Acquisitions, Mergers and Asset Stripping may cause the death of CRM?

The Financial Services and Insurance sector remains in a continued state of flux.  Over the last 20 years acquisitions and mergers, in particular the emergence of Bank Assurers has made the job of creating  a single customer view across an FS&I enterprise almost impossible to attain, at least for any length of time!.  

In 2010, we now face a different set of problems, with the prospect of the newly nationalised corporations being split up and asset stripped by a cash strapped government. The predicted sell off is likely to happen at a pace if the Conservatives form the next administration!

Counter this by the opportunities for sound companies to increase market share by acquiring smaller companies that can no longer satisfy the stricter financial solvency rules.   Witness the mergers occurring in the building society sector earlier this month

The traditional methods of creating the single customer view, involves merging systems and creating centralised CRM based solutions using on the same unlikely data quality standards highlighted in my last post.   It is not surprising then, that because of this continual churning, most of these “projects” either fail or are never-ending.

It is unlikely that the ebbs and flows of market capitalism will ever stop or slow down, so FS&I companies will have to find an alternative to the traditional CRM IT solutions to deal with the continuing expansion and contractions of a typical enterprise.

I did note this month, that one of the leading MDM products designed to solve this long standing problem [Initiate Systems] is, itself, in the process of being acquired by a larger company, IBM no less.  Is this a sign that, even the CRM king that is IBM, have decided a new approach is now needed?