Reprint: R0312A
Chief technology officer Barry Golding is meeting with Mathews & Company’s department heads to ask for another round of investment so he can begin implementing customer relationship management software at the menswear chain. For months, he has been the CRM project’s cheerleader. It was Barry who proposed it on the grounds that it could help achieve the CEO’s goal of increasing the company’s “share of closet.” It was Barry who got the department heads to “blue sky” an ideal CRM system that would give them genuine insight into customers’ preferences. It is Barry whose reputation is at stake.
But he quickly loses control of the meeting. One department head is disappointed that so few of her wish list items are in Barry’s latest plan. Another is sour on the project now that he’s discovered he won’t get any payback for two years. The CEO, who has given the project his blessing, isn’t present to back Barry up.
Barry can’t see what he could have done to keep the department heads on his side. But a friend later tells him about what she calls the “blue sky paradox”: You have to get people to dream big to sell a project, but by doing that you set them up to be disappointed.
What can Barry do to save the project? Commenting on this fictional case study are Nathaniel Leonard, the supply chain director of Goodyear’s Engineered Products business; Andrew McAfee, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School; Barry J. Gilway, the executive vice president of Zurich North America Services; and John Freeland, the managing partner of Accenture’s CRM practice.
Barry Golding, the chief technology officer of Mathews & Company, a nationwide chain of mall-based menswear stores, was headed down the hall to his office, his head buried in printouts.
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