CRM Excellence at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

This case article tells the story of the rebirth of CRM at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines since 2002 and its successful liftoff during 2003, for which KLM received Gartner’s 2004 CRM Excellence Award. The Award presents itself as a natural moment of reflection on past CRM achievements and future plans. The case works well for generating a multifaceted class discussion on the challenge of making CRM into a business success. More specifically, it allows us to (1) dissect a CRM success story, that contrasts nicely with many of the CRM horror stories of the 1990s, and identify key success factors; (2) focus attention onto the viability of the planned approach KLM uses for implementing CRM; (3) introduce and show the importance of program management as a construct for structurally growing and governing enterprise wide investment in CRM; and (4) help reinforce lessons around CRM and business-ICT alignment

A theoretical exploration of the relationship between outsourcing and business/ict alignment

In this paper we examine the likely impact of two different outsourcing scenarios on business/ICT alignment. We argue that there is a need to put ICT outsourcing in a broader business context and that it has an important impact on how organisations align business and ICT. Based on previous literature we combine several conceptual models on both outsourcing and B/ICT alignment and identify the possible problem areas in each of these scenarios. The goal of this “theoretical exercise”, which is mainly based on argument, is to end the paper with a theoretical proposition which needs to be tested and backed by empirical data. Therefore, this paper should be regarded as the first step in a research process