Correspondence: Shaun Doyle, Sams Barn The Greenway West Hendred Wantage Oxon OX12 8RD, UK. Tel: +44 7831 427 905; e-mail: Shaun.doyle@cognitivebox.com

¹is CEO of Cognitive Box, a marketing technology solution provider. He has been involved in over 200 projects around the world which have been concerned with improving marketing performance through the use of technology. He is currently involved in three projects implementing MRM-type solutions in UK, USA and Israel. Prior to setting up Cognitive Box, he was founder and chairman of Intrinsic, a campaign management vendor acquired by SAS in March 2001. While at SAS, he was involved in the development of the SAS Marketing solutions: Marketing Automation, Marketing Optimization and Interaction Management.

Abstract

In the author's experience few analytical customer relationship management (CRM) projects ever see light of the day. One of the key causes is that the project advocates do not understand the central role of a solid business case and senior management engagement in the gestation process. This paper describes how a solid business case was used to drive the creation of a successful analytical CRM project and facilitate senior management engagement. As an added benefit the business case development process enabled the project team to identify key capabilities that could be used to materially differentiate the technology vendors.