Gartner, Inc. is accepting nominations for its fifth annual Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Excellence Award. Nominations will be accepted via an online entry form from any end-user organization that has exhibited excellence in placing its customers first with successful CRM implementations. Nominations must be submitted by July 13, 2007.

Enterprises are invited to enter and work within a case study framework to describe their CRM initiatives and why it demonstrates CRM excellence. A team of Gartner analysts, along with various media partners, will evaluate and select three finalists based on the Eight Building Blocks of CRM, a strategic framework developed by Gartner to help companies maximize the probability of success. The Eight Building Blocks of CRM include:

• Vision: Building a market position against competitors with defined value propositions based on requirements, personified by the brand and communicated.
• Strategy: Turning the customer base into an asset via delivery of customer value propositions (CVPs). Provides objectives and how resources can be used in interaction.
• Valued Customer Experience: Constantly ensuring that the propositions have value to customers and the enterprise, achieve the market position and are delivered consistently.
• Organizational Collaboration: Involving the changing of culture, structures and behaviors to ensure that staff, partners and suppliers work together to deliver what is promised.
• Processes: Managing customer life cycle processes and processes in analysis and planning that build customer knowledge.
• Information: Ensuring that the right data is collected and the right information goes to the right place.
• Technology: Involving data and information management, customer-facing applications and supporting IT Infrastructure and architecture.
• Metrics: Involving internal and external measures of CRM success and failure.

"Companies that use a strategic framework to estimate, plan and promote their CRM initiatives, while building up their capabilities in small piloted steps, are twice as likely to achieve planned business benefits as enterprises that pursue projects without a framework," said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner. "The CRM Excellence Award honors the company that has shown leadership in ensuring that their CRM initiatives are approached on a strategic, balanced and integrated basis to maximize benefits to the enterprise and its customers."

Three finalists will be chosen by August 13, 2007. Each finalist will be asked to present their CRM use case to conference attendees at the Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit, scheduled for September 17-19 in Hollywood, Florida. The attendees’ feedback as to which of the finalists they feel is the best example of CRM excellence will determine the winner. The winner will be announced during the conference.

More information on Gartner's CRM Excellence Award and the online entry form are available at the Gartner website.

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