Who's on first? Stakeholder differences in customer relationship management and the elusive notion of "Shared Understanding".

Costello: Now look, I'm the head of the sports department. I gotta know the baseball players' names. Do you know the guys' names?

Abbott: Oh sure.

Costello: So you go ahead and tell me some of their names.

Abbott: Well, I'll introduce you to the boys. You know sometimes nowadays they give ballplayers peculiar names. Costello: You mean funny names.

Abbott: Nicknames, pet names, like Dizzy Dean--(and) Goofy!

Costello: Goofy!

Abbott: Goofy ... Now let's see. We have on the bags we have "Who's" on first, "What's" on second, "I Don't Know's" on third.

Costello: That's what I wanna find out.

Abbott: I say "Who's" on first, "What's" on second, "I Don't Know's" on third-

Costello: All I'm tryin' to find out is what's the guy's name on first base.

Abbott: Oh, no--wait a minute, don't switch 'era around. "What" is on second base.

...

Costello: I don't even know what I'm talkin' about!

(Excerpted from Abbott and Costello, "Who's on First," in The Naughty Nineties, 1945)

Abbott and Costello's famous baseball routine is a salient metaphor for the game of customer relationship management (CRM). Costello, taking the posture of a baseball manager trying to better understand his team, gets completely lost in Abbott's comical--but well-intentioned--dialogue as to which team members occupy which positions, play which roles, and so forth. Their problem, much like those who stud); sell, or are working to implement CRM programs, is that they do not share a common understanding of the phenomenon, in particular: (1) who the "stakeholders" who may be involved are; (2) what their interests and motivations are; and, most importantly, (3) what definitions, frames of reference, and metrics each of these constituents values--and why?

Today's CRM market is worth some $10 billion, and is projected to grow to $74 billion by 2007 (Chatham 2002). Yet the success of CRM initiatives has been mixed. AMR Research (Sodano, Keltz, and Johnson 2003) reports that (1) 47 percent of CRM projects experience major adoption problems (although from a purely technical perspective, they were "successful"); (2) just 16 percent of CRM projects have proven, positive return oil investments (ROIs); and (3) 12 percent of CRM initiatives never reach implementation (despite major investments). Our thesis is that a lack of "shared understanding" within and across the various stakeholders who surround the CRM phenomenon is a critical--vet elusive-mediating construct that ultimately yields CRM process breakdowns and outcome disappointments. Literally, no one knows "who's on first?" This paper aims to both clarify thinking and encourage more robust and precise research for CRM researchers, practitioners, and potential adopters alike.