CRM FAILURE IN AT&T
CRM FAILURE IN AT&T
Introduction
The project considered was a CRM upgrade for AT&T wireless, 2003-04
By this time, the company which was a strong leader in 2001-02 season had given away to competition from the much faster growing Verizon and Cingular
In 2003, AT&T still using old fashioned phone network which did not support transfers over mobile phones
Launched an expensive new GSM system which could handle not only data over cell phone but had compatibility with overseas provider
This change in technology meant that the existing CRM system had to be upgraded to match the new needs
Challenges faced
Project ObjectivesProvide AT&T with CRM benefits even when network is migrated to GSM
Support CR’s to convert prospect into new GSM network
Provide competitive advantage after project implementation
Have an infrastructure complaint against new government set regulations on number porting
Project Team & Tasks
System & Code Developers Team Leader Project Managers
Technical Consultant (Seibel’s advisory function)
• Methodology: SDLC & Prototyping• Pre-testing before development & implementation• CCE’s were indirectly involved as they were tasked with converting customers
from old to new network
Failure• Untill 2003 AT&T was lagging behind the schedule.
• Last in the industry without number porting adopted in its telecommunications network.
• Deadline- impact on quality of CRM• Changes to code, requirements were done without formal process
because it was considered to be time consuming.
• The Two major Crash• The First System Crash- No back up was maintained and old CRM also
faced poor functionality.• The Second System Crash- Happened during late November when
customers were beginning to change their numbers to different providers. At this stage the impact was on number portability system.
Failure
• Impact and Loss• About 50,000 customers weren’t availed service• Last company amongst the top providers in terms of new
customer sign ups over a quarter of the year.• Revenue declined by $100 million • Company was sold to a previous competitor Cingular in
February for $ 41 billion
REASONS FOR PROJECT FAILURE
EFFECTIVE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
• Cause of failure : Lack of morale among employees• Action : Alignment of Human resources and effective communication
strategy AT & TCEO CIO CFO
Project Managers
Systems engineering team leader
Oracle Siebel
Technical Consultant
QA Team leader
Testing Team leader
BETTER SCOPE MANAGEMENT
Efficient change management not set in place
Establishment of formal process for change identification and implementation
Appointment of change review team ( Project manager and team leads ) for evaluation of change requests
OTHER FACTORS
Better planning of procurement management
Careful assessment of difficulties arising in choosing different providers
Reduce unnecessary integration whenever possible
Preventive Actions
Preventive Actions
1. Good Quality Management
Quality Planning
Quality Assurance
Quality Control
Have a Proper Plan- Freeze code on every software unit when testing for this project.
Design of Experiments ( A quality Planning Technique)- If such technique is used the total team could collectively identify what is the most optimal quality needed for the project to succeed
Use Benchmarking- Adopt Oracle recommended Siebel best practices and
look into other similar projects completed successfully. Use standards and methodologies used as a baseline
for this project.
1. Good Quality Management
Quality Planning
Quality Assurance
Quality Control
Separate Team According to resource availability its best to have a separate team for quality assurance, this will provide unbiased results.
Perform Quality Audit perform weekly service improvement
checks and recommend changes.
1. Good Quality Management
Quality Planning
Quality Assurance
Quality Control
Identify ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance.
Use techniques such as cause and effect diagramming.
•Unit individual components are error free
•Integration Testing- phased approach because CRM is vast and complicated
•System Testing- testing entire system at once Testing- ensure
2. Good Communication Management
•Identify, analyze & determine the information communication needs.•Who needs it, Which information, When its needed, How it will be handled
Find Needs
•Accurate and timely information•Measures & steps involved to make info available as and when required.
Information Distribution &
Availability
•Gather & analyze performance information•Status reporting, progress measurement, reports on future forecasting
Performance Reporting
•Effectively broadcast relevant information from sources to formalize phase or project completion.
Administrative closure
3. Risk Management
Identify all Risks
Probability and
impact assessmen
t
Sort Top Ten Risk
Items
Appoint Risk
Owners
Track Progress
of Top Ten Risks
•To minimize negative impacts on the project from unexpected scenarios.•To prepare the project team for effective workarounds or mitigation plans to ensure project objectives are met on time.
CORRECTIVE ACTIONS
Since there was no roll back options, workarounds or plan B set in place, following are certain remedies for a successful project that relied on existing resources.
Persist with the Testing Plan even if the project ran late
Thorough Testing to reduce the implementation risk
Eliminate the doubts team members have on layoff rumors through motivation strategy
Postpone layoffs and offshore outsourcing
Thank you• Presented by:
Group No:6• Aayushi Sureka, 01• Hinal Shah, 16• Kritika Goyal, 22• Pritisha Dhoka, 34• Priyanka Ghosh, 35• Shilpa Jain, 45• Shruti Agrawal, 46