An adoption framework for electronic customer relationship management in developing countries: Case of Ugandan SMEs

Abstract

eCRM is an important strategy for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to survive in today’s very competitive markets. eCRM enables SMEs to Venture into new markets both nationally and internationally. However, despite these benefits, its implementation has not been easy for many SMEs. The available implementation methodologies are mainly applicable to the developed countries. These Models and Frameworks are not suitable for developing economies like Uganda mainly because of the contextual differences. These Contextual differences include Organizational, economic, political, cultural factors which vary from those in the developed economies. Additionally, SMEs in the developing economies have not fully embraced social media to tap into its benefits.

The study aimed to address this problem by developing a framework for eCRM adoption by SMES in the developing countries like Uganda. The results show that the extended framework for eCRM Implementation should take into consideration the Social CRM as a strategy. Organizational Structure and Organizational Culture were identified as the Major Components in addition to People, Process, and Technology. The Study also proposes Customer satisfaction and customer engagement as measurement parameters. The extended eCRM Implementation framework therefore extends the existing ones with these parameters. The existing parameters included; Implantation phases, Management Support, readiness Assessment, Major factors (People, Process and Technology) and their associated critical success factors, Measurements, and overall assessment parameters in terms of Marketing and Finance.

The extended framework will help SMEs to build organizational culture and structures, identify Critical Success factors that are unique to the economies in which they operate. Additionally, the framework proposes new dimension for measuring eCRM performance using Customer satisfaction and Customer Engagement. It is hoped that the extended framework will increase eCRM adoption among SMEs in the developing economies like Uganda.

The customized model was validated in a questionnaire based field study.