Horizon Information Portal

MSOE Library Home

MSOE Library Home

Home

Changing the company for customer relationship management / Rodd Rosenthal.

by Rosenthal, Rodd

Customer relations -- Management

Electronic commerce -- Customer services -- Management.

Sales management

Organizational change

Production management

Industrial management.

viii, 111 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.

Advisor: Kimbel Nap.

Committee members: Dr. Bruce Thompson, Gene Wright.

Customer relationship management defined -- Types of CRM strategies and supporting software -- Implementing CRM -- Case study: Conlift.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy aimed at optimizing profits by forming consistent long-term relationships with customers. These relationships are fostered by communication with the customer and internal to the organization, resulting in consistently delighted and more profitable customers. Sales Automation, Marketing Automation, and Customer Service are the three main components of CRM. By consistently delighting and retaining customers, a successful CRM implementation will increase profitability by reducing costs, increasing process efficiency, and increasing the effectiveness and profitability of the processes. A successful implementation requires a company to change its focus from product-centered operations to customer-centric operations. This may require significant changes within multiple areas of the company.

A company must examine multiple areas to insure it is ready to implement a CRM strategy. To begin, a company needs to clearly communicate the vision, mission, and business rules it operates by. The company can then identify its unique CRM goals and develop a strategy and measures to guide the business in its efforts to achieve those goals. Without first articulating its vision and mission, the company risks creating conflicting CRM goals, ultimately leading to a severely decreased chance to attain the success measures. Most CRM failures are attributed to the lack of integration of the CRM strategy with the overall business vision, mission, and strategy.

Once the company has clearly communicated the specifics of how it will operate and why, the company can access its readiness for CRM by examining the business strategy, the organizational structure, the company culture, and the technical infrastructure. A company must align its CRM strategy within its business strategy, utilizing its unique strenghts to differentiate itself in the market. The organization structure must be conducive to communications between departments, especially Sales, Marketing, and Service in order to present a consistent face to the consumer. The company culture must be able to change to support common customer-centric processes and the open flow of information, beginning at the executive level. Also, the company must possess the communications network and technical resources required to implement the CRM tool of its choosing. Of these areas, the company culture is typically the most difficult area to address, and technology is typically the easiest. All four areas, however, must be assessed and preparations made to handle the company-wide changes associated with supporting a CRM strategy.

Support of a CRM strategy requires time, money, and resources. A company must painstakingly estimate the costs and benefits associated with the CRM implementation including investigating multiple possible CRM components. The company can then determine what components of the overall strategy to implement and the order of implemention that best benefits the company. These component selections and their prioritization are documented in the implementation and continuous improvement plans. Continuous monitoring of the success criteria during the implementation of the CRM strategy components allows a company to tailor its CRM strategy to provide the greatest benefit at the least cost. Once begun, a company must continue to analyze and modify its strategy throughout the ongoing journey of CRM.

This document includes a case study on a real company, which for the purpose of this report the author refers to as Conlift. The company name and other references have been changed to allow the company and executive management to remain anonymous. To better support a CRM effort at a company like Conlift, upper management must first reestablish and communicate the company vision, mission, and business rules, and then articulate its CRM goals, strategy, and measures for success. Conlift has implemented many changes within the company positioning itself for customer centricity, but further assessment will drive additional changes in the business strategy, the organizational structure, and the company culture. Conlift upper management must develop and clearly communicate the business strategy to the enterprise and marry it with CRM strategy. It must also continue to reorganize to combine similar groups and eliminate efficiencies and redundancies within the major company brands. A concentrated communications effort including a supporting training plan needs to address the details surrounding the cultural change from product-centric to customer-centric. Upper management must foster collaboration and provide the resources necessary to re-tool the workforce. Lastly, upper management must actively reinforce, monitor, and improve the CRM-related processes. By affecting changes and reorganizing around the customer, Conlift increases its chance to successfully implement a CRM strategy and increase profitability by consistently delighting its customers.

Horizon Information Portal 3.25_9885

Powered by SirsiDynix

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal