Abstract
The successful implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) practices is becoming widely
accepted within marketing and sales department in manufacturing industry. Moreover, establishing the customer
relationships have always been an important aspect of business. Hence, this study aims to explain the impact of
CRM practices to organizational performance through a proposed conceptual model in Malaysian small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) food manufacturing industry. A model developed and empirically tested through
survey data obtained from 369 organizations. The results indicated that CRM practices have a significant
positive effect on organizational performance. Similarly, the results revealed that enhanced key customer focus
and relationship marketing leads to better organizational performance. Market turbulence was found to have a
negative moderating effect on the relationship between CRM practices and organizational performance. This
paper contributes to existing literature by incorporating CRM practices as a construct in the proposed model. The
conclusions drawn have implications for CRM practices of key customer focus, relationship marketing and
market turbulence in research literature.
Keywords: customer relationship management practices, market turbulence, organizational performance, small
and medium enterprises, food manufacturing industry