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