Gartner European CRM summit to focus on finding value

Eugene Lacey ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 20 May 2002 14:15 BST

Gartner's main European customer relationship management (CRM) event of the year opens in Paris on Wednesday under the theme of "Moving From Disillusionment to Real Value".

The two-day CRM Summit 2002 covers a wide spectrum of management issues around CRM -- including, inevitably, the return on investment (ROI) issue -- with Gartner presenting its own take on this controversial subject with its "Eight Building Blocks of CRM" tracks. Each of the eight blocks will be developed fully in separate presentations throughout the two-day event.

"Many businesses in Europe have blindly pursued the nirvana of CRM without really using all of the elements involved," said Ed Thompson, research director at Gartner. "Enterprises employing a strategic framework for estimating, planning and promoting their CRM initiatives are twice as likely to achieve their business objectives as those that do not."

In addition to senior Gartner analysts, the conference will hear from two guest speakers: Christine Connor, from Ogilvy and Mather, will discuss best practice in designing customer experiences and Professor Jacques Horowitz, from the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, will focus on how to compete through service and improve customer satisfaction.

CRM Summit 2002 will host the European CRM Excellence Award. The conference will hear presentations from the three short-listed finalists in which they "share their CRM strategy, plan of action, investments, obstacles and key insights on how they begun to realise the full potential of CRM." The winner will be announced at the final session of the conference on Thursday. ZDNet UK will report the winner and runners-up in our 'CRM Summit 2002' special report.

Tech Update will report from this event. Bookmark the CRM Update homepage to find coverage of this event, together with all ZDNet UK's CRM news and features.

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