatory change is accompanied by systems implementation.