Organizational Learning and CRM Success: A Model for Linking Organizational Practices, Customer Data Quality, and Performance

A high quality customer database is a cornerstone of successful interactive marketing strategies and tactics. Based on the notion that customer data quality is not only a technical but also an organizational problem, this study develops and tests an organizational learning framework of the relationship between organizational processes, customer data quality and firm performance. The findings show that high quality customer data impact both customer and business performance and that the most important driver of customer data quality comes from the executive suite. A large portion of the impact of organizational culture on performance is mediated by customer data quality and data sharing. The results support the presence of a hierarchy of effects for enhancing data quality that runs from organizational learning (committed to a shared vision for CRM data), to cross-functional learning (marketing/IT cooperation, marketing/IT integration) to functional learning (data sharing).

► We examine links between organizational processes, data quality and performance.
► The results show that customer data quality impacts Customer and Business Performance.
► The most important driver of data quality comes from the executive suite.
► Adaptive and learning organizations have higher quality data.