In the past few years almost all major law firms have adopted client relationship management systems – commonly known as CRM – with more than 60% of the top 100 claiming to have implemented such a system. They have now become part of the legal IT furniture, earning a place in the standard set of IT applications alongside e-mail, document management and time recording. As the remaining firms rush to add CRM to their portfolio, there are increasing doubts about how effective these systems really are, and whether they have repaid the considerable implementation costs.
Such projects must be taken away from both marketing and IT – traditional sponsors of CRM – and instead be directly sponsored by the firm’s senior management.
