O, those CRM woes in the U.K.

InsightExec.com has a piece up today reporting on the status of the massive CRM integration going on within the UK based on government directives. In a piece entitled, “Local councils continue to battle with CRM integration,” Declan Grogan takes a look at the way the process is going for some local authorities.

A measure called the Gershon Report, reports Grogan, has set cost reduction targets for each local authority at 2.5 percent by 2008, resulting in “very real challenges facing local authorities.” One immediate result of the Gershon Report were layoffs in the public sector, but, writes Grogan, “The sharing of administration systems by multiple public sector organisations is central to plans to improve efficiency and exploit economies of scale…”

Citing research, Grogan maintains that with the deadline to implement CRM measures having come and gone, councils are facing significant difficulties because of “moving from a departmental, vertical silo approach to a horizontal cross functional way of working.” Grogan continues, “Although many councils also recognise that integration is the key to a successful implementation, so many are still struggling to integrate their back office systems into their CRM systems.”

As success stories and as examples of disparate needs to be met be CRM, Grogan offers the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the South Lakeland local authority in Cumbria. South Lakeland includes an area of 600 square miles and has 102,000 citizens in the off-season; when tourism times hits, though, South Lakeland is at least temporarily home to some 300,000. Barking and Dagenham is a small urban area of 165,000 residents. While South Lakeland attempts to address issues such as trash collection in sparsely populated areas, Barking and Dagenham must address problems of graffiti and other city-side dilemmas.

“Local councils continue to battle with CRM integration” can be read in full at the InsightExec website.