Scoping and aligning CRM strategy in higher education institutions: practical steps

Abstract

Higher Education Institutions (HEI) management are often uninformed as to how Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can best support the current university business strategy. Our study is extending a previous study undertaken by Khashab et al. (2020 Khashab, B., Gulliver, S. R., & Ayoubi, R. M. (2020). A framework for customer relationship management strategy orientation support in higher education institutions. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 28(3), 246–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2018.1522363 [Google Scholar]) who iteratively developed a high-level CRM implementation framework to support HEI management by provided Strategy Orientation Support (SOS). Although their framework introduced the high-level steps that are required to link business priorities to implementable CRM functionality, no sub-steps and/or practical approaches were described. In our paper, we consider practical approaches to help in the scoping and alignment of the CRM strategy. By considering the use of practical approaches, we highlight numerous issues that must be considered to ensure that CRM efforts align with HEI strategy, and that CRM strategy supports the activity of the HEI business.