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 Objectives
Provide AT&T with CRM benefits even when network is migrated to GSM

Support CRs 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 (Seibels advisory function)

Methodology: SDLC & Prototyping Pre-testing before development & implementation CCEs 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 werent 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 & T CEO CIO CFO

Project Managers Oracle Siebel Technical Consultant Testing Team leader

Systems engineering team leader

QA 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

Quality Management Communicati on Management

Other Factors

Preventive Actions
Scope Management Risk Management

HR Management

1. Good Quality Management

Quality Planning
Have a Proper PlanFreeze 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.

Quality Assurance

Quality Control

1. Good Quality Management

Quality Planning
Separate Team According to resource availability its best to have a separate team for quality assurance, this will provide unbiased results.

Quality Assurance
Perform Quality Audit perform weekly service improvement checks and recommend changes.

Quality Control

1. Good Quality Management

Quality Planning
Identify ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance.

Quality Assurance

Use techniques such as cause and effect diagramming. Unit individual components are error free

Quality Control

Integration Testing- phased approach because CRM is vast and complicated System Testing- testing entire system at once Testing- ensure

2. Good Communication Management

Find Needs Information Distribution & Availability Performance Reporting Administrative closure
Identify, analyze & determine the information communication needs. Who needs it, Which information, When its needed, How it will be handled

Accurate and timely information Measures & steps involved to make info available as and when required.

Gather & analyze performance information Status reporting, progress measurement, reports on future forecasting

Effectively broadcast relevant information from sources to formalize phase or project completion.

3. Risk Management
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.

Identify all Risks

Probability and impact assessment

Sort Top Ten Risk Items

Appoint Risk Owners

Track Progress of Top Ten Risks

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